Hi All,
I am a newbie bread baker and have now baked 2 sourdough loafs, with relatively similar outcomes. Let me explain my situation and maybe someone could point me in the right direction;
I live in Fiji so the ambient temp is a very humid 33C/91F degrees during the day and 25C/77F at night. I have a mature starter of a few weeks that is incredibly active and I guess due to the temps doubles easily within 3/4 hours of feeding. So this is when I use the starter in the dough, after around 3 hours, great smell, lots of bubbles and active. I have been using the below ingredients:
- 440g unbleached all purpose flour
- 350g water
- 90g starter
- 9g salt
I mix flour, starter and water and rest for 30min, I then add salt and mix in, rest for 15 min. Then I do stretch and folds every 30 min for two hours. I then rest for another 1-2 hours by which time the dough has easily doubled. The dough at this stage is light, airy and really looks from what I have seen online as it should, it also feels as it should. I then do some tension building on the work surface before shaping and putting in fridge for 10-12 hours. I then bake in a dutch oven for 25 min with lid on and a further 20 min with lid off.
Both loaves have been gummy/sticky even after leaving to cool for 4+hours. Crust looks good to me, taste is great but the dough doesn't seem to rise quite as it should and the crumb sticks to the knife/is gummy & sticky....what am I doing wrong here? The poke test seems to look good before going in oven but I have a feeling I might be over-proofing? But then maybe it isn't but actually under fermentation? or even under-cooked,
There are some pics here for reference.
Thank you all and appreciate any help and your time!
1. What is the baking temperature? Have you checked to ensure that the actual oven temperature matches the selected temperature?
2. Do you preheat the dutch oven? If yes, how long?
3. Do you bake the dough straight from the refrigerator or do you allow it to come to room temperature first?
Not knowing the answers to the above questions, the best I can do is guess that the bread isn't baked long enough, or that the oven temperature isn't high enough, or some combination of two. Also, if the DO isn't preheated, that would tilt in favor of using a longer bake than if it is preheated.
Paul
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the reply, apologies I should have included this info.
1. I use a gas oven and 260C is it's max. I haven't checked the actual oven temp!
2. Yes for 30 min at 260C
3. Yes straight from the fridge.
What you show and describe looks and sounds good. You can get away with proofing it less and you may find that more to your liking. You might cut off an hour from the bulk ferment and see how you like it.
Alternatively you might consider using cold water in the dough or adding the salt right at the beginning, both of which will slow down fermentation.
My last suggestion is that you may prefer a drier dough. You can drop down to 310 g water or even 300 g and you may prefer that texture. The formula you are using usually produces a moist bread that can gum a knife and it's not to everyone's preference.
I suggest you try reducing bulk fermentation first, and if you don't find the results promising, then drop the water content.
Undercooked or needs to rest longer. Those are the only two possibilities for "gummy" crumb.
Cook longer
Reduce water
Longer resting time
...here is one which could help.
You can set the probe temp alarm to 210°F and then be sure it's done in the center of your loaf. About $22USD from Amazon. Also useful for other cooking.
Hi Everyone!
Thanks for the tips, very very much appreciated! Ok so I have just baked again and it is an improvement for sure, not so gummy and not as sticky to the knife, I would say still a tiny bit sticky, personally I would just like it a little more fluffy/dry but it is an encouraging improvement. Please see images below.
So I only made a few small changes. I only reduced the bulk rise slightly, reduced the fridge section to 7 hours and then made sure oven was preheated fully for an hour and then cooked 30min with lid on and 20 min with lid off, let cool for 5 hours.
Super happy so thanks! I think I will reduce water in my next bake just to see the difference and I can get a handle on what is going on.
As a side note I left the dough for around 1hr 45min after last fold for bulk, so I think it worked out as around 5 hours in total from the mix to the fridge. I took some of the dough after mixing the salt and put it in a measuring jug to see the rise I was getting after this time and it had risen around 175/200% maybe more. The poke test after the fridge seemed to show it was well proven.....anyway much happier with this result.
Thanks all for your input!
Another side note. I use wholemeal flour for my starter and all-purpose for baking, not sure if this would mean anything different but hey ho,