no oven spring with 15%whole wheat
I can bake a delish loaf of sourdough using 100% bread flour and get a great rise and an even better oven spring. But if I try and add 12-18% whole wheat flour for flavor I never ever get a good oven spring and the loaf always turns out dense.
Is this a common thing?
My recipe is
100%KA flour (85% bread flour 15%whole wheat)
65% water
2% salt
and about 75-100 grams of starter.
First rise is for 4-6 hours, then I knock down, bench rest for 10 minutes, shape the loaf and then put it in a banneton for its final rise. After its risen well I put in on a peel and then transfer into an oven at 450 degrees for 30 mins. I also put a cup of water in there to get some steam going.
Like I said earlier it seems to be rising well, but the oven spring just isn't there.
Should I give up on the the small addition of whole what?
I think your hydration is low, especially with the whole wheat. I have 72% hydration for white baguettes and the whole wheat requires a little higher because of the bran. I would suggest you try to raise your hydration to at least 70%, until you get used to working with a slacker dough then raise it further.
I don't know how rough you treat the dough after the bench rest. The kneading and rough treatment is great before the bulk rise. After that treat the dough gently and be sure to give the skin a stretch in the shaping of the loaf. It might also help if you were to give the whole wheat a presoaking with the water for about an hour before the first mixing.
Don't give up on the whole wheat! I wish you success!!!!
Ford
P.S.: I am assuming that the water and the flour in your starter is included in your calculation of the hydration.
For this amount of WW i would be at 73-75% hydration with a 1 hour autolyse for the WW with all the dough flour adn then another hour once the white dough flour is added 0 no salt - no levain. Like Ford Says I like to do 8-10 minutes of slap and folds followed by 2 more sets of about 10 slaps each. followed by gentle stretch and folds all on 20 minute intervals. Then let it ferment bulk as usual. You wonlt get as open an crumb or as much spring as an all white bread but the health benefits and taste are way more important and the crumb should still be open light and moist.,
Don't give up. You might take a look at David Snyder's SFSD with Extra WW post to get some tips on another bread like this one.
Try giving 20 minute floor time on the wheat that should help
Try giving 20 minute floor time on the wheat that should help
I wanted to try and clarify what you meant. Do you mean after the first rise let it rest for 20 minutes before final shaping but after punching down?
Thank you for all of the good suggestions. I can't wait to give them a try tomorrow morning.
So I did have time to make a second attempt at this bread today and here are my results. I did the same thing as before but I was extra careful removing it from the banneton. It was airy and pillowy and looked great, but as soon as I slashed it it literally deflated like a balloon and collapsed. Now its in the oven and it never really recovered. Looks dense and deflated.
It isn't unique to whole wheat breads. However, most whole grain doughs will ferment faster than their all-white siblings, so the baker has to keep a close eye on things to keep fermentation from going too far before baking.
Paul
of a multi grain bread.
As a general rule I follow the following...
Bread Flour : 65% hydration
Whole Wheat : 75% hydration
Rye: 90% hydration
Should I wish to do a mixed grain then i'd work out the final hydration by adding up the preferred hydration of each grain used. As follows...
Recipe: 200g bread flour, 100g whole wheat. 50g rye (for example)
I'd simply do the following...
.65 x 200 = 130ml
.75 x 100 = 75ml
.90 x 50 = 45ml
So final hydration for this loaf is 250ml water to 350g flour = 71%
Then obviously you'll have to take the starter into account too.
This works for me. Every type of flour has been accounted for.
Perhaps the whole wheat will benefit from an autolyse and I agree with the above that you need to take into account the quicker fermentation times. Sounds like it's overdone.
thanks for the break down on the different types of flour. I never knew how to equal it all out for the final hydration percentage.
Thanks for the break down of a to calculate and combine all the different flours. I never knew that.
What works for me. My disclaimer is... it isn't the only way. It's an idea!
With bread baking of course there is no right nor wrong just what works for you. By all means use the "formula" and make it your own. Baking is a collection of ideas.
PMcCool and others suggested that over fermentation may be a big part of your problem and I agree.
Your original recipe says
I agree with upping the hydration, but since your WW flour is only 15% (not really that much) I'd just take it to about 68%, at least until you've solved your other problems.
Best of luck in your efforts. Let us know how things turn out.
Ok I'm trying things again now that morning has come. I have started out by autolyseing (spelling?) 45grams of whole wheat flour that is hydrated to 72%. After I let that do its thing for an hour I'll proceed with my recipe and see what happens.
Curious about the over fermentation. With the 4-6 hour fermentation it doesn't really ever go past doubling in volume. what type of time frame do you tend to like?
But grams of starter.
What percentage is the starter?
"Autolyse"
I don't know. :( I never take the time to measure it accurately. If I had to guess it is somewhere around 70% I used to make a wetter starter but I read that a drier starter helps enhance the sour taste in the dough.
You've given us the percentage of everything except the starter. Can you give us an idea of the full recipe?
Ohhh, now I got you. Sorry I'm a little slow this morning. Well if my flour is 100% at 300 grams and I use 100 grams of starter I guess my starter percentage would be 30%?
