Help! Gluten degradation during bulk fermentation.
Hello. I ran into a problem recently when attempting to make sourdough. I was following the Tartine Country Bread recipe, with the exception of using all purpose flour (because it is the only unbleached white flour I had) over bread flour.
When it is time to bulk ferment (which is supposed to take 3-4 hours at 78-82 degrees) I run into a not so slight problem. First 2 stretch and folds seemed fine, I can feel the dough becoming stronger and after that is when all hell breaks loose. The dough, well rather, gluten began degrading. With each subsequent stretch i am greeted with more loose and slack dough. Now this happened two times with two different starters (one rye, the other whole wheat/ap flour).
Now i read about gluten degradation by Lactobacilli and I feel like this is what is happening but at the same time, I feel that my starters are not proteolytic as both of them smell and act as they should.
I have been using a heating lamp to hold the dough within the 78-82 range both times. Could it be that the heat is what is playing against me. Using the thermometer i can always see that the dough does not go above 82 but perhaps i am missing something? Perhaps the "direct" heating affects the dough negatively? I am going to attempt the same recipe without the heating lamp in a few days and see what results i get. Meanwhile, I would love some input on this issue.
Thanks in advance!
P.s. The Levain that I use is of small inoculation and is pretty "young" before the mixing of the final dough.
This sort of thing used to happen to me, too - see my "High Hydration Nightmare" thread at http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/39876/high-hydration-nightmare
I think temperature may play a role alright. That thread was posted in August. It's October now, and I no longer experience these issues.
Your heat lamp is probably giving the upper surface a temperature much height than the 82°F of the interior. I suggest you just go with whatever is the ambient temperature. The sourdough will rise at the lower temperatures, though slower.
Ford
I use a heat lamp in conjunction with a brewer's thermostat. When the dough gets warm enough, the heat lamp is turned off. There is cling film covering the bowl that contains the dough.
Thank you for all the replies. I have attempted the recipe again without the heat lamp. At first things seemed to be looking up, alas the degradation was simply delayed by two hours. Here is a picture after the first stretch and fold
and this is what the dough became after a few folds (2-3 hours in)
I am following everything correctly, so this is simply boggling my mind.
I am going to try it again with my rye starter, rather than white/ whole wheat and see how it goes.
This may be a silly question, but is there salt in the dough at this stage?
Yup, there is salt in there already! I add the salt post autolyse, before the stretch and folds begin.
This is EXACTLY what used to happen me in the "High Hydration Nightmare". I was doing a dough yesterday, put up an autolyse earlier last evening, and then after an hour or so I got so distracted by other things that I forgot about it for at least another hour, if not two.
I then made the dough - i.e. I added the sourdough starter, then mixed salt in with strong flour and folded in the autolyse - and I had some stickiness issues that I "resolved" by adding more flour. No idea how this will turn out, but it's in the fridge right now.
or add some lemon juice (I'm thinking about 1 tsp per cup flour) to the starter and/or dough to lower pH quickly. See if it helps, Might want to try some small quick tests first, mini doughs, before using in a larger recipe.
Also try adding some pre-gelantanized flour to the dough, dissolve a heaping teaspoon of flour into a measured mug of recipe water (weigh it again, mug.flour and all) and nuke it to hotter than drinking temp to thicken slightly. (less than 5% of total flour) Weigh and replace any missing water. Cool before adding. Get back to us on this one no matter the outcome. :)
Thanks, Mini Oven :)
Pardon me but as I am new to baking, 2-3 months in, I have no idea what pre-gelantanized flour is or where to find it! I will have to do some research. I can only bake come Monday but I will definitely give an update of my situation.
Overall this saddens me, I have had such great success with various commercial yeast bread. I thought the conversion to sourdough would be easy, alas I was wrong. Hopefully all will be figured out soon. Thanks everyone!
You'll soon get the hang of it. Experiment a bit until you find a modus operandi that works for you.
Thanks roseboosj!
I'm sorry but I have to take umbrage with this advice. You're just guessing at the quantity of lemon juice to use and have no idea what the resulting pH will be or what it will do to the yeast or LAB growth rates, or the flavor of the finished bread.
I've ended up in the camp that gluten should be completely developed before mixing in the levain and finally salt. I've had zero problems since even with extremely "sour" levains.
Stretch and fold development may require a bit more attention to developing the gluten prior to adding the levain followed by salt. The problem of adding a well developed levain to a properly developed dough is that it "mellows" it so that it exhibits a much enhanced extensibility but will also be about as "sticky" as a dough can get.
