Hi everyone - first time caller, longtime listener. I have looked through this forum to see if I could answer this on my own (and have made some adjustments suggested) but I finally feel like this might warrant my own post.
I have been baking breads, including primarily naturally leavened sourdough for close to 5 years now (using the books by Hamelman, Philip, Roberston, and Forkish as my primary at-home guides). I am a pretty casual amateur baker in that I don't keep detailed process notes and sometimes don't pay as close attention to things like temp as I should, but my loaves are usually consistently good. I bake weekly, with the following schedule being fairly typical: feed my starter Day 1 at night before bed, build my leaven in the morning Day 2 from fresh doubled-in-size starter, autolyse for 40 mins after work Day 2 followed by final mix, bulk ferment for 4 hours or so with 20% leaven, and retard proof in the fridge overnight, baking first thing in the morning Day 3. This schedule has worked for me for years, producing loaves with a good spring, a nice burnished crackly crust, open crumb, and expressive scoring.
For the past two or three months I have had a sharp increase in my loaves coming out VERY poorly. I have adjusted things like fermentation time, proofing time/temp, hydration, and ratio of leaven, but they are consistently coming out pretty flat and with a very misshapen crumb. I have a series of photos I have taken recently following experiments that I would like to share with some notes that I made but these are not uploading (I will try in another post). These are not all the exact same formula, but generally they are around 75% hydration with a 10-20% ratio of leaven. As I say, I have been adjusting both bulk and proofing times/temps and it seems to be making no difference. My concerns are a very pale crust, lack of spring with a weird domed slope (high in the center and really sharply tapered on the ends), and a pretty hollow/tunneled exterior with dense crumb on the bottom and large gaps of air towards the top.
I am not sure what is happening and am confused that I am seeing virtually no significant changes no matter which variable I tinker with. Also sort of vexing is that over the past 6 weeks I have had the opportunity to bake in 3 different kitchens while visiting friends and family, using pretty close to my normal routine, and the loaves have been coming out fine with good spring, expressive scoring/ears, and nice open crumb. I will also add that other bakes that I have used a leaven for (including focaccia, fougasse, and pan breads) have been fine. It seems to be primarily these hearth breads in a boule or batard shape.
I am out of ideas. What's the story?
See the post above to reference the details. This series of photos is a dough that was 75% hydration, 20% 8 hour old leaven (made from active starter), mostly bread flour with maybe 20% whole wheat that fermented for about 4 hours with a fridge proof @ 38f for 8 hours. I also baked a loaf from this same dough that I proofed for 16 hours (when I got home from work as opposed to first thing in the morning) and they look identical. I have reduced percentage of active leaven, proofed at room temp, and extended bulk to 5 and 6 hours (with stretch and folds). Over the past 2-3 mos my loaves have mostly come out looking like these below. This is a very new problem and I don't know what else to try.
And just some examples of loaves I have baked over the past two months, but notably NOT in my own kitchen. I know it's crazy, but is there a possibility that there is something in my home baking environment that I should consider?
all things the same, maybe your oven?
The large holes at the top of the loaf suggest the dough was over proofed, and maybe also that your oven wasn't hot enough. Have you checked your oven temp lately? If you were successful before and now suddenly this is happening with no other changes I'd bet it's your oven.
To me, your crumb shot indicates underproof - very tight crumb with some excessively large alveoli.
Maybe your starter/levain system is underperforming? I would suggest you monitor bulk rise, possibly with an aliquot jar setup, and aim for a bulk rise of 35-40%.
Lance
Definitely under fermented/under proofed.
To assess the proofing/fermentation ignore the big holes first. What is the crumb like, are the alveoli in the crumb tiny and tight then more likely to be underfermented. Is the crumb overall actually pretty nice and not tight then not underfermented. Then the large hole characteristics next. Are there large tunnels through the bread and not necessarily immediately under the crust? This along with the tight crumb equals underfermented. Are the large holes immediately under the crust? Do these large holes show in them signs of gluten breakdown with thin broken gluten strands? Then this points towards overfermented. Then look at the profile of the loaf, decent oven spring or excessive oven spring is more associated with under proofing whereas flat profile is more associated with overproofing.