300 grams flour 255grams white 45grams whole wheat
195 of water
7 grams of salt
100 grams of starter
So your starter is 33% and some of your flour is whole grain. How about the following... You said your starter was around 70% hydration which makes it around 41g water and 59g flour. So let's take another look at the recipe...
300g flour
195g water
7g salt
100g starter
You know something... your hydration is really quite ok come to think of it. There's not much whole grain in it and it already is 65% well within a good range considering. I don't think at this percentage it is the cause of any problems. If you wish then ok to up it to 71% by increasing the water to 214g.
Nothing much wrong with this recipe at all. Now onto method.
1. Prepare your starter so it is nice and active ready to use
2. Add water to dough bowl and mix in the flours. Combine and autolyse for 30min.
3. Add the starter and sprinkle salt on top. Incorporate and knead for 10-15 minutes till full gluten formation.
4. Bulk Ferment for 3 hours giving it a turn half way through (On the face of it you are well within the range in your recipe but taking on board advice and with a little trial and error start at 3 hours which is still enough time for a nice flavour development).
5.Turn dough out onto the counter top, de-gas the bigger air pockets but not completely and shape. Now here you should be aiming for 85-90% instead of doubled. Depending on how warm it is I cannot give you an exact time. You're the judge of this but i'd start keeping a close look at it at around 1hr 30min.
I like tip #5. It seems that when done this way it gives plenty of room for the gluten to stretch when the dough hits the hot even.
tip#4 I am guessing that is temperature dependent. at 75-80 degrees that would probably work well. I've been experimenting with doing my ferment at slightly cooler 64 degrees so i'm worried 3 hours won't be enough or would it be enough even though it wouldn't visibly risen that much.
I believe 4-6 hours is well within the time limit. I recommended 3 incase, for some reason, over proofing was the problem. But by all means experiment with slowly increasing the times. Your recipe is sound and should be OK. Perhaps it is the final proofing that's the issue. Aim for 85-90% instead of doubled. Don't forget a round banneton that widens at the top is deceiving.
That makes it nice to compare to many of the 1,2,3 threads. :)
Ok I got done incorporating everyones suggestions and I just pulled the fresh bread out of the oven. It is definitely better but there is still room for improvment. Perhaps a little more proofing and I'll be there.
But looks nice to me.
How active is your starter? Can you explain how you feed your starter prior to baking or how you build your preferment?
Yeah, let me try to make that photo bigger.
I would consider my starter to be healthy and active. I have a quart jar of starter that I store in the fridge, then I take out about 40 grams and put it in a different container and then I add my bread flour and water to that and let it go for usually 5 plus hours. Then I add back flour and water to my original starter that I store in the fridge so it can be ready for next time.
I'd be very happy with this. Looks delicious and nice scoring. Now for the next question...
How do you bake it? On a pizza stone? In a Dutch oven? Fan on? Fan off? Steam?
Sorry... QuestionS ;)
Thanks for the compliments! I bake it at 455F for 30 minutes on a lodge cast iron griddle. I preheat the oven with the cast iron in the oven, then after the oven is done preheating I dump my loaf out onto my peal and slide it onto the cast iron. Then I pour one cup of water into the bottom of the oven for steam and I shut the door. 15 minutes in I turn the loaf to make sure it cooks evenly. The back side tends to cook more quickly than the front with the window. I don't have a convection oven, so no fan. I have tried the dutch oven technique in the past but I can't perfect it.
Not being able to introduce steam properly. That and the fan plus top elements dried the top of the dough too quickly preventing oven spring.
Now I preheat the oven with both top and bottom elements plus the fan. Then just before I put the dough in I'll turn the fan and top element off. So all the heat is coming from under the bread not baking the top too quickly. Voilà... Oven spring.
Now you don't have a fan but how is it regarding the elements?
I use just the bottom element. Then I put the griddle on the 2nd to lowest rack.
or tangzhong method. All you have to do is remove 15g of the whole wheat flour and add 75g of water (add the rest of the 30g whole wheat to the rest water 120g and enough AP 100g to make a soft batter. Let everything stand covered to hydrate. The idea is to soften the bran in the whole wheat flour. I would do this several hours before continuing or several hours before your sourdough starter has peaked in activity.
The tangzhong of 15g of wheat flour in 75g of water can be thickened, almost boiled in the microwave (30 seconds on high for first zap, stir and zap again if needed.) Weigh before heating and then Rescale to add water lost in the heating process. Let cool completely and when ready to mix up the dough, add the soaking flours, stir in sourdough then flour & salt as in step #3 continuing from Abe's suggestion above. Note the dough texture differences.
Thanks for the suggestions. I can't wait to give it a try.
Ok, I tried it again and I think I am willing to call it a success. autolyse the whole wheat for an an hour has definitely been beneficial as well as a half an hour for the bread flour.
This time around I reduced the whole wheat from 15% to 10%. So hopefully I will get some good flavor but lessen the effects overall that are difficult with whole wheat.
Thank you so much for all the help!
I definitely call this a big success. What a lovely sourdough. Your shaping is far better then mine. I'm a lousy shaper. Good scoring and oven spring.
Bon Appetite.
Thanks!
Check out this post. Exactly what you're making, a 15% whole wheat sourdough loaf.
http://makebread.net/15-whole-wheat-sourdough-table-loaf/