July 27, 2015 - 2:45am
Why did my sourdough breads not get much oven spring?
HI all
I just finished two breads. As you can see in the picture, they didnt get much pop when placed in the oven.
What I have read, when I searched this site, is that one of the many reasons is that the dough is overproofed.
Here are some of the (minor?) changes I made, compared to my normal routine...
- This time I mixed the dough on my Kenwood mixer at the lowest speed for 4-5 minutes. Usually I just stretch and fold 3-4 times.
- During the 3 feeding of the very active sourdough, I placed it in the fridge for 12 hours after it has raised to (allmost) double, in order to get a little more sour taste out of it.
- The (2cond) proofing happend i the fridge for 12 hours, also to get it more sour.
- The breads rested for 1 hour longer (2 hours total) than usual efter being taken out of the fridge.
- The oven temp was a little lower that usual. 250 deg C compared to the usual 275 deg C during the whole bake.
- It took a little longer to put the bread in the oven. Maybe a couple of minutes more.
- I used Pumpkin seeds this time. They were added during 2 stretch and Folds. Yes I added 2-3 s&f even though I mixed the dough on the machine.
I know, I changed really many factors and I dont expect a precise answer. It wouldnt be fair. But if you have any
ideas at all, please comment :)
BR and bake well
Share
Recipe along with method.
Heres is the recipe...
200 gram of sourdough (100%, WW and bottled water)
400 gram of Organic Fine Wheat Flour
400 gram of Organic Medium Wheat Flour
18 grams Himalaya Salt
Method:
This is my usual method, that usually works fine.
Hope it helps :)
I only see 100g of water within your starter though. But I see you calculate the hydration at 70% which is fine.
Looks pretty solid to me.
The only thing I can think of is You're over doing the final proofing. 1hr 30min after spending 12 hours in the fridge might be too much.
I usually keep the dough at room temperature for 20-30min before refrigerating. The next day (12 hours later) i'll bake it straight from the fridge with good results.
Nothing much wrong (well not that I can see) with anything else. What's the gluten formation like after the final stretch and fold?
forgot to add the water to the recipe... now added :)
560 grams of cold tap water
plus, the long retard in the fridge then another 1hr 30min after taking it out of the fridge before baking is beginning to sound like over proofing.
660 water / 900 flour = 0.7333 x 100 = 73.3% hydration.
I allways counted the hydration by what I added of fresh flour and water... untill recently.
But, yes you are absulutely right :-)
is it and second, do the loaves seem pale to you for the baking time you gave them?
Before the second proof/ rise in the fridge for 12 hours, how fermented was the dough?
What is the percentage of starter to flour in the recipe? and the Hydration?
5 little questions... ...six... Dough temp?
After you posted the recipe, looks like delayed salt may be the source of the problem, too much enzymic activity is tearing the dough gluten down with time.
Here are the answers...
Hope it helps :)
Good question... I actually never measued the temp of the dough. The water added was cold tapwater.
Delayed salt?
But isnt that the pupose of the autolyse? Or did you mean the autolyse was to long?
minus the starter and salt.
When I do autolyse i'll just do the flour and water for 30 minutes, then i'll sprinkle the salt over the top followed by the starter and combine.
Then i'll knead it for 10 - 15min and then proceed onto bulk fermentation + stretch and folds.
Many autolyse with the starter but you'll have to include the autolyse in the total bulk fermentation time. And don't forget the salt controls the yeast so if done for an extended period of time might be over doing it.
Thank you sir.
I actually never considered autolyse as part of the fermentation time. Well you learn somthing new every time :-)
Once the starter is inside the dough the bulk fermentation time starts.
I don't include it as I autolyse without the starter. Autolyse is to get the gluten formation off to a good start.
Maybe the autolyse time was too long, I generally give this 1/2 hour before adding the salt. Your total time before the cold retardation is pretty much the same as what I use but I retard the whole dough for 20 hours (see David Snyder's San Joaquin sourdough recipe on TFL) before preliminary and final shaping. When dough comes out of the refrigerator it sits at room temperature for 45-60 minutes depending on how warm it is in the kitchen. Final shaping in banneton or on a couche is only 30 minutes. Oven spring has always been fine.
retarding at bulk fermentation stage then taking it out to warm up and shaping for final proofing is sound.
