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Over fermented dough with slow little activity

UFO Sourdoug's picture
UFO Sourdoug

Over fermented dough with slow little activity

Hi everyone, so glad I found this forum. Hope you can help me to understand what I did wrong. 

I baked a loaf yesterday and used a aliquot jar to monitor the bulk fermentation. After 6 hrs of mixing everything, I saw some little bubble on the surface but no movements in the jar. I waited for 1 more hour. The tiny dough in the jar had about 20% growth. I took it out to pre shape. The dough was sticky but manageable, but the skin wasn’t smooth and it started breaking during bench rest.  I guessed during the final mix, the dough just completed broke and became a huge sticky mass and impossible to do a final shape. I used a sharp knife to cut the dough in half. It looked like all the gluten had collapsed, all the air squeezed out during the shaping. 

Is my dough over fermented? I think I have a decent starter, but why the fermentation was so slow and then over fermented? I’m new to sourdough baking. Below is the recipe and process. Thanks in advance. (Sorry for the long post)!! I also attached a picture of after 30 mins bench rest. 

I was using the method in the Tartine Bread book. 

80% AP flour, 20% dark rye, 70% water, 20% levain and 2% fine sea salt 

10 pm: Prepared levain - 1-5-5 ratio, 80% AP, 20% rye

9 am: Levain was doubled in size.

10 am: Mixed levain with water, added flour and autolyse for 30 minutes. 

10:30 am: Mixed with salt. 4 coil folders about 30 minutes apart. Cut a little piece and put it in an small jar after the 1st fold. It passed window pane test after the 4th fold and kept the dough and the jar in proofing box at 80°F. 

4:30 pm: some tiny bubbles on the dough surface, but no growth in the jar. I decided to wait another hour

5:30 pm: Pre shape, bench rest for 30 minutes. Everything went down hill….

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

What temperature did you keep the levain at?

I've had similar problems when my starter was not very active and too acidic, then gluten starts to degrade before the yeast manage to inflate the dough. So perhaps your levain was overmature, for example?

UFO Sourdoug's picture
UFO Sourdoug

Thanks for the reply. I keep the levin (as well as starter) in the proofing box at 80°F, ~26.7°C.

it sounds crazy but I did taste the levain before adding to the dough. It tasted a little acidic. I thought it would be ok because the acidity would be diluted after adding to the dough. 

Benito's picture
Benito

For a levain built 1:5:5 and fermenting at 80ºF I would have expected it to peak much much more quickly than your 12 hour to double.  For example when I do an overnight levain build, I have to keep the levain around 68ºF with a feed of 1:6:6 so that it peaks after about 8-9 hours and that peak is usually 3.5-4 times rise depending on the flours used.  I I have to wonder how healthy your starter is.

Describe your starter maintenance, what are the feeds, how often, what temperature after feeding and time to peak.  How do you store your starter between feeds.

UFO Sourdoug's picture
UFO Sourdoug

Thanks Benito. 

That’s what I’m suspecting. My starter is about a month old. 80% AP and 20% dark rye. Right now I’m feeding twice daily with 1-5-5 ratio at 80°F. It doubles after 12 hours. 

I did few tests. For instance, with1-2-2 feeding it doubles after 7-8 hours. Some said if the starter is strong, it should be 2x to 3x after 6 hours. My starter never achieved that and the max was 2.5x.  I tried few different ways like smaller ratio and feed more frequent. 

Do you think my starter is not strong enough? How can I increase the strength of my starter?

thanks a lot!

