Hi there.
To all the newbies out there, I'm a newbie too and it's been about 3-4months since i started making bread. I just want to say if you've started a starter from scratch, many of your loaf woes maybe due to an immature starter. Yes, you can make sourdough bread from a 2 week old starter, but if you find you're having problems or you think it's just not that ideal loaf you were hoping for, it could be due to an immature starter. I find as the weeks pass, my baked goods made from my starter just seems to improve. The gummy spots are gone, the oven spring is better etc etc..bulk fermentation and final proof times aren't as sensitive. And just more predictable. Even the starter is doubling faster and is more predictable. So after taking a few weeks break from bread making, i turned out a loaf which i think was the least stressful and most successful so far. Aside from a few things that aren't quite right, like my oven temperature, and shaping , degassing technique i can say it's a loaf that i would be proud to share with my friends. So don't give up. Soldier on and keep feeding that starter.
That is a loaf to be proud of!
It is easy to get discouraged but every single loaf, even the not-so-great-ones, are a learning opportunity. But if we stick with it...we get beautiful loaves like that. Sweet.
Thanks for the encouragement Sassy!
What a wonderful bake you did, good on you!! You should be pleased. Glad you got back to baking after a short break. It is easy to get down on yourself when you have a few bad bakes, it has certainly happened to me recently. Starter woes happen as well when I recently discovered with some help from others here that my starter had become very slow. I’m not 100% sure why this happened, but nonetheless it did. So I am on day 3 of building it back up with rye feeding and it is looking much stronger. I hope my reinvigorated starter will help with my bakes soon.
Again, great bake.
Benny
Thanks Benny, it's always so nice to hear from you. Now that i'm back at work my baking will be less frequent. It's so scary, hot and exhausting working with all that PPE on, maybe I should consider a career change into bread making lol.I'm trying to get into some volunteering at the bakery chain, Cobs. Hmm it's so odd your starter slowed down. Good to know that it can happen though! I never even considered that is a possibility. I'd have to say i almost cross contaminated my starter with a chopstick that was in my waffle batter which contained dairy. Lucky i caught myself. Good luck! Hope your starter perks up soon!
Ah I just checked, so you’re a dental hygienist, so of course you are completely PPE’d at work. I’m a family physician specializing in HIV but my PPE is much less than yours and we are will trying to work as much as possible remotely and seeing patients in person only when necessary. I feel for all of you people in healthcare you have to be fully PPE’d all the time at work, it is pretty rough. I’m pretty used to wearing my mask although it isn’t an N95 since theoretically I’m not dealing with aerosolizing procedures as you are. The face shield is annoying for the multiple reflections that it causes that makes seeing my EMR and examine skin close up difficult. Don’t change your profession, we need good dental hygienists!!
I too would be interested in working in a bakery to really get my skills better, it is something I’d consider once I retire, but hopefully by then my skill set will be better and I won’t need to do that, but it might still be fun. Good thing you didn’t contaminate your starter.
My starter rehab is done I believe, my experiments are showing that it is more active and vigorous. It has now been fed its first feeding of WW flour 1:2:2 after being boosted with rye for 2.5 days. I am hoping to give it a go and build a dough tomorrow to bake on Thursday so I can take it to Ottawa for a visit with my in laws who we haven’t seen for 8 months. Fortunately Ontario has finally allowed 10 people bubbles.
Take care and keep posting your bakes. Stay safe.
Benny
So glad to hear your starter has been rescued. Stay safe especially at work and have a good trip!
My starter has been resuscitated. I used it to levain an Einkorn, red fife sourdough today. Using my trusty aliquot jar, I judged it to have risen by 33% and then went to final shaping and into the banneton. I left it on the counter until the aliquot jar showed 40% rise and then put it into the fridge. It was a joy to shape, unlike my last bake which I BF until 50% rise and was a overfermented. Hopefully tomorrow it will bake up real nice.
Can't wait to see a pic. I'm not advanced enough to experiment with different grains yet.
I’m not sure it is an official term, but that is what I’m using to call the jar of dough that I use to gauge fermentation now. Kristen of Full Proof Baking mentioned in a post on IG once that she will take about 30g of dough after the first fold and place it in a jar. Since this dough is from the dough you’re strengthening, you’ll know at what stage of rise your dough is by the.
Ahhh I get it. Then when it’s done do you mix the dough from the aliquot jar back in? I have a trusty bowl which I ferment my bagel dough in so I can always tell when bf is done. One time I made 2 batches so I put one in a different bowl which would have been harder for me to tell when it was done so I had one batch in the original bowl to gauge it. But I can’t remember what it looked like in the new bowl now so I still have to use my old bowl. Lol
Since I usually only make one loaf at a time, and I like to do coil folds, I use a square Pyrex pan to do bulk fermentation in. I have never been able to estimate rise in that or any other bowl that I own. Thus the need for the aliquot jar. I don’t bother to mix the dough from the aliquot jar back in, it isn’t a huge amount. This time I shaped at about 33% rise and then left it on the counter at room temperature in the banneton until the aliquot jar was about 40% rise. It then spent 20 hour in the fridge at 2ºC. I’m hoping it isn’t over proofed, but the uneven browning might indicate that it is a bit. My Einkorn Red Fife Sourdough here.