Could very well be that the method described is over proofing. Shaped into banneton, retarded for 12 hours then 1hr 30min at room temperature on top of that sounds like over proofing.
So you actually put the dough in the fridge and shape the breads efter that. I havent tried that. What are the advantages compared to shaping before retarding in the frigde?
you can firm up the gluten by pre-shaping the cold dough and then final shaping shortly thereafter. Usually I get a doubling in size of the dough after 20 hours in the cold and you can see lots of good big bubbles showing active fermentation. As I noted before, I follow David Snyder's San Joaquin sourdough approach and my bread is 10% rye.
I think what's happening with your bread is over proofing as you have it in the banneton for such a long period of time. Also, high whole wheat breads don't develop as strong gluten because of the bran.
You can easily bulk ferment for 4-6 hours. I think it's the final proofing you've got to look out for. so here's a bit of a rewrite of your recipe:
RECIPE:
200 gram of sourdough (100%, WW and bottled water)
400 gram of Organic Fine Wheat Flour
400 gram of Organic Medium Wheat Flour
18 grams Himalaya Salt
Method:
Hi everyone,
just thought I’d post a thank you for all the tips in this thread. I’m a chef in London, so not working at the moment, and have been using the time to finally get to grips with sourdough bread making. I was struggling with flat loaves, but I followed all the steps in this recipe (with 560g water) and also let my starter get more active before adding it, and it’s worked a lot better.
still plenty to learn, but much better than I was doing before.
thanks for all the knowledge on the forum, and I hope everyone is safe and well.
mike
B17782A6-D5CE-4396-A59D-2C5F0757F3CD.jpeg
Not much oven spring? It's a 73% hydration dough with a significant portion of whole wheat. I think it's an excellent oven spring all things considered.
that a 73% hydration with larger part of whole wheat can have a better oven spring? Could you elaborate?
Think about it this way- Hamelman's ciabatta is 73% hydration. It's 100% strong bread flour. It's not slashed.
That is a sound proposition. Ill be sure to try it next time I bake. Should be within a few days. Ill report back.
But to boil everything down, the main reason for the lack of oven spring is too long proofing time after retarding in the fridge and too long autolyse.
Too long final proofing. Very critical stage. Aim for 85-90% risen and not doubled. Autolyse is more of a case of not necessary. 30 mintues should be ample. In the strictest sense of "autolyse" it should be done minus the salt and starter. If you wish to use the starter within the autolyse then make sure to include it in your bulk fermentation time. I don't think you went too overboard but 30 minutes should be ample especially doing it with the starter.
Try the tweaked version and see what happens.
I regularly autolyse, with salt, for 6-8 hours, so an hour is nowhere near too long.
The total time before baking, on the other hand, might be a bit long.
is that a typo? Did you mean without?
Autolyse is definitely without salt. With or without starter is open for debate but the person who came up with autolyse explained it as without salt nor starter.
But the more I think about this the more I lean towards the final proofing being too long. This ratio of starter to flour can easily do 4-6 hours bulk fermentation so 4 hours in total even excluding the autolyse is not going to be the make or break.
I know that the 20-30 minute soak which is known as an autolyse is usually done without salt but I have no other shorthand way of referring to what I do, which is to leave all the ingredients except the yeast to stand for six to eight hours before adding the yeast, except to refer to it as an extended autolyse.
I've just checked the definition of 'autolyse', which is: "...to undergo or cause to undergo autolysis" and the definition of autolysis is: "The destruction of tissues or cells of an organism by the action of substances, such as enzymes, that are produced within the organism". No mention of flour or salt but I doubt that autolysis in flour would progress very far in just 20-30 minutes.
Here's the canonical definition of autolysis from The Taste of Bread: "Autolysis is the slow-speed premixing of the flour and water in a recipe (excluding all the other ingredients), followed by a rest period. The other ingredients are added when mixing is recommenced."
Salt is beneficial to the dough but that doesn't mean the more one puts in the better it'll be. A mere 2% of flour for salt is all that is needed.
