October 9, 2012 - 6:07am
Epic Fail... Sourdough Boule No. 2
Yeah, those are the best two words to describe this weekend's sourdough boule. I prefer to embarrass myself on accident, hence no pictures. I guess every baker is entitled to a few mishaps here and there. I'll get to the points of where I went wrong.
Same recipe as before except:
- Instead of 4 S&F w/30 min in between, I felt bold and thought 2 S&F w/ 45 in between would be enough and it might have had I not waited 30 min to shape after final S&F, which caused a lot of bubbles at the surface, which then caused burns spots. Well almost burned.
- Then in final proof it didnt seem like the dough was rising so I proofed for 8hr, and then 1 hour in the microwave with a cup of hot water at 90F.
- The what would be bottom seemed to develop a thicker skin this time, so maybe that hindered proper rising.
- To top it all of the son-of-a-wheatfield stuck to the brotform and ripped and deflated a good amount by the time I was ready for the oven. I like the flour lines but jeez, I wont spare any flour next time and just brush it off once out of the brotform. I really don't feel like wasting another 48 hours of work. Oh and 1/2 cup of steam instead of 1 cup.
So because of the brotform fiasco and the tougher bottom skin the loaf baked like a giant popover almost. Scoring needed to be deeper too. All-in-all it turned out to be a good learning what-not-to-do experience. Since the ingredients were right, and even though the bread was dense, it was soft and still tasty.
I challenge you to yet another duel you boule!
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too and it is always because I didn't use rice flour in the basket (too cheap for brotforms), it was in the basket a long time and I didn't dust the top of the boule lightly with rice flour before putting it in the form seam side up and didn't lightly dist dust the seam side of the boule once in the form. But the bread gods may have been at work in conjunction with the sons of wheat fields :-)
I suppose it is not a total waste of time if we learn from the bad as well as the good. I'm not sure I will ever learn to slash correctly though but, like you, I'm not giving up!
Bake on.
You make a valid point. The knowledge gained from this bake will def help for the future bakes. Now, I need to find some rice flour!
Thanks DA!
I second DA. Use rice flour. You will never stick again if you do.
I had my own near disaster last night. In between watching my loser Jets on MNF I tried to put my 36 hour batard into the oven. I had just purchased a new couche and flipping board to use for baguettes and batards so when I tried to transfer the batard to the flipping board and the flipping board to my bakers peel....the dough stuck to the flipping board since I didn't flour it (duh!) and I ruined my scoring completely.
The loaf still came out good if not a little more pale than I would have preferred. I would have still taken some photos and put it on my blog but my wife decided to cut off a piece and have it as a snack last night. She proclaimed it to taste very good so all was not lost :).
As DA said above, keep plugging away and experimenting. Most of the fun is in the journey and even when you think you have it down, you are still bound to have a brick once in a while.
Ian
Lucky for me I landed a job here in St. Petersburg at an official Italian market, Mazzaro's, and hopefully soon they say I will be in the bakery. So I found out I can get 50 lb of flour for 11 bucks from them, which only fuels my new found passion. Hopefully they have some rice flour. Steady bakes in my future.
By the way, where did you order your flipping board. I'm finding out that will def help with my baguettes.
That is awesome that you got a job with the potential to end up in the bakery and put your passion to good use.
I purchased the flip board at www.breadtopia.com
If you do a google search you can find it in a couple of other places but the shipping was the cheapest for me.
50 lbs. of flour for 11 bucks sounds like a great deal.
Ian
I took a sourdough class at KAF recently, and a number of the miche-style loaves that we made stuck to the brotforms (but recovered beautifully in the oven). The reason for the sticking was that the forms had been used earlier in the day and hadn't completely dried after thier first use- just mentioning it in case your basket may have gotten damp. They weren't damp to the touch, if someone hadn't known they had been used before, we never would have suspected.
Thanks for the advice FlourChild. I'll make sure next time its completely dry. Did ya learn anything else that would be helpful?