The Fresh Loaf

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Autolyse vs Not

Ming's picture
Ming

Autolyse vs Not

Good morning folks,

As most of you know I just created a sourdough starter about a month ago, this 100% hydration starter has been doing very well with a 2.5-3X rise in a jar daily, I feed it with 80% KA AP and 20% dark rye once a day, it peaks in about 6-8 hours and stay peaked for 3-4 hours before receding. I have tested it with a small dough with a 70% hydration which represents my main dough (I use KA 75% bread & KA 25% whole grain) that I make weekly, and it would triple in 4-6 hours. Everything I have seen indicates my starter may not be the strongest but should be strong enough to leaven bread. Okay, that is out of the way, so I can discuss a problem I have with it. 

I usually autolyse the dough with just flour and water for about 3-6 hours, if I am not busy doing something else, I usually catch it and stop it around the 3 hour mark, but nothing less, as I find the long soak of the 25% whole grain seems to help soften it. Okay with this approach, my dough fermentation (bulk) takes forever, in about 12 hours on the countertop with a dough temp around 75-85 F (I use a thermal pad), the dough barely rise to 50%, and the final proof takes like 7 hours to rise to 1.5X. Needless to say, something seems wrong with it, and obvious blame would be the starter, too weak it would seem. Okay not so fast with the following approach. 

If i bypass the autolyse process and mix the flour, water, starter, and salt right from the getgo, the dough would double in about 8 hours for bulk fermentation. As a result, I think I have pinpoint the problem to the long autolyse which it does not seem to make sense, as I have seen people doing a long autolyse without a problem. 

Does this make any sense to you folks? I am lost as it does not seem to make any sense to me at the moment. 

happycat's picture
happycat

One difference is more water is soaked up by flour and whole wheat in autolyse vs not. So there is less free water available.

Second difference then relates to combining starter with stiffer autolyse thoroughly vs. easier combination when more free water is available.

One option is to add more water.

Ming's picture
Ming

This seems like a logical explanation for it. I would like to do more experimentation to confirm some of these theories. One thing I begin to believe that autolyse does not seem to do anything better but it takes more time so I am at the beginning to like to mix everything together and start the fermentation right from the getgo. Since I am a tinkering type person, I would like to experiment with different things though to satisfy my curiosity. Thanks for the insight. 

phaz's picture
phaz
  1.  However much it s rises in whatever time frame is not an indicator of strength. Fact is, you can never know exactly how strong a starter is as it is a constant variable. The level of rise is nothing more than a reference point - and not a very good 1.
  2. The autolyze thing - the answer is right there - in plain view.

I would read what you've wrote a few more times, let it sink in, the answer really is right there. Enjoy! 

Ming's picture
Ming

Okay I get it that my starter is weak. How can I make it stronger? I feed it 20% dark rye daily, perhaps I need to increase it to 50% or more? Thanks for chiming in my friend. 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

us (or I missed it) is the feeding amount.  How much starter gets how much flour and water? I get the 100% hydration but not sure of the relationship of starter to flour in the feeding.  I'm guessing one to one?  Larger flour feeds will strengthen the yeast population.  Like one part starter to four or five flour.  

Try watching 10g starter to 50g each water and flour mixture.  Still 100% hydration but the extra flour should boost the yeast after several such feedings. The first time may take longer to peak but subsequent (discards and) feeds should speed up as yeast builds.

Ming's picture
Ming

Haha, I did miss that piece of info. For daily feeds, I usually do 1:3:3, but to make a levain, I do 1:1:1. I keep my starter very small, around 50-60 grams but it should be applicable to any feed ratio. I have done 1:5:5 a couple of times but it seems to like 1:3:3. The weird thing about my starter is feeding it a higher ratio does not make the rise go higher. Perhaps I should not pay attention to those rises too much, especially if they do not correlate with the strength my baby. It is only one month old so perhaps it needs more time to mature. Nonetheless, I will try to feed it with a higher dilution for a while to see what happen. Thanks for the suggestion. 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

reduce to just 5g or a teaspoon of starter and 20g each water and flour to keep it small.   There is a slight danger in it drying out so keep it covered.  Temperatures will have a big influence on how fast the starter ferments.  Hydration and type of flour will influence how high it rises.  Aim for 76°F during this process.  

Ming's picture
Ming

Thanks for the tips. 

Ming's picture
Ming

I have just finished baking two baguettes at 7 o'clock tonight and I have to say that my one month old baby sourdough yeast is absolutely strong enough for the job. This morning I did not autolyse, I kneaded for 2 min after incorporating everything and did one stretch and fold at the 2 hour mark and then just left it alone to ferment for about 9 hours on the countertop with a heat pad. The dough temp was consistently around 75 F as I took 4 measurements throughout the hours. Pre-shaping took about 30 min and final proof took about 2.5 hours so the total fermentation time from start to finish was around 12 hours. This is the first time I bake the dough on the same day as I usually do a cold retard in the fridge like most people do nowadays. I am so happy with the outcome. I am going to throw away from my instant yeast as I don't want to have any chance to contaminate my sourdough yeast with it. 