While a longer autolyse, just flour and water, won't be harmful like too much salt the benefits are too small to out weigh the extra time being put into it. The biggest benefit is within the first 30 minutes and after that it's greatly reduced.
Subtlety!
And of course if one adds in the starter into the autolyse, while it isn't a big no-no like the salt, this changes the benefits gained too. So it is heard of but one should go easy to retain the benefits.
The flour + water gets to work on the gluten development without the starter being present which the lab within the starter breaks down. The art to making bread is to bring the gluten development and yeast inoculation into sync. If left too long the starter will turn the dough into mush by destroying the gluten. Autolysing helps the gluten development along undeterred. Again, the key is subtlety. Now the main reason for autolysing is for the flour to absorb the water properly and of course the salt is detrimental to this process.
Well that's my very laymen way of understanding it. Please correct me on anything which I've misunderstood or failed to explain properly.
"Salt is beneficial to the dough but that doesn't mean the more one puts in the better it'll be."
Indeed not. Fortunately, no one has suggested any such thing.
"While a longer autolyse, just flour and water, won't be harmful like too much salt the benefits are too small to out weigh the extra time being put into it. The biggest benefit is within the first 30 minutes and after that it's greatly reduced."
If the purpose of the autolyse is to ensure the flour has absorbed as much moisture as possible before starting to develop the gluten and that any bran in the mixture is softened so as to reduce gluten abrasion, then I'd agree. But one of the purposes of a long development cycle is to give the enzymes in the flour time to break down the indigestible parts of the flour and make the nutritional components of the wheat available in a form that our bodies can assimilate. Whether that's done with the salt and/or leaven in the mix is immaterial, it's still autolysis or 'the breakdown of plant or animal tissue by the action of enzymes contained in the tissue affected; self-digestion'. Some people like to let the process happen during a long ferment; I find it more convenient to do so in an extended autolyse and I include the salt because salt helps gluten development and the gluten development I get from a spelt and emmer mixture by this method is excellent, the flavours released by the autolysis superb.
And you don't have to 'put time into it', you just mix the dough, go and do something else and time enters the equation all by itself.
I never said anyone suggested anything. Just giving examples of everything in the correct quantities and time as well.
I think time would be of upmost importance if someone has mixed their starter in at the autolyse stage.
The very person who inspired autolyse in bread baking was very specific in what it is used for and how to do it. While the dough will benefit from a long autolyse the amount of time you'd have to do it for and the added benefits one gets beyond half an hour is minimal unless it is extended for a long time. So 1 hour instead of 30 minutes is actually insignificant. One could autolyse using warm water to speed things up.
"I think time would be of upmost importance if someone has mixed their starter in at the autolyse stage."
Which is the very reason I don't. I can leave my 'long autolyse' for six, eight, even twelve hours, until it's convenient to start the fermentation.
"The very person who inspired autolyse in bread baking was very specific in what it is used for and how to do it."
I'm sure he or she was but then, as I explained, I'm not doing an autolyse purely for the reason he/she started doing it. That is the reason I started using an autolyse but then, after reading a comment in a Peter Reihart book, I realised that it would be much more convenient to extended the autolyse and let the enzymes work away before taking the dough to the fermentation stage. That's why I refer to it as an 'extended autolyse'. If you'd like to suggest another term which you'd feel more comfortable with then I'd be happy to consider adopting it but, until then, I don't know what else to call it. Especially as its purpose is autolysis.
My original comments were aimed at autolyse with starter. And yes, given long enough the benefits do increase and from the sound of it you do use a lot of wholegrain which benefits from very long autolyse.
Whatever works at the end of the day :)
You might wish to autolyse with warm water which I believe speeds things up. I myself, for my own needs, have found 30 minutes ample but I'm only comparing 30min to 1 hr and not much longer like you. Perhaps I'll try it myself the next time I do a lot of wholegrain.
We can all learn from each others experience.
I use a mixture of water and milk, so I have to heat it to destroy the enzyme in milk, name forgotten, which impedes gluten development. I usually let it cool to ~30-35°C before adding it to the flour/salt mixture. The dough ends up at ~25°C, which just happens to be the almost constant temperature of my office, so I leave it there to soak and put it back there to ferment once the yeast's been added.
