Sourdough Problems- New oven
Hi everyone, I have been recently baking sourdough and have had a lot of success. My favourite recipe so far has been Susan's 'Norwich Sourdough' - link http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/08/my-new-favorite-sourdough/ . I had been turning out loaves like this
but recently they have not been holding their shape, after a move into a new house (and new, gas oven).
Now I had been following the recipe exactly but have not managed to get my hand on any rye flour here so it's all white, I used a mixture of bread flour and all purpose (i'm in England) and calculated the protein to be at 10.9%, and also left a few grams of the water out after failed attempts. I will post some pictures of my most recent loaves if that might help troubleshooting but they had very little oven spring and spread out lots in the oven. I did their final rise in linen lined baskets and when loaded onto my baking tray they looked ok and held their shape ok when scored.
Edit, here are some of the bad loaves -
Crumb -
I hope this wasn't too much of a ramble,
Thanks, Ed
can pull the rug out from under you in more ways than one. It could be something subtle like a warmer house (less drafts or warmer tap water temp) or the new crop of flour that is speeding your fermentation along.
"...very little oven spring and spread out lots..."
Try something simple like (stop watching the clock) or shorten the bulk and/or overall rise times and see if that helps. I will also be switching my location to a gas oven soon. :)
Hello Edwardf
Welcome to TFL, there are a lot of us British bakers around. Rye flour is pretty easy to come by, most supermarkets sell it. As for your loaves, the latter two look like they have a light crust so maybe the oven is running a little cool. As for spreading, maybe the gluten structure is degrading a little during proving so perhaps use a slightly stronger flour?
Thanks for your input! I will try using only bread flour, at 11.5% and see if that helps, and a shorter bulk fermentaation times. I have a problem about the oven not being hot enough, because it was on full! I will try another oven we have here (student house) and see if that gets hotter. As for the rye flour, I just haven't thought to pick it up yet, on my to do list.
Thanks, Ed
if you think your oven doesn't get hot enough , use an oven thermometer to check.
otherwise, you can still bake bread in it, just turn it on hottest setting and bake for longer.
check internal temp while baking, I stick a meat thermometre in middle of the loaf and check for 100 C.
In addition to the excellent advise above, you might try baking a loaf covered, directly on a stone. The cover will hold the self-generated steam (gas ovens are notoriously leaky, by design) and the stone, while it can't get hotter than the oven, will hold more *heat energy* (after a good preheat) than a baking tray can. A stone and trapped steam will do more for your oven spring and ears than a hotter oven will.
I have a gas oven and the only way I have gotten good crust results on sourdough is to bake inside a Dutch Oven. It holds the self-generated steam in really well. The other thing that has worked reasonably well when not baking in a DO is to pre-heat the oven with a pan of water in the bottom and when I first put the dough in I shut the oven off and block the vent with towels for the first ten minutes, then I unblock half the vent and turn the oven back on for another ten, then remove the steam source and vent block.
I've been busy job searching and haven't had much time too bake. I will try the turning off the oven method that aytab recomends. I recently tried some poolish baguettes (hammelmans' ones, but I added some sourdough too the preferment) and the baguette came out 'ok' but a batard I made with the same dough and baked at the same time had barely any oven spring and spread out lots during baking. This is a confusing hobby that takes so long to perfect. Goof luck in your new oven Mini.
cheers everyone, Ed