It's all gone wrong :(
Hi all
I've been following the 1:2:3 recipe from here and it was all really well... nicely shaped bread, good crumb and a lovely crust :)
Then this last week it's all gone sticky...
I'm starting my loaf at the same time, leaving it for the same time but it's not working (although it is still edible)
I use my kenwood to mix it but it's not forming a dough very well. If I do get it to form a nice ball, it collapses whilst proving so when I turn it out to knock back/shape it's a sticky mess. I can see its forming lots of gluten strands and had doubled in size.
I normally end up with extra flour on the worktop whilst shaping it so I can pop it into my banneton. Then it's left overnight in the kitchen (around 8-9 hours) before I try to turn it out for baking at 7am... at which point I'm trying to scrape it out of the banneton and it collapses to look like a cow pat on my baking stone!!
As I said, it still tastes good but I'm not getting a good shape to my bread and I've no idea why. Tonight for the first time in ages I've not baked as feel disheartened by it all.
I have refreshed my starter, I had 150g of starter and I stuck to the old mix I used previously which was to add 225g flour and 150g of water.
I am wondering if the starter is where it's going wrong... or the weather.. or something else!
Sorry for the long whingy post :( but any suggestions gratefully received. I will try again tomorrow, but would love a decent looking loaf again!
Thank you for reading,
Karen x
I wonder if it's because I'm not refreshing my starter daily now.
Whereas before I was using a lot of starter I'd refresh it most days, now I'm using a lot less I'm not feeding it every day.
So it could be that I guess... might do a couple of loaves tomorrow and then try to reduce the amount of starter I keep on the go and refresh/feed it daily to replenish what I'm using.
If I'm talking rubbish, please let me know!
Karen x
Karen, not sure if the starter is to blame, but the weather can have a great impact. I see you are England, so don't know what the weather is doing, here, we have come out of the cooler months, so the Air conditioning is running most of the day. As a result, in the cooler months, my sourdough dough fermented 24 hours at room temps ( which got as low as 64 F ) but now ( with temps closes to 75 - 78 F )doubles in size in closer to 12 hours, You may have to change your timing to account for the change in temp.
We always blame the weather here!
It has been very humid, had a good thunderstorm today so maybe that'll clear the air!
I will keep a closer eye on it and try adjusting the timings.
Thank you for your help
Karen x
It's almost summer in the UK now - even with the rain, etc. it's getting warmer and that will have an impact on it - especially with a room temperature overnight ferment - which is what I do but really try to find a place under 20°C although I'm probably fermenting bigger buckets of dough then you which I think helps to slow things down a little.
-Gordon
I think the coolest room in the house is the downstairs loo - which isn't the best of places to prove bread!!
I have a room thermometer so well test each room to find the coolest :)
Thank you for your help
Karen X
possibly due to warmer weather. That was my thought when I read your post. Watch your dough and pop it into the oven before it doubles. If you are using white flour, that would be around 90% proofed. If using whole grains, bake when 85% proofed. Try this before playing with any other parameters. Hope this helps.
Will try that, might mean getting up earlier though so might delegate to my hubby!
Thank you for your help
Karen x
Not really 1:2:3 from the ingredients that you used so in reality you have 50% more sour dough starter in the mix which would make it work quicker, it also tends to lead to a dough that lacks structural strength. If you want to reduce the amount of starter wastage then keep only a very small amount in the fridge and build it up prior to your bake, remembering that it triples with each feed. So if you kept several 10g starters in the fridge and use 1 then 1 feed will give you 30g 8 hours later another feed will give you 90g and a 3rd feed will give you180g in 24 hours. This way you should have some vigour and little to no waste. regards Derek.
Thank you, but I'm a bit confused (sorry!)
I thought the 1:2:3 was based on starter being 1 - do I need to adjust for the water/for quantity in my starter?
I would rather keep say 150g of starter as I use 100g most days. So if starting from the remaining 50g, what should I be adding to ensure as wastage as possible? I know the quantities I have been doing are wrong as I end up with too much starter! Equally I'd rather only feed once a day when I am making the dough for the next (If that makes sense)
Thank you again for your help
Karen x
Hi Karen with 1:2:3
the starter is 1
water is 2
flour is 3
so if you use 100g starter
200g water
300g flour that is 1:2:3 and that relationship stays the same regardless of the size of the dough you wish to make.