There are probably as many ways of making bread as there are bakers. I happen to have ended up with a slightly unusual one but I get such good results using it that I don't like to fix what isn't broken.
That may be a definition of autolysis as seen from the narrow perspective of baking but it has a specific meaning in a much wider context, as seen here: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/autolysis where you'll find the definition I quoted. As I'm soaking the flour to facilitate enzymatic action, self-digestion, I don't think it unreasonable to use the correct term for the process, although I'm happy to use the phrase 'extended autolyse' to better align with the way the term is used in baking.
Sure, if you believe that what you are doing is bigger than bread baking it's entirely your prerogative.
I'm sorry that you feel you have to denigrate my post by introducing a straw man argument to the discussion but that's your prerogative. It certainly bears no relation to my stance, however, so you'll excuse me if I ignore any further responses in that vein from you.
I think my argument is perfectly valid. Words may have a different meaning depending on the scope of activities they are applied to. Plucking means different things to a musician and a chicken farmer. In the same vein autolysis means different things to a baker and a biochemist. You can't just pick a definition that better suits you, however ill-fitting it is.
"You can't just pick a definition that better suits you, however ill-fitting it is."
Then I'm surprised to hear that you're such an avid supporter of the pre-existing term 'autolyse' being adopted for a process which isn't carried out for the purpose of autolysis. You can't just make up a new definition for a word which already has one, no matter how much better the new one suits your purpose. Ask Alice. She had this discussion with Humpty Dumpty a long time ago.
"You can't just make up a new definition"
Of course we can, we reuse words and assign new meanings to them all the time. I am though an avid supporter of not diluting definitions, as in not calling every three-stage build a Detmolder, or not calling every incomplete mix autolysis.
Oh, OK. Then I'll redefine autolyse as "to undergo or cause to undergo autolysis". That means that I can drop the 'extended' bit and just call what I do an autolyse. How's that?
If you can convince everyone else to accept this as a definition of autolysis as applied to bread-baking I don't see why not.
Well someone apparently convinced everyone that it meant something different from its actual meaning, so I have to be in with a good chance of convincing everyone that it means what the dictionary says it means, don't I?
It wasn't the autolyse itself, although the benefits beyond 30 minutes are not significant enough to extend it to such an extent, but original thought process was the autolyse with starter for an extended period of time might be too long.
But as agree on the bulk ferment wasn't over done and the final proof should be watched more closely.
> It wasn't the autolyse itself, although the benefits beyond 30 minutes are not significant enough to extend it to such an extent...
Not if you're going to retard overnight in the fridge but if the fermentation stage is fairly short, only three to four hours, then extending the autolyse is extremely beneficial.
the starter was maturing (not sure if it only doubles when it peaks) and then standing in the fridge for 12 hours. That wouldn't normally make a great big difference but the enzymes were most likely built up and then salt free, the starter could attack the newly forming gluten in the dough. I think there is where the problem may lie.
As previously said, changing the way the dough is autolysed might make a difference. Give the gluten some strength first before letting the enzymes work at the dough. Then add the salt and starter and continue.
Never actually heard that expression about sourdough. Are you talking about LAB or?
What is it in the sourdough that attacks the gluten structure? Do the enzymes build up during the 12 hours in the fridge?
Im a noob, so Im a little confused, please bear with me.
Here is an explanation of enzymes and how they work in bread making: Enzymes: The Little Molecules That Bake Bread. Here are a couple of points in the article that I think are important to remember:
And this is also good to remember:
It's all a balancing act between yeast, bacteria and enzymes that give us that delicious loaf of bread.
I look at the slashes in the crust and I see plenty of oven spring -- they really opened up.
What am I missing?
does when it slightly over proofs. Next time try baking it straight out of the fridge with no warm up (it only got worse by warming it up) or just reshape it and let it proof again on the counter until it rises 50% in volume (not 80% since it has already risen too much and you aren't knocking it completely back ). Remember you want an 80% shaped proof max in the fridge, not 100%, if you are going to let it warm up before baking.
