Help improving my loaf
I thought I'd share my loaf and crumb in hopes of improving it.
It's an acceptable loaf - decent rise, but I'd like a more airy and even crumb.
I used starter at the top of its rise. I felt like I formed sufficient dough strength through lamination and coil folds. I bulk fermented it for ~ 6 hours, during which time it got around 60-70% of its maximum rise (I had a bit of extra dough as a gauge, and only knew from how much that rose by the next morning). When I shaped it, it was fluffy and jiggly. Then I cold fermented it in the fridge for 12 hours.
The only thing I can think of is playing around with bulk fermentation time, and try to really push it to the edge.
My recipe is:
75% white, 20% whole, 5% rye
80% hydration
Anything you can tell from looking at this?
That's a beautiful loaf in all respects.
The thing that we home bakers struggle with is consistency. If we were in a commercial bakery shaping hundreds of loaves every day, then we'd soon figure out that a little less pressure here and a firmer push there give us the result we want. Baking a couple of loaves a week just doesn't let us build the muscle memory.
The best I can say is do the same thing over and over again. Eventually, you'll arrive at a point where you can feel the dough's response and connect that to the finished bread's result.
Paul
This looks like a nice loaf to me! My only comment (or question really) would be around you comment "60-70% of its maximum rise". Are you having the dough bulk ferment to a rise of 60-70% of where it started or something else? A lot of posts on this site encourage a BF to only 50% rise max (half again as much of the original height of dough, not doubled or more). I agree with the previous post, that you need to just keep repeating the same recipe over and over, tweaking here and there, and see what happens. You might try a shorter bulk ferment and see if that preserves more of you 'rising power' for the final part in the oven, if you are looking for even more open crumb. Otherwise, looks like a very nice outcome: beautiful ear, nice crust, airy interior. Happy Baking!
I take a sample of the dough at the first stretch and fold, half an hour after adding the starter, and put it in a tube to gauge the rise. I shaped it at the 60%-70% mark of where it eventually got to.
I should experiment with bulk proofing times. Perhaps set a couple of loaves aside at different times.
I've seen comparisons of different crumb, and I was wondering whether having big holes towards the bottom were and indication of anything