So if you want to use 150g of starter then the water would be 300g and the flour would be 450g.
The hydration for this dough would be 71%. The amount of water in the starter should be 50 /50 this is taken into account when calculating the overall hydration.
I also just noticed your comments regarding the feeds or lack thereof, so the build up of a small amount of starter will assist too it is not really a matter of a bigger feed rather a more frequent feed as I suggested 3 x 8hour feeds will be a great benefit.
I also noticed on your profile that you are from West Sussex, I used to live close by in the village of Liss which was close to the border, before moving to Western Australia 50 years ago!
kind regards Derek
I know Liss, I'm about 40 minutes drive from there. Suspect Western Australia is a lot warmer though than here!
I was doing 1:2:3 with my dough, but not when refreshing my starter so I will change that.
Last night's bread with my newly refreshed starter seemed to work better and wasn't a sticky mess! I will see what it's like when I take it out of the fridge as I left it in there last night (joys of the weekend and not being up as early!)
Karen x
Since I generally use my starter twice a week, I refrigerate it, partly so that I don't have to feed it daily. So, my situation isn't the same as yours. That said, I've found that my starter likes an occasional bigger than usual feeding. So, most of my feedings are around 1:1:1 (I add flour and water in equal weight to the starter that remains after I take what I use), but about once a month, I double the flour and water.
Before I did this, my starter didn't seem to stay as active. Although the decline wasn't enough to notice from one loaf to the next, it did become quite apparent over time. Since I read here on TFL about using occasional larger feedings, this hasn't happened any more.
I think my starter might not be that active as had been leaving it on the worktop but only feeding it every 3 days - thinking back it wasn't looking active and was separating a bit.
I like your idea of smaller feedings, I will just need to work it back... on the basis that each day I use 100g, if I kept 50g back and added 50g flour and water to it I wonder how that would work...
Could do an occasional larger feed when I know we're having company and will need a bigger loaf...
Thank you for your help
Karen x
so keeping 150g at 100% hydration in the fridge basically works for me as follows;
When I use 100g, there's 50g left, so a 1:1:1 feeding of 50g water and 50g flour gets me back to the original 150g.
Occasionally, I use 120g, usually to a somewhat bigger than usual loaf. That leaves 30g, so 60g water plus 60g flour gets me back to 150g, and just happens to be 1:2:2.
After feeding, I leave the starter at room temp for usually ~2-4 hours. This duration is pretty loose; I mainly try to be sure it goes into the fridge before it peaks.
I do the bulk ferment before bedtime (about 3 to 4 hours) then rest, shape and into a banneton overnight ready to go straight in the oven in the morning!
No fuss, no sweat, no over proving :)
Do you bake straight from the fridge then? When I've proved mine in the fridge at the weekend I've always left it to come to room temp before baking. Which is why I've not done it during the week. If I can bake direct from the fridge it might be a lot easier!
Thank you for your help
Karen x
Hi Karen,
I bake most of my bread this way now. It makes my life easier! It also has the advantage that the bread is ready earlier in the day. Also I find it much easier to score higher hydration dough and the dough 'flattens' less when taken from the basket to the stone.
I just give the bread an extra 10 mins in the oven :)
Might have to give that a go as during the week I need it ready to make my daughter's lunch boxes up for them (and I'm not getting up any earlier!!)
Karen x
It is my preferred method, you get a very firm dough that holds it's shape and it is far less sticky when turning it out!
I need my own fridge for it though... someone keeps taking over the space I keep clear for the forms.
Depending on the amount of starter in the dough, and a bunch of other things, I often now bulk ferment my dough either in the basement (cooler at this time of year) or in the fridge overnight. Then I shape in the morning and do the final proof at room temperature where I can keep an eye on it.
Sounds like a good method, but I need to bake first thing to make my daughters' lunch boxes so need to prove overnight. Wonder if I could convince DH I need a cool cellar to prove my bread!
Karen x