FSWY Overnight Country Brown
For my next performance..LOL...I had to go back to FWSY and try another recipe, and this time try to stick to correct ingredients and amounts. While sticking to the correct weights and ingredients is not problem, my schedule is such that I decided to swap the overnight portion of the schedule.
I've mixed up the the ingredients and they are currently proofing and are growing already. 
I'm not so sure they are going to take the 12-15 hours specified.
I had taken Rodney, aka my rye starter, out yesterday and fed him a couple of times so that this morning he was raring to go. You can see from the pix he's a lively fellow.
Sure I could use the book's method of mixing up the levain, but I already have Rodney so why not kill two birds with one stone....feed him, ferment him and use him!
I mixed everything up and what I have is a pretty darned wet mixture....according to the book....78%. I'm going to let it rise as recommended but then I want to try retardation overnight and bake it in the morning. Otherwise I'll have to bake them tonight.
Any thoughts?
Correct! No you don't have to follow creating a sourdough starter culture as you have an on going one, Rodney. However what you do need to do is take a little off Rodney and build that into however much you need with the correct flour. If you have built up the levain by feeding Rodney with all Rye then the levain will a lot of rye which will change the recipe.
What exactly have you done? And where are you at now?
change the flavor of the bread, that rye is our favorite bread so using all rye for the levain suits us. So I did everything the recipe called for AFA ingredients except my levain is all rye based....and its in the proofing box....for about an hour now.
I guess its no longer a country brown, huh?
Rye flour needs a far higher hydration then wheat flour. Wholegrain wheat flour needs higher hydration then bread flour. Since you've now used, I imagine, a high proportion of rye flour in the recipe the texture of the bread will change too. It could also very well change the proofing times too. I'm sorry to trouble you but can you post what your recipe is now? I may not be the best one to ask but i'll try and hopefully someone else with far more experience will see this and give advice accordingly.
Levain =_______________________?
Final recipe + levain =________________________?
and my question was really if after the bulk fermentation could the loaves then proof overnight in the bannetons, instead of the 4 hour proof the recipe recommends. Sorry for not being clear. Using the rye levain was the only change I made...using the correct amount the recipe required.....275 gr.
Follow the rest of the recipe as it is and when you shape the dough into the banneton then refrigerate overnight. Best way to refrigerate is sprinkle the banneton "liberally" with flour (rye is more sticky than normal flour and I'm not sure what dough this extra high percentage of rye will make so better be safe than sorry) then shape into boule and place in banneton. Leave out for 20min and then refrigerate wrapping it inside a plastic bag. Come morning it should be ok to bake straight from the fridge.
Depending on how sticky the final dough will now be... remember to be gently when tipping it out of the banneton incase it sticks. Allow gravity to do most of the work and tap the bottom of the banneton to encourage it to come out if need be. Do not shake the dough out.
Best of luck.
This is my first attempt without any commercial yeast. Its pretty lively in the proofing bucket. We'll see how it comes out tomorrow!
one has to be flexible to judge when the dough is ready and how long to final proof etc. A recipe cannot give you an exact time as there are too many variables. However if you follow a recipe exactly it will put you in the ball park and will be easier. If I were to change a recipe I'd have to go by feel even more so. That is why following a recipe is a good way to learn, see what's happening etc. Then it's easier to tweak it.
Once it's doubled then "I think" it's time to shape and final proof in the fridge. Does the recipe recommend it doubling? If so, then go by when the dough is ready! rather than a strict timing as the high amount of Rye might throw the timing off somewhat. Might!
Many people say shape with seam side up. Then when tipping it out of the banneton the seam is on the bottom. Then you score the top before baking.
Forkish recommends to final proof seam side down so the seam ends up on top. No need to score as the seam will act as a scoring. Nice idea.
When final proofing in the fridge it's a good idea to sprinkle flour on top to prevent it from sticking to the plastic bag when the dough rises (good idea even if not retarding too). Tends to get more moist.
Sounds as if it's doing nicely.
as the dough ended up being extremely wet and sticky and I didn't want to add a significant amount of flour during the shaping. Getting it into the bannetons was tough...getting it out of the bannetons was a nightmare and had to be scooped out partially. Despite that, I was able to bake them into reasonably nice loaves with a good flavor and crumb structure.
Is the lower level of rise attributable to the lack of commericlal yeast?
did they deflate and collapse a bit? If so, that's your answer. I would suggest lining the banneton with a mixture of white rice flour and white flour, leaning more heavily on the rice. Good luck
I share your frustration. I am struggling with the Forkish method. My experience is as yours.
Very sticky dough that does not hold its form and then sticks to bannetons seems to be the common problem with FWSY overnight country white/brown. if you search the forum, you'll see people asking/reporting it. I bleed this bread twice so far and both times ended up with breads similar to yours. My kitchen is hotter then suggestef Forkish 70F so I mainly went by volume both times and both times it seems as if dough over fermented by the end of bulk fermentation. Got my third loaf fermenting now and I think I'll go for double the original volume and no longer then 8 hours - at this point I would rather underproof, then scoop dough out of banneton again.
Practice loaves and knowing what a high hydration rate he calls for would consider backing it down 5 or 10% and see how that works. In retrospect, my errors were using all of the starter, not splitting into three smaller loaves after seeing how much more volume I had and slightly deflating them when putting them in the DO.
Hope this helps someone get it right! And I will post when I prepare the next one...this is a tasty loaf.
Problem is not in a high hydration %. Meaning yes, it is high and dough is harder to work with, but I baked a few of FWSY Field Bread #2 and dough there feels very different even though it's the same hydration. I don't think that going down with hydration % will make this bread easier to make, you probably need to adjust timing... Well, that's my line of thought at the moment, I'll report back after I bake today's loaf...
Following up on my yesterday's post. I left bulk fermenting yesterday's bread for 10 hours - planned to do only 8, but it did not double by then, so I gave it some extra time. By 10 hours I could see small bubbles inside of the dough (I'm using clear container) and there were large bubbles starting to show on top of the dough. Dough felt just fine when shaping and held its form. Very nice oven spring too (though I messed up scoring). So yes, my suggestion for Overnight Country White/Brown - if you try to follow Forkish timing/volume guidelines and dough does not hold its shape at all, cut the fermentation time.
P.S. Sorry, not sure why pictures showing up rotated to the left - they look fine on my ipad...
because I had to use my hands to coax and scoop as the dough was so wet it probably did deflate some...but I did heavily flour the bannetons knowing the dough was wet but it still wasn't enough.