The leavening part of the bake was a success but now I will need to work on the scoring and oven spring next. 

happycat's picture
happycat

Nice work. BTW don't pitch the yeast... baking rye breads uses fermentation but then spikes the dough with yeast for a quick rise of the fermented dough (see theryebaker.com)

 

Ming's picture
Ming

Thanks happycat for the suggestion. Noted. I was so over the moon last night knowing that my starter does work, it just takes little longer to get to the finish line. I think it will just keep getting better from this point on. 

BTW, attached is my baby just fed at 9:30 tonight. It is a small mixture only around 55 grams.

Benito's picture
Benito

Ming it would be helpful to see photos of the crumb of the bakes you mention in your original post.  I too wonder if the issue you are having is not with the fact that you do or not do an autolyse or how long your autolyse is.  Instead I wonder if you are mixing your levain thoroughly enough when you add it to your autolysed dough.  If it isn’t mixed thoroughly then the microbes will not be able to ferment the dough evenly and the overall fermentation will be irregular and this may show in the crumb as some open areas and other dense areas.  How are you mixing the levain into the dough when you do an autolyse and for how long are you mixing?

Benny

Ming's picture
Ming

Hello Benny,

Unfortunately, I did not capture a pic of the previous two bakes, they were a failure in my book for being under proofed and did not expand much in the oven. The long rise during bulk threw me off big time as I was frustrated and messed them up.  I actually did three different bakes with my new starter prior to that but those were supplemented with instant yeast (came out similar to the pics with a wild crumb) so i did not count them as a success. That is the reason I was so overjoyed with this bake as it was the first time my baguettes expanded properly in the oven with my new starter without any instant yeast supplement. I think you might be right though as the autolyse might not have anything to do with it. As for mixing, I usually mix the dough in a mixer but this time I did it manually because it was intended to be another experiment as I did not expect much out of it but it turned out great (for me), kind of a surprise. I would typically do a lamination and then several coil folds so this time I bypassed all that just to get it going. Actually, I am questioning why I would bother to do all those elaborated lamination and coil folds as I seem to get a good result without all those extra efforts. Obviously, even though I consider this bake a success there is still a lot of improvement to be made like the timing of the bulk and final proof which I would like to fine tune further. Nonetheless there is so much I would like to experiment with it, I just need more time to do it. Thanks my friend for chiming in. 

Benito's picture
Benito

Early on in your sourdough baking it is good to do mixing by hand if possible as it is good to get a feel for the dough.  It is hard to get a feel for the dough if your mixing is done by machine.  If you do try mixing by hand, just make sure you mix/knead thoroughly and for long enough.  French folds aka slap and folds are a great way to knead your dough and to ensure you get good gluten development and good distribution of the levain as well.

If you autolyse again, and I do think there is benefit from autolyse, spread your levain evenly on top of the dough.  Then with wet fingers, dimple the levain into the dough.  Then start layering the levain in the dough through a series of stretch and folds over and over.  If you feel that the dough is really resisting the stretches or starts to tear, give it a rest of 5-10 mins then repeat to ensure good levain distribution.  You can then do some French folds if you like to build more gluten.

Benny

Ming's picture
Ming

Thanks for all the pointers Benny. I do like to do an autolyse because I do a lot of window pane test during the early dough development stage and an autolysed dough would usually give me a satisfactory result right from the getgo. 

I just placed an order for a couple of small and tall clear containers last night so I can mark, record, and gauge the level of rise more precisely during bulk fermentation. It is so exciting to continue this journey, like being a kid again. 

Benito's picture
Benito

Another tip that helped me out a lot early on is to bake the same recipe over and over.  That is the best way of seeing how small changes in what you do result is different outcomes.

Incidentally, your baguettes turned out well and you skipped doing many coil folds and the lamination.  For baguettes, I have found that I do very little to develop the gluten because really well developed gluten can make the baguette dough harder to elongate during shaping.  So skipping some of those gluten development techniques won’t come back to bite you for baguettes.  However, if you’re making other hearth loaves, lack of gluten development could become quite a negative as the underdeveloped gluten and also lack of structure in your dough may result in dough that isn’t able to hold the fermentation gases well and turn out a flatter loaf than you would like.

Benny

Ming's picture
Ming

That is an interesting insight regarding a baguette gluten development concept. I find that if I do some development on the dough it would hold its shape better which makes handling easier. Right now I am just concentrating on making baguettes weekly and it might take quite a while to develop something that I have happy with. There are so many other bread types that I would like to make but they will have to take a backseat for now. Thanks. 

Benito's picture
Benito

Ming I’m not sure if you’ve seen it yet, but summer 2020 TFL had a community bake where many of us learning to bake baguettes together.  It was the longest and most posted community bake so far.  Alan worked hard to summarize this long thread and created a document that distilled the pearls of what we learned.  You might find it helpful to look at if you’re working on your baguette skills and knowledge.  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/up/tfl-baguette-community-bake.pdf

Ming's picture
Ming

Yeah I saw that pdf before but thanks for the link. I did not notice until I read it again this morning that your baguettes were up there in style. I really want to be a baguette maker like you when I grow up :). The crumb of your baguettes look as good if not better than those from the pros in Paris. Very envious indeed.