HELP! High Hydration Fails
Hey all,
I have been baking for about three months now,making my way through Tartine, with great beginners success. But I seemed to have hit a bread wall of sorts. As most of you probably know there is nothing quite as demoralizing as pulling out a dud sourdough loaf. The time lost, the bread that could have been eaten! For the first month I focused only on the country loaf and churned out some beautiful, light loaves. Now that i'm expanding to different, high hydration loaves (80+) I have failing somewhat miserably. They are super heavy, with little to no oven spring, and really gummy. After a couple of failed loaves I went back to the original tartine country loaf to see if it was the oven or water (I moved kitchens right as my loaves started getting worse) and it was beautiful. I will post some photos below or my most recent.
I'm not sure what the issue is-- possibilities that I can think of...
My dough is not feeling as firm during the pre-shape and final shape. Am I losing gas because of a clunky pre/final shaping?
I am using new flour from a local mill, Fairhaven Mill organic AP and Hard red wheat. Maybe the protein content isnt high enough?
I am not developing the gluten properly. Too many stretch and fold (I do 5 per bulk ferment)? Too few stretch and folds?
My starter is not vibrant enough? Even though is consistently passes the float test.
Would really love your thoughts and suggestions. This is keeping me up at night! (kidding) (kind of)
Sounds like it's just too much water for the flour. It could just be that the flour is not as dry as other brands. I follow Josey Baker on Instagram. He recently went to Australia and tried his recipe with the local flour and it failed. He had to lower the hydration and made other adjustments to the time schedule.
Maybe so! I did switch flours to a local mill. I will have to give him a follow. Such a great bread community on Instagram
Are you still following formula from Tartine, such as the whole wheat bread? Or are you using someone else's formula?
I find that when I bake with 200 grams of levain and 1000 grams of additional flour, I get great results.
i am using the Tartine whole wheat recipe With slightly more levain. 700 ww 300g ap 250 g levain 800g water + 50 g water. Too much water? Too much levain?
His directions for the whole wheat loaf do not to use 850 grams of water. When I make it I use 800 grams. If you want use 750 +50 I am sure that would be fine.
I am not sure whether the extra levain is causing a problem but I would not use it and see if the bread improves.
..wrong here? Just kidding, sorry. :)
You do need to match protein levels with hydration. Can you find out what percent protein your old flour was? Same for the new flours? Then try and do a blend that approximates to what you used before. Test bake and see what it is like. I'm in the UK and have to adjust the hydration and/or protein pretty much every US or Canadian recipe I try. Ditto for US bakers trying UK or Continental formulae. If you do a quick search on TFL you will posts of humungous length as bakers try to come to grips with this problem. Well worth a read.
Of course, protein level is not the only factor here, but adjusting it usually works.
I think I will do some investigation on my old flour vs new. Also reduce the water!