Sourdough Spreading Out in Oven - New Challenger Bread Pan
Hoping someone can help me with this problem I've been having! I've just bought myself the Challenger Bread Pan, and am having some mixed results. The dough seems to hold its shape when I transfer it to the pan, though it does spread slightly out when scored. I'm having no oven spring, although the scores do open up slightly. There's just no upward motion of the dough. The crumb is quite good, as is the crust, I'd just like to have a more open looking bread at the end. I thought at first that this might be because of overproofing, but I've significantly reduced the bulk fermentation time and am still having bad results - though the crumb has been much more open with the shorter BF.
I follow the Tartine method, broadly speaking, with some added slapping and folding after incorporating the salt. Here's the recipe and process:
70% Strong white bread flour; 20% Kamut flour; 10% Wholegrain flour; 20% leaven (at peak, about 6 hours); 2% Salt; at 70% Hydration.
Process: (Pseudo)Autolyse, with leaven for 1 hour; add salt, and slap and fold for approx 10 minutes; BF for 3 hours at 81F (in a proofer), with a turn every 30 minutes. Preshape, 20 minutes rest, Final Shape and an overnight proof in the fridge; take out of fridge approx 30 minutes before bake, bake for 20 minutes with the lid on, and about 25 minutes with it off.
Refer to the pictures...could it be because of bad shaping? I do try to add as much as tension as possible, without going too far of course.
Any help is much appreciated!
IMG_6801 2.jpg
IMG_6801 2.jpg
I wonder if the issue you’re having is dough structure and tension. Your crumb shows to me that your fermentation is great, very nice crumb. One thing you could try is bake from cold right out of the fridge. The cold dough really helps with oven spring and it much easier to score. Cold dough will also hold its shape better than warm.
Benny
Yeah I'm thinking it's down to the shaping. I've tried shaping today's batch using a stitching technique, and not rounding it into a taught ball. I'll see how that goes! I'll also try to bake straight from the fridge, though I thought the yeast needed time to 'wake up' after a long cold proof?
The problem might also be because of my bannetons being too large for the amount of dough. I've ordered oval ones which should arrive soon, hopefully that will work too!
Thanks for your help!
I would say it is definitely a structure issue. I started getting better shaped loaves when I started more hand folding and stretching for a longer period of time. I am talking about the initial hand mixing of the dough. I make sure it gets mixed by hand for a minimum of 8 minutes. This gave the breads more extensibility. The dough texture had a noticeable improvement. Also when I shape the dough, I fold it like an envelope from top down and bottom up and I stretch the bottom half over the top half. But the most important part of shaping is to then take the dough which is a rectangle at this point and roll it over itself while stretching it slightly from end to end across to the other side. You can see a lot of bakers shape it this way on youtube. Then pinch the ends shut. This should make your batard a bit higher and less long. you can improvise on this principle for the round loaf.