What does overdeveloped gluten look, feel and behave like?
Or, how do I know whether I've overkneaded my dough?
I know some version of this question has been asked hundreds of times but I can't seem to dredge up what I'm specifically looking for via the search. Links to threads, sites, images etc are very welcome as is your advice.
Also, how likely is it that I've overdeveloped mine? I've been doing stretch/folds on a 65ish% hydration loaf for the last 4 hours - not continuously, though. I've been out of the house and chasing toddlers and hanging up laundry and having guests over etc. Honestly, I haven't been counting how many or how frequently. Maybe about 10-14 sets of stretch and folds in the bowl? It's just water, flour and salt.
At the most recent stretch/fold, the gluten network was looking good and strong and it was holding bubbles. Now, my windowpane has started breaking. I can drag my finger across the surface of the dough and it feels more like a paste than I would expect my bread to feel like - stretches out easily, and doesn't stretch back. Did I accidentally overknead by hand? Is it okay if it's slightly overkneaded, the way loaves are usually okay if it's slightly underkneaded? Is it just breaking because I haven't let it rest enough, or is the pastiness an obvious signpost?
Thanks in advance.
to overdevelop gluten. If you are working by hand, chances are very good it is not over developed.
Dough breaking and tearing is a sign that the dough gluten is breaking down. Shape, Let it rise and bake as soon as possible.
Thanks. In a mixer was what I had always read. But why else would the gluten break down, if not overdeveloping?
...or is it just flour, water and salt, nothing else? Temperature? type of flour?
Sourdough. Temperature was at a constant 20-something degrees - the fermentation setting on my rice cooker specific for bread, I've never bothered figuring out what that is but I use it for most of my doughs. Flour was the same brand of all-purpose flour for the last few years' worth of bread. However I usually do highly kneaded bread in a machine, not by hand, which is why I wondered about overkneading.
I shaped the dough on the countertop. After shaping it looked even less cohesive than before - behaved more like a high hydration dough, very slack and spreading over the counter even though the gluten is supposed to be "tight" by this point. I deliberately mixed a dryish dough (for me) too. I tried to drop it into a pan but I could see holes starting to appear in the surface. I don't see much hope now so I've put it in the fridge and will treat it as an extra large batch of starter, unless it somehow magically reverses the soup-becoming process...
Remember it *was* forming an okay windowpane earlier and holding air bubbles - just not the kind of translucent, smooth windowpane I was used to seeing in enriched dough - so I don't think it's slow gluten development.
How would I know about too little or too much enzyme activity? The starter did have a slightly strange smell and the dough took on a similar smell but I couldn't identify it and it wasn't offensive. What are thiol compounds?
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/121566#comment-121566
Will keep that in mind. But mine was holding bubbles in a normal decently-developed gluten kind of way earlier, such that I would have said it was an "okay" windowpane, just not quite translucent enough. Unlike Debra's mine did form something like a ball initially. It also wasn't the first stretch and fold that had me concerned. It was the second last (so, the 7th, or 10th, or 13th, or however many I did) where I thought maybe it needed one or two more s/fs to get that last elusive bit of windowpane, and it ended up starting to disintegrate instead. This was well into the fermentation too - I added the starter at the beginning of the 4 hours, before I started the stretch and folds. Wouldn't that make a difference?
wouldn't make much difference but as Debra observed, the difference was obvious. That's what led her to suspect the starter. The flour can also be suspect.
You just have to get the starter back into balance so it can handle the problem. Split the starter and get started on the cure right away. Save the other half and bake normally and see if it gets worse.
I think you can save the dough presently if you get it shaped and risen into a pan, that will hold it together until it bakes.
I would speed up the process with an addition of instant yeast to get ahead of the enzyme activity, Two or three teaspoons per loaf, softened into a few spoons full of water. Once worked in, shape and let rise to bake.
I guess I meant that the difference wasn't obvious when I added the starter. Debra says it was immediate, and that definitely wasn't in my case.