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Why don’t you try this.  Continue to keep your starter out on the counter.  Switch to feedings of 100% whole/dark rye, hopefully that is what you have for your rye.  Rye has a good amount of amylase in it which is helpful in breaking down the starches to sugars like maltose that the microbes need to feed on.  I have found, as have many other bakers, that feedings of whole rye can really supercharge your starter.  I’m not sure how much attention you can give your starter, but try giving it feedings of 1:2:2 for a few days and get a sense of how long it takes to peak and then have the dome just start to fall.  Ideally that is a good time to discard and feed.  You can give a larger feed for the overnight so you don’t have to get up at night to feed.  Once you are getting bigger rises than you are now, and you will, you can stabilize and consider refrigerating for less frequent feedings.  I would expect my 100% rye starter at 100% hydration to peak at 3-4x if fed 1:2:2 in six or less hours if kept at 80ºF.  You might want to consider keeping your starter fed rye long term.  By switching to this my starter has become reliable and predictable in the levains it can make.

Benny

UFO Sourdoug's picture
UFO Sourdoug

Much appreciated Benny. I will try for sure. I have some follow up questions if you don’t mind. 

  1. let’s say if my starter peaks at 3-4x in less than 6 hours, should I keep using 100% rye for levain build?
  2. Would that be ok if I change flour type? Like using 80% bread flour or AP for levain build or for the final dough?

Thank you so much!

 

Benito's picture
Benito

You can build any type of levain using your rye starter.  With your more powerful starter you can use a larger build ratio to minimize the rye in the final dough.  So if I want to build a totally white flour levain for my white bread, I will use a ratio such as 1:6:6 so that there really is little rye in my final dough.

I personally feel that my starter has been so much better being just fed rye, even though it stays in the fridge for a week.  So I made the decision to keep it on a rye diet so if you find that your starter is much more active on rye you could certainly do the same.

Benny

UFO Sourdoug's picture
UFO Sourdoug

Thank you so much Benny. I’ll give you posted. 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

keep some of your original starter for backup.  If it has already risen give it some flour to thicken it it up and pop it into the fridge while you experiment with the rest and new feedings. Save at least two 20g (40g) samples for your experiments before thickening up for the fridge.

Let me suggest you try two experiments on the starter (3 if you have plenty of ready to feed starter)

  1.  Follow Benny's instructions with 20g.
  2. Take another 20g of the starter, feed as you normally do with a flour mix, but lower the temperature down to 75-76°F and give it the 8-12+ hours to dome. I also think the 80° F starter temp is too warm for maintenance. Levain yes, starter no. 
  3. The third experiment would be to take 10g and feed it 1:10:10 at 76°F and  give it plenty of head room to expand.  Stir occasionally in the first 5 hours or until it starts to rise. After it peaks (use some in a recipe) and go back to normal 1:5:5 maintenance feeds but keep with the 76°F or slightly lower temps.  Then play with lower feed ratios to fit the time & temp?  What is the room temp? 

 

A few things to avoid confusion. A 100% rye starter has been known on occation to not rise after about 8 hours, it's strength weakens about that time and can no longer hold the gas it produces.  This means it keeps making gas but just can't contain it so look for other signs of maturity like bubbles popping on the surface, sourness, aroma, lighter color, taste.  Pure rye can also occasionally dome in a narrow glass and not fall. Especially in cooler temperatures --its matrix stiffens with temperature drops, more so than wheat.  So to check on these sneaky 100% rye starters, lightly poke the top of the dome and see if it is hollow underneath. If still foamy, it's still rising.  When some wheat is in the flour food mix this deception doesn't happen, at least to my knowledge.  

 

One way to save a loaf that doesn't rise within 24 hrs is to flatten out and sprinkle with some instant yeast, then give the yeast a misting with water, play a little in it as finger paint, then roll up and knead in the yeast for a minute. A short bulk, shape and final rise.

 

UFO Sourdoug's picture
UFO Sourdoug

Thank you for all the suggestions. Hopefully I’ll have a strong starter for the next bake. I’ll keep you posted =)

Slipstream's picture
Slipstream

I really would put money on the starter being too acidic and that with the concomitant cascade of protease is chopping up all the gluten. 80º seems far too warm to keep your starter at. Your ratios are fine but cool that sucker down!