It looks like a simple matter of over proofing and a problem easy enough to fix..
Professor Calvel, a chemist, found the bread making method of mixing water with flour only and letting it rest for a period of time in a French bread book from 1290 AD but this process likely predates that by hundreds of years. Being a chemist, he knew all about autolysis. He thought this process might be similar so he called it autolyse for bread making. People that change the meanings of words forget that they really do have meaning. When words get changed willy nilly to suit someone's fancy, so they can say me too...me too, eventually the words have no meaning to anyone.
Autolyse is just such an example. Now when you say auotolyse 1 hour in a recipe, no one knows what you mean, even if you do, when it was once a very simple thing - mixing flour and water and letting it rest for a period of time.
Artisan Bread is another example. It used to mean bread that was hand crafted by hand without the use of machines by an artisan and baked in a wood fired oven. Now it can mean anything to anyone and is a pretty much a worthless marketing word for everyone.
People have a way of complicating their lives to the point that they can't talk to and understand each other much less cope with a world that is outside of their control most always:-)
Happy baking
is how much time is too much? I hear some retard the dough 8 hours, some 12 and other even 20 hours in the fridge.
Does the time in the fridge count as proofing at all?
I retard for 8, 12, 21 hours all the time but each depends onnthe formula used. The amount of time that is too much is determined when the dough over ferments or over proofs and this depends on several things. The hydration - low is slow, the amount of pre-fermented flour in the levain and its hydration - the higher the faster, the temperature - the higher the faster, the amount of while grains - the more the faster, the length of gluten development and counter bulk ferment - the longer the faster the retard.
Yes the retard counts as proofing to some degree. Since it takes hours for the dough to get to 36 F in the fridge, depending on the size, the first few ours there is quite a bit of fermenting and proofing going on and much less after a few hours.. You can check this yourself by doing a bulk ferment in the fridge and check on it at 2 4 and 8 hours. You will see that the majority of volume increase happens during the first 4 hours. So the difference between an 8 - 12 and 24 hour retard isn't really all that much when it comes to volume increase - which has nothing to do with flavor increase.
Happy baking
Hi all
New and old bread
New bake
So today I baked these breads according to what was written in this thread.
I reduced the Autolyse time to 30 minutes instead of 1 hour before adding salt and sourdough. Usually I include the sourdough in the Autolyse.
Another thing I did different was to put the breads directly in the oven from the fridge. Usually I take out the bread and let them rest at roomtemp while the oven heats up (about 1 hour).
I also took the Roasting pan of 5-10 min before taking the breads out. That migh be why they are so dark.
The questions remains...
Was it the shorter autolyse, without the sourdough (and salt) or the lack of rest/proof after the fridge, or both, that resulted in the better result?
I guess I'd have to try to omit one or the other and see what happens :)
Anyway thank you all, especially Abe and Mini for the good suggestions!
BR and bake well
Nice oven spring and lovely crust. You must be pleased. I think the biggest impact was baking straight from the fridge after the long retard. Don't forget it carries on proofing in the fridge albeit slower. Taking it out and continuing for 1hr 30min at room temperature would result in over proofing. That doesn't mean to say the "new" way of autolysing didn't help at all. It is still the better way of autolysing. Continue to do both. Looking forward to the crumb shot.
Now I haven't tried this myself and I think with my next bake i'll try to do this - retarding at the bulk fermentation stage. I believe that after the last stretch and fold and the gluten is fully developed then it is put in the fridge. After the 12+ hours then take it out of the fridge, shape and final proof at room temperature till ready (85-90% risen). Then compare and contrast. See which way you like best and have better results.
But really nice bake. Must be very satisfying.
Bon Appetite.
We can all see the difference when the dough is not over proofed! I'm pretty sure the shorter autolyse had nothing to do with it. I don't autolyse for les=s than an hour and usually at least twice that amount - it makes for better crumb and lift - with the more whole grains in the mix the longer you want to autolyse. Many on TFL autolyse whole grain breads overnight. Next time, autolyse for 90 minutes and it will be just the same if the dough isn't over proofed:-) The hardest thing to learn in bread making in my book is knowing when the dough is properly proofed and ready for baking Every recipe is different depending on hydration amount of levain, percent of whole grains length of bulk ferment etc.....and different recipes require a different % of proof.
