Hi, I recently baked some loaves, which turned out flat. They taste sour and are not gummy at all. The flavor is less complex and more one-dimensional from what I'm used to in homemade sourdough, but I recently moved and had to make a new starter over the past several weeks. I've posted the recipe and the steps I took below. My two theories are the starter or overfermentation, but I'm not sure it's either. I would love some advice on this, thanks so much!
The starter was consistently and reliably doubling in 8-12 hours at room temp. A few days before using it, the starter had been smelling more like acetone or vinegar after it peaked, but smelled bready/yeasty at peak. It did not smell overly acidic when I started baking with it, and no time during the process of making the bread did I smell anything overly acidic—it smelled bready the entire time.
Recipe:
930g AP flour (Gold Medal)
70g rye flour
100g starter (50/50 rye and AP...starter was doubled in size from feed, floated in water)
650g water
20g salt
20g sugar
Steps:
- Mix water with starter, add flour. Autolyse 30 mins.
- Add sugar and salt, mix.
- Stretch and fold every 30 minutes for 2.5 hours.
- Bulk ferment (it took 20 hours until doubled in size)
- Divide in 2, preshape, bench rest 20 mins
- Rest at room temp 1hr, then refrigerated overnight to bake next next (dough did not feel aerated before going into fridge)
- Took out of fridge ~2 hours until dough felt aerated, poked dough and it slowly but incompletely rose back in ~3 seconds
- Baked 460F for 40 minutes covered, 10 minutes uncovered
What was the loaf shape after shaping and before baking? The disk shape of the baked loaves seems unusual unless the loaves were disk-like before baking.
My impression is a combination of over-fermentation plus degradation of the flour. A very long fermentation would go along with the extra sour taste. Degradation could go along with long fermentation. However, you didn't say that the dough felt unusual during shaping or the handling just before baking, and that clouds the issue.
TomP
20 hours is a long time for bulk fermentation. Even with 10% starter, I would have expected a shorter BF (more like 15 hours, perhaps). Maybe that indicates that your starter is very acidic (it can be acidic without smelling of acid). If so, the pH would have dropped quite low by proof time. This would tend to reduce the yeast activity and increase the rate of degradation.
The loaf was round, but not disk-like. They still had some height/shape from the banneton.
It definitely didn't feel unusual during shaping or handling. Slightly tacky, but a very light dusting of flour immediately made it completely not tacky at all.
The starter isn't strong enough for your needs. I would suggest just leaving the starter for anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks before trying again. It is an easy fix - if the starter is strong enough. Enjoy!
Thank you! A few follow up questions, if that's okay:
If you want stronger - which you probably want;
The testing will tell how it goes - so make bread. Enjoy!
Am I reading you right? From your summary, it seems your dough spent 24 hours at room temperature (including the autolyse and the stretch 'n' folds and the bench rest) and then got an overnight cold proof. I guess it depends where you are located and what the ambient temperature is, but if I did this with one of my doughs, I'd expect it to be seriously overfermented by the time I got it in the oven. Indeed, I recently had this problem with a 10% inoculation rye levain that I left on my counter for 14 hours. It got so seriously overfermented that, though the final dough (with 50% more flour added) only bulked and proofed for a total of 2 hours before it went in the oven, I got a biscuit-like result.
One possible solution would be to cut the inoculation in half (that is, 50g of starter for 1000g of flour). This worked for me, along with rebuilding my starter to cut the acidity -- I fed it 1:5:5 or 1:10:10 for a couple of days before using it again. Another possibility would be to keep the 10% inoculation and try shortening the room temperature bulk (I'd say to 12 hours followed by 12 hours in the fridge).
Keep on!
Rob
Rob,
Thanks for your detailed reply!
The reason I left it for so long is I was running into underfermentation issues before. Regardless of my ambient temp, I was getting gummy, flat hockey pucks if I only did a 30-50% rise in the bulk ferment. This was fixed when I starter regularly waiting for a 100% rise in the bulk ferment, even if the time seemed long.
Now that I think of it, it was only fed 1:5:5 the feed just prior to making the dough, but the starter had been fed the day before at 1:1:1 twice.
If I can ask a follow up question, would you shorten the room temperature bulk even if it meant finishing the bulk or cold ferment without getting the 100% rise?
personally, MadBaker, I wouldn't be too addicted to pursuing the rise. I'd be guided more by your sense of the dough. Does it feel like it's building structure during your stretch and folds. Does it shape well and maintain its shape after you've formed it into a boule or a batard?
a couple of other things:
-- how long were you bulk fermenting to get to the 30% to 50% rise?
-- you say you fixed the hockey puck problem with longer ferments. So what changed between those better loaves and this latest biscuit?
-- how did the starter do with the 1:1:1 and 1:5:5 feeds?
Rob