May 7, 2021 - 1:14am
Oven rise problem
Hi guys!
i really hope someone help me find the issue here, so I bake my sourdough according to the following:
80% bread flour
20% whole wheat
75% water
20% levain
2% salt
i almost never get an oven rise even though the taste is good. I’ll attach a picture of how my bread usually look like (not much oven rise and no open score)
However. There’s one tImee where it was late and I let my dough continue bulk fermentation in the over for 7 hours, took it out when I woke up let it came to rom temperature then I did pre shape and shaping and left in the fridge to proof for around 10 hours. And it worked! One bread out of almost 50 non rise ones :(
- I bake in a Dutch oven, there’s enough humidity, I make sure the dough isn’t in a warm place and the AC is on giving I live in a very hot place, I make sure the levain is at least doubled and active and hasnt crashed i also autolyse
i need to understand why though.
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Understandable frustration! Sounds like the one time when you fermented for much longer it worked better? Maybe you always should to that?
But regardless, seeing the crumb would be really helpful to diagnose the problem, much more useful than the outside. And also, what's your process, i.e. how long and at what temperature do you ferment? How do you develop the gluten? How strong is your flour?
Thank you for responding!
so I usually bulk fermant for 1:30 hours at 24c, then I preshape let it rest for 15 mins, then I shape it and put it in the fridge for around 16-18 hours before backing.
found these pic from previous breads, really hope they helps
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Your crumb shows that you are underfermenting your dough. 1.5 hours of bulk fermentation at 24ºC is far from sufficient, that is assuming that you starter and levain are truly fully active. For a similar recipe with my active starter making a levain that I will use at peak, not young before peak, it will take about 6 hours at 80-82ºF to bulk ferment sufficiently before I would go to shape.
Give your dough far longer and warmer to ferment, sourdough is much slower than commercial yeast.
Benny
I second what Benny said. Suspected that just from such short fermentation time, but with the crumb it's clear.
You guys are amazing!
i truly appreciate the time you took to respond and inspect my issue.
I have used my levain at peak I’m sure because it takes me 7-8 hours at 1:2:2 ration before it collapses. I think I was too afraid of overproofing it.
so my question is what difference will the crust shows if it was perfectly proofed?
Good question, other than having better blisters I’m not sure. It’s been a while since I have severely underproofed a loaf to remember.
Lol I hope become that good one day. And I won’t give up.
these pics are from today’s bread, again can’t thank you enough for replying.
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This one is fermented much better than the previous ones.
But does it still look under fermented to you?
Agree with Benny, the crumb looks pretty good in this one! Try to reduce the hydration if you want it taller (a general solution to make things easier for you to figure everything else out), and make sure the dough is strong, that the gluten is well developed.
Thank you! That makes me feel less bad lol I will differently try lower hydration though I thought 75% wasn’t too much, but maybe my flour couldn’t absorb it dunno.
I’ll keep you guys posted until I get this fixed
Again thank you all!
75% is not too much in general, but it hugely depends on the flour - and also higher hydration just makes working with the dough a little more challenging, and for inexperienced bakers it might be worth getting used to the process at, say, 70%, and then go up when feeling more confident. Can't say I followed my own advice when I started, but I should have :)