It's not lacking yeast activity though - it's bubbly, even after deflating and shaping! The problem is I can see all the holes... It's already in a pan (lined with baking paper) and it's not that big of a loaf (300g flour) so I'm not sure there would be much left if I tried to scrape it out at this point to add yeast. You're sure it couldn't be an overworked gluten thing? I felt like it got more and more soupy every time I attempted to shape it. The idea of "working in yeast" makes me nervous of ending up with cake batter instead.
and read the entries if you need help making up your mind. That's also why I suggest splitting the starter, so you can compare and see what happens. If it is thiol compounds, you've caught it early, good for you and the starter.
Yes, scraping out dough from parchment is no fun. Leave it in the pan but be prepared to bake early. Let it rise about 3/4 and stay clear of "double." Preheat the oven.
I'm sure it is not overworked gluten. The gluten is falling apart but still trapping gas. The refrigerator will not stop or slow it down so forget retarding the dough. I wonder if that is why loaf pans were first invented, to deal with such magical happenings. :)
I did a site search on thiol as you suggested and this thread additionally contained a description that matches closely what my starter looks like post-revival - fluffy like marshmallow creme, healthy-smelling but an odd texture. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22004/never-saw-dough-break-down OldWoodenSpoon also mentions not being able to exactly match Debra's description, for similar reasons as I gave, but Debra clarifies that the timing could differ and their experiences sound identical.
I'll trust your advice and bake this loaf instead of saving it as a super-starter, and I guess it's time to get to work on fixing my actual starter!
Anyway I will try Debra's suggestion about upping the feedings. It's possible it's still a starter in transition. About 3 months ago I fed it an extra large feeding without particularly mixing it and put it into the fridge. During that time a thin layer of it turned darker (greyish) but it still smelled okay. I took it out two weeks ago, discarded most of it and started feeding it, but irregularly. Twice a day but not 12 hours apart. I have made bread with it since but all in the breadmaker. This was the first one I tried by hand since the "reviving", hence I thought it was my own error in judging gluten development. Maybe it is just the starter and needs more regularity to be better established.
to 12 hours feeds exactly, it would drive me nuts. Sometimes more or sometimes less. I tend to go with the starter, if it's slow, skip a feeding esp. in spring and fall when most starters tend to act up with fluctuating room temperatures.
The big breaker is taking an old starter to wake up, I usually take just the best part of the middle of the starter, just a teaspoon or two and then work with that. I don't keep the hooch, or the dead yeast on the edges or the poor discoloured beasties (dead invaders?) just under the hooch. I carefully poor off the hooch, push back the top of the starter and with a clean spoon dig out a little of the middle. The old rest gets put back into the fridge for a few days and discarded when the fed starter is back up and running. The compost pile loves me.
Follow Debra's instructions.
No more days in the rice cooker then. Compost! Perfect!! I had just been tossing it in the garbage. It's my husband's job to tip out the compost, though, and he probably wouldn't appreciate the surprise. Maybe I'll try and discard starter inside of an orange peel or something.
Well, now baking the refrigerated loaf. It doubled, albeit with holes. In the pan it had a very weird, non-bread smell, which my husband also noticed. We'll see later if there was any oven spring.
I also started a rigorous feeding regime to try and get my starter back on track. The first thing I did was discard most of it and turn that into a second small loaf (a large bun, really), because either it would be binned/composted or I could at least see what kind of bread it made.
As with the previous loaf, gluten strands appeared to develop very quickly. I hand mixed for about 10 minutes and stopped short of "translucent windowpane" in case it disintegrated again. I left to rest/ferment while we went swimming, and then loosely tucked in the edges and put it in a baking pot to rise. Interestingly, it didn't liquefy further, which I thought would have happened with thiols? I waited until the surface started breaking with craters, then baked it.
Further oven spring pushed it to just over double the original volume. Crumb was average and not uniform due to not being punched down, but otherwise still soft and springy. Didn't crumble like cake/bread lacking gluten, just had small holes as in the proof wasn't long enough. Haven't tasted any as we've just had dinner but it doesn't smell weird like the panned dough did... Basically, a normal, somewhat underproofed loaf.
Wonder what the panned loaf will turn out like. Nearly time to come out of the oven.