Love the bold bake. That caramelized crust makes for on fine tasting bread
Happy baking
Was important. Which was the main point. Yes, wholegrains do need longer but this bread was mainly white flour where 30min was ample.
Longer autolyse will never be unbeneficial (unless starter included).
with not knowing when the breads are ready for the oven after the final proof. Wish there was some kind of trick to it beside the poke test.
Many times when I take the breads out of the fridge, the dough is so cold and hard that I dont know if it is proofed enough. It is so hard to determine by the poke test when the dough is cold. It is a little easier with a dough that has roomtemp.
Hmm cant seem to embed the picture properly so here is a link to the Crust... http://imgur.com/o4cFDTS
It really is a nice bake this time. The crust is without big holes but its still very "airy" and delicate.
I tried the Detmold method with the souedough (not rye though), cus I wanted more sour this time. It didnt get more
sour but the taste got more deep and stronger. Now I dont know if it was the new method or if the
Detmold caused this More experimenting to do I guess.
I will try to Retard during the first fermentations to taste if theres is any difference. What I seek is,
like most have I guess, more sour and more taste. Maybe retard both Bulk and final proofing would
work. So many thing to try and so little time!
Thanks again Abe :-)
and lovely crumb. Really does look delicious. No looking back now.
I also have a confession to make ;) I often retard at final proofing stage to prevent me from over proofing.
I've never heard of the Detmold method and will be having a look into this.
You can try a few more things now to help increase the flavour...
1. Use a higher hydration starter
2. and/or decrease the amount of starter and increase the fermentation time
100% flour
73% water
2% salt
20% starter @ 125% hydration
820g flour (656g bread flour, 164g whole rye)
560g water
18g salt
164g starter (73g whole wheat flour + 91g water)
So here we have an almost 125% hydration starter (which will bubble more but not rise as much so watch out for that). It is also whole wheat to encourage sourness (which I think you did already).
In the main dough you have some whole rye as 20% of the flour for depth of flavour.
Try this with the method you did for this bread. But bulk fermentation will be slightly longer as there is 20% starter this time instead of 25%. So go by feel too. Doubled for bulk fermentation then knock back, shape and retard for 12 hours.
See how that works.
Getting some strong bread flour in there will help with oven spring. And when adding the salt and starter giving it a good old fashioned knead for a good 10 minutes before carrying on with bulk fermentation + stretch and folds also really helps.
as adept in reading the sourdough, that I would throw myself out to experiment with this high hydration percentage.
I think it takes some experience to go by feel compared to just see when it is doubled. But eventually I will enter
the more advanced level, cus its exciting to try somthing new.
The levain build should just add up to the flour+water as mentioned. Wait 12 hours and proceed.
The final hydration of the loaf I've kept the same but with more wholegrain it'll be easier to handle.
And as for the bulk fermentation you did 4 hours last time at 25% starter.
This one is 20% starter so not much different. Take it to 4 hours and start keep an eye on it. I reckon you can do up to 5 hours for this one. If you remember that while you did 4 hours for your last one we did discuss that you could have done 4-6. Same here!
If you choose to do it... Enjoy! :)
73g whole wheat flour + 91g water:
So 20g of your 100% hydration starter (which is 10g flour + 10g water) + 63g whole wheat flour + 81g water.
leave for 12-14 hours (overnight) and proceed.
someday, but not yet. I have so many idears and stuff to test out, that Im occupied for the next period of time.
you mentioned using tap water. Is your water chlorinated? Might that make a difference? I’d like to know as well
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just thought I’d post a thank you for all the tips in this thread. I’m a chef in London, so not working at the moment, and have been using the time to finally get to grips with sourdough bread making. I was struggling with flat loaves, but I followed all the steps in this recipe (with 560g water) and also let my starter get more active before adding it, and it’s worked a lot better.
still plenty to learn, but much better than I was doing before.
thanks for all the knowledge on the forum, and I hope everyone is safe and well. Baguettes next!
mike