The addition of salt tightens the dough gluten and will return the dough to a manageable ball that's ready for bulk fermentation.
Dump the heat lamp and find a warm place for the fermentation to take place (direct infra-red radiant heat lamps dry the surface of the dough preventing conduction and distribution of the heat to the rest of the dough - use an indirect heat source). If you have cats they'll show you exactly where this place is in your abode.
Wild-Yeast
be surprised. :) You only need to test a wee amount...
Some magic happened or perhaps the Halloween spirits helped me. I manage to find some free time yesterday after work, so i decided to have another go at the Country Bread. I found a slightly tweaked recipe with more levain, which also yielded only one loaf. Did a longer autolyse of 2 hours and during bulk ferment did only one rotation of stretch and fold per half hour (i will come back to this). The dough managed to survive the fermentation and the gluten appeared to be in tact. Unfortunately i had some issues with shaping the dough, so i did not create great surface tension. Either way, 12 hours in the fridge and the dough was good to go. I ran into some issues with the scoring again but all of that can be fixed in the future as i experiment with sourdough. Here are some pictures - it is not the prettiest looking loaf but it's Halloween, so what the heck ;)
and
Please don't laugh. Will work hard and in a few months will post a perfect one for ya!
It seems that my issue was overworking the dough. When i would stretch and fold, the dough seemed not developed well enough, i would get worried and attempt to add more stretch and folds. Even though i did not do it an extreme or even large amount of times, it still appeared to negative affect the dough. The reason i feel that this was the main issue, is because i made mini dough to go along with this one and folded it more times and after about 2 hour mark it turned to goo. Either way, i will work more on this! I still find it very strange that the dough was so easily over worked.
Thank you all for your tips :) Happy Halloween!
and adding some fresh lemon juice to the water, just a little bit and see what it does when you over work it.
I just wanted to tie some loose ends up (or erm..loose forum posts?), in case anyone stumbles upon this topic. After some trial and error, the issue was indeed the starter. Not overworking, not the heat but the very essence of bread. At the time, it seems that the yeast was yawning while the acid ate away at the dough. I've been working with a knock on wood, very stable rye starter which does incredible things. It seems that my old white starter was indeed proteolytic. Happy baking, everyone!
Hi Cidilon!
I'm a beginner and following Chad Robertson's country bread and I have exact same issue as you in 2015. I won't be uploading photos because my dough mass looks exactly the same: After the 1st and 2nd turn (first hour), the gluten development looks fine. But after the 3rd fold, everything turns into disaster: gluten starts to degrade. I suspect it has something to do with my leaven so I tried my best to use a young leaven but make sure it pass the float test. Still the same, nothing change, gluten degrades after about 1 hour.
So now I'm suspecting the issue lies in my starter. I notice that my starter triples in size after 5 hours. Even at its peak, the gluten structure is no good. Using a spoon to check the structure during its peak, It's just weak, even soupy. My starter is 50/50 blend of whole wheat and white flour at 100% hydration. I tried to reduce the hydration but the starter still cannot hold its gluten structure on its own. Per my very beginner's understanding, the dough mass is basically a huge starter, with addition of salt. If we let it complete the cycle, it will become the starter again. So the characteristic of the starter will transfer to the dough mass during bulk fermentation. I will try to make a new starter today.
I'm wondering how you have been progressing since 2015? Can you share some learning with me about this starter issue? I truly appreciate all the sharing. Thank you in advance :)
Regards,
:)
Holy Moly! It's been a while since I've visited this site. Its definitely no longer an issue on my part, however the bad news is that I simply ended up tossing that starter and beginning fresh. I've tried various feedings to restore the balance of the starter (I think that mini touched on that at some point on this thread or one of my other posts) and nothing helped.
At the time I began using a rye starter, as it proved to be easier to use with my lack of experience. It is way more resistant to inconsistent feedings and temperature jumps. I've since returned to a white/ whole wheat starter as I prefer yogurty flavour profile more.
I suggest checking out the "girl meets rye" blog as her techniques helped me a lot at the time. As well as "fullproofbaking" once you are more comfortable with baking sourdough.
When I began a new starter, I dropped my final dough hydration significantly to get a feel for the dough. Following that I simply upped it a little each time until I reached Chad's point. Currently my regular doughs are in the 80% hydration. I no longer use young levain either and use my mature trippled levain, as well as push my bulk fermentation into 5-6 hours. You will get to a point where you can experiment once you have a solid foundation.
