Dough tears and is spongy (pics included)
Hello!
I am new here and did some searching for my issue in past posts but I am still not sure so I thought I would post a pic and see if anyone could help.
I am trying to make a baguette and after allowing the dough to rise this is what I end up with.
- I am using a starter that I had been feeding once a day
- Flour is Anson Mills bread flour (though I end up with the same problem when using a 00 flour)
In the past I have mixed and kneaded in a bread machine. This time I used my Kitchen Aid for a few minutes.
Is my problem too much flour, not enough yeast (it was a really slow rise this time) or something else? Can this dough even be salvaged? I seem to end up with dough like this quite a bit and I am just not positive what I need to adjust.
Thanks so much for any help!!
If you would post the complete recipe and process, it would give more information for diagnosing the dough. What was the temperature in your kitchen on the day of the photo? Which stage of the process does the picture illustrate?
Thanks,
Paul
Without more details on the process it's hard to say but it looks like the dough is too stiff judging by how it doesn't seem to be clinging to your fingers in the slightest. It almost looks like a how a biga would tear if it was left to ferment for too long but it's really hard to say from one picture with such little information accompanying it. More info, as Paul said, would be helpful.
Here is the recipe that I am using:
16 ounces starter
10 ounces Anson Mills bread flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 ounces water
I mixed everything with my Kitchen Aid until the dough was about 77 degrees. I did end up adding a bit more flour because I felt my starter was really wet.
My kitchen was pretty cold so I let it rise in my oven with the light on. It got a little warm so I turned the light off periodically. It took a long time to rise. I was concerned that the amount of flour overwhelmed my starter so I ended up letting it rise for about 6 hours and at that point I felt it had doubled in size.
The photo was taken after that.
Thank you again for any thoughts! It is really appreciated.
Wow, that is a lot of starter. Is that 100% hydration? 6 hours would be way too long for that amount of starter. Sounds like your starter is not very active or it was too active and ate all the flour and you missed the rise.
The equivalent weight of the the flour in the recipe is 510g, 2% salt would be 10g or two teaspoons of heavy table salt. More if sea or flake salt. You are well under 1% salt and that can also lead to less control over yeast and variable results with each bake.
Adding up hydration.... If the starter is half weight flour and water (100% hydration) then it goes to reason that:
Water 6+8= 14 divided by Flour 10+8=18 (14/18) x100= 78% 78% <---- very wet dough, no wonder you added more flour.
Drop back one oz water (5) you will get 72%. Drop the water to 4 oz to get 67% hydration. That would be my first tweak (without knowing more about the starter culture) drop to 4 oz water and raise the salt amount. Tell more about the starter...
"...kitchen is pretty cold..." How cold is it?
Is the starter stored and growing on the counter? How old is it and what is the feeding schedule if any? How does it behave with the feedings? Describe what it looks and smells like when ready to use it for a recipe.
(Cold room starters can be kept very wet so that they ferment faster at certain cooler room temps. One just has to use more in the recipe. More later.)