Sourdough Starter
Hello and thank you for taking the time to read my post. I am very new to bread baking only taking it up a couple of years ago, and like many I guess eventually found my way to the mysteries of Sourdough bread. Although I grow a very healthy starter I am at a loss as to when I can use the starter after its last feed. I keep my starter refrigerated through the week, then bring it out to let it get back to room temperature before feeding with more flour and water, proportionately 120grms flour to 120ml water. I always use Organic unbleached white flour and only ever bottled water.
Within a few hours my starter has doubled in size and looks and smells very nice. but.....when can I start to make a new bread? while the starter is on the rise, at its peak, or when its dropping off? whatever I try, my dough always rises well in the 1st and 2nd proving but when I turn it out of my bannetton onto my warm baking stone, the dough just goes flat and looses all the air. the baked bread tastes pretty good but it never looks right. I'm due to bake tomorrow so will try and take a few pictures through out then add them to this post.
Any comments appreciated
and begin to fall. Right after it's peaked and it begins to fall this is the best time to use it. If you are feeding it 1:1:1 then you're looking around 12 hours after feeding. Having said this as long as your starter is active then you can successfully make a loaf. I don't stand there measuring the exact moment it's peaked to when it just starts to fall. As long as it looks as if it's risen substantially like tripled or even quadrupled i'm not fussy about waiting for it to start falling. The little critters are active and they will produce a leavened loaf. So 11hours depending on temperature (the temperature of your kitchen will also make it more or less active) etc is also good.
As far as what you are experiencing when baking your bread I think you're going to have to go into more depth of your whole procedure.
Just to make it clear, I will never use it till it looks as if it can't peak anymore. So even though in 6 hours the yeasts are clearly feeding and are active don't use it. You've got a near enough time period of around 12hrs give or take. This should be an indicator. I just don't hang around twiddling my thumbs waiting for it to begin falling. It might peak and stay like that for however long. I will use it then. You'll also get to know your starter and what to expect from it. And also don't forget different flours will bubble differently. Rye has larger bubbles and spelt smaller ones etc. I generally know when I've gotten the most out of a feeding.
When I used a 100% hydration Starter the best time would have been when it started to fall.
To be on the safe side , fill a bowl with water and use spoon to gently take some of the Starter and gently put it in the Water, if it floats it is ready to use, if it sinks to the bottom, you need to wait a bit longer.
It all depends on your Starter, the Room temperature...
They say it is 12 hours after feeding, but I had times where it was even less than 7 hours...
To me, it is important to make sure to give your Starter about 3 good feedings before you bake, so you need to plan you baking a bit.
If you want to bake , for example , on a Friday you need to take the Starter out of the Fridge on Wednesday evening, feed it , than feed it again on Thursday morning and Thursday evening and you be good to go on Friday morning.
It would be a good Idea to post your bread recipe and also let us know if you use bread flour or AP flour...
to use as you seem to get a rise out of the dough. Part of the posting that really stands out is this line...
Which sounds like it was proofed too long. Over proofed. This is one of the major differences when comparing with yeasted doughs. Don't let the dough rise so long, shorten the last rise and bake before it doubles. Leave some rise left for oven spring, about 3/4 risen instead.
Another thing you might try is to break out of the notion of one bulk rise and one final proof rise. Sourdough yeast and bacteria are busy trying to break down the dough matrix. If you know your dough feel, try slipping in a few stretches and folds when the dough tension feels slack. This will improve the crumb and shape of the loaf. Stretch the gluten tighter as ferment progresses. Use the same overall time but interrupt the bulk rise and shorten the final proof rise. Start stretch & folding the dough when it is about 1/3 risen into the bulk rise. More can be found archived under: Stretch and fold method. Or check out videos.
As usual, I think MO has given good advice. I just wanted to add that a lot of time people think that the size of the final proof should be the size you want the bread. You have to remember that oven spring makes a big difference. From my experience, I find sourdough to really grow at this point and this is why you can get away with baking before it doubles as suggested above.
One more thing I was wondering is if you go directly from your banneton to the stone without slashing. If I was trying to do this I would probably be in a bit of a hurry so I don't burn myself and handle the dough too roughly. Still agree that over proofing is the culprit though.
Just as a side note, my recipie is for a simple basic sourdough.
350g Strong white flour - I use an organic stoneground unbleached white flour it has a protein value of 14
250g of my starter which is also made from the same flour
7g of salt
approx 200 ml of water
after mixing I leave for anywhere upto 5 hours depending on the rise before folding back and putting into a bannetton and leaving to rise again until doubled in size. I bake the dough at 200 degrees for 35 mins.
Apologies if this all sounds a little basic.
thanks for all your advice.
If you are allowing your dough to double during its final rise, then you are definitely overproofing the loaf. The final rise should really only be about 30%-50% in my experience. Go with the finger poke test instead. Press a couple of fingers about a half inch into the dough. If it springs back slowly, but doesn't quite spring back all the way, it's ready to go in the oven.
Thanks for everyone's help and advice it certainly made a difference to my Bake. I did as most of you advised and shortened my proving time. I've got some pictures and I'll try to upload here to show my results.
Thanks again