I used to follow the tartine book as a bible but I can say I became a better baker once I strayed from it. Quite often, It builds your expectations but with a lack of experience you come out disappointed.
My favourite loaf to bake for the longest time with my rye starter was "training wheels" loaf on the girl meets rye blog. Check It out!
For now, focus on building a strong starter. As it should not shred your gluten, the way it does. I would suggest starting out fresh and clean. Give rye a go!
Here's one of my recent breads! Still lots to learn on my end as well.
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Dont be discouraged!
Thank you both Cidilon and Mini Oven.
Cidilon, your bread looks just great! I followed exactly what you did before searching here: feeding the starter some more days, twice a day at 1:2:2 hoping to fix it, didn't work. Trying a mature triple leaven instead of young one, didn't work either. I just restarted yesterday with whole wheat and white flour again as I enjoy its yogurt flavor. I'll give rye a try.
I also noticed that there're not many bubbles on the side of my failed starter jar when it's peaked. Also it seems too slimy even for 100% hydration. Should it be a sign that the gluten is holding on/not being destroyed in the starter? Do you mind if I can have a look at your starter during its peak and fall? If it's a hassle then don't bother :) Thank you so much for coming back and spending your time giving newbie advice.
Hi Mini Oven,
Thank you for the advice! I found the comments on Thiol by Debra Wink. Seems like this's what happened to my starter. I tried so hard to recover it but no use.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/18144/sourdough-loosing-elasticity-please-help#comment-121566
There really shouldn't be any slimy consistency - whatever the cause, your gluten is indeed being shredded. What was the smell like? How are you building your new starter (what guide are you following? Chad's?) Good on you for not being discouraged and starting fresh.
I'm hopefully baking this Tuesday and will have my levain going - as mentioned before I let it peak prior to its use, so in essence it's just a big starter feed. I'll take pictures at the start and at peak!
:)
Hello Cidilon,
For the starter, I don't really follow Chad's guidance. I read and see several starter guide and build it as follow:
- Start with 50g of mix whole wheat and white flour, with 50g of water (100% hydration).
- Discard half of the starter and add 50g of mix flour with 50 of water until I see it double/triple in size in less than 12 hours. In my case, it started to double in size on day 4.
- From day 5, I started to feed 1:1:1 ratio with 50g starter base. Started from day 6, as there's some alcohol smell, I decided to increase the feed to 1:2:2 and fed it twice a day. Never missed a single feeding.
- The starter is always kept at 26-27 Degree C. I use mineral/spring water. It constantly doubles in size in 3 hours and triple in 5 hours before starting to collapse.
The smell of the old starter is a bit vinegary with a very small hint of alcohol when I remix the starter right before feeding. It bubbles on the surface but not much on the side of jar.
The new starter (let's call this starter 2) is on day 4 and it again has doubled in size last night. The smell is a bit different and quite positive: it's more fruity with yogurt smell.
Hello Mini,
I read that whole thread and saw that comment from Debra as well. I actually have been trying to fix it for 5 days now. I have been wondering the whole time if this issue of Thiol Compounts will ever come back in the future if I try to fix the old starter. So I have fed the old starter again at 1:2:2 and move it to the fridge for further experiment in the future :) I don't mind starting over to compare what may happen. As said, it's autumn in my apartment and it's constantly at 26-27 Degree C.
:)
I would suggest a change in feeding later when the starter is predictable about a week from now.
Increase the feedings or keep it slightly cooler. A 1:2:2 feeding at 26°C peaking in 5 hours has a long wait until it is 12 hours old.
Either:
Keep in mind that the new starter may have a different variety of inhabitants than the old starter. You might want to apply these suggestions to the old starter while waiting on the new one.
Debra writes "It took 9 to 10 days to rid my starter of the offending organism, but the transformation was dramatic and overnight. It had been in sort of a holding pattern for 9 days, and then changed all at once, indicating to me that a new (more desirable) organism took over. It has behaved beautifully ever since, and my doughs have elasticity again. Give it a try."
have you tried it that long? And at what temp?
Mini
I ended up not making levain, as I didnt have as much time as I wanted and instead ended up using my starter for the loaf. Scraped up what was remaining and did a 1:4:4 feed. This is what it looks like. I took the picture a little too late, as it already started to fall. I haven't had the chance to read your updates yet but will do so and will reply soon - super busy week for me, sorry!
I did however see that your temps hover around 25-27c? That's so warm! My starter rose at 18-20c today. I like the fall weather and keep my windows open. During the summer months when it's really warm, I usually make a slightly stiffer starter.
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