February 19, 2017 - 7:01am
Crumb problems
Hello,
lately I've been having issues with my crumb. I haven't changed anything in my baking process.Flour, temps, leaven or folding is all the same. The only difference is the season.
As you can see, the top part of my loaf has a very large air pocket. This doesn't happen all the time and mostly with larger loafs (3,5 Lb)
I bulk for about 3 hours at 74 - 82,5F. Bench rest for about 30min. And retard in fridge at 39F until the following day. I bake my loafs straight from the fridge at 500F until the core temp is about 210F in a stone hearth oven with steam.
Is there anyone out there that can help me understand what is going on. Much appreciated.
Turs.
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If it was scored it is either not shaped to degas properly and or it is over proofed.
It was scored but not very deep, I never degas as I have always heard never to do that with a sourdough. I like an open crumb and thought that degassing it would create a more dense crumb. I handle my dough very gently when dividing, preshaping and shaping. Thank you for your advise.
in terms of degassing. I figured that I had to keep all those bubbles. Keeping them never helped with my oven spring so I started handing the dough a bit more firmly.
When shaping and pre-shaping, I give the dough a good tug all the way around and that pops the larger bubbles while keeping the smaller ones. It also redistributes the wee beasties so they have access to more food.
To finish off, I give the dough a good pull across my board to ensure a nice and tight skin before putting the loaves in baskets. Any huge bubbles seen get popped then as well. I find the volume probably gets reduced by a third when I do all of this but it all comes back during the final proof which I always do in the fridge.
Hope this helps!
not do a pre-shape and shape that degases the dough properly .......so you don't get what you got - a flying roof at the top of your bread. You don't want to kill it either. You just want to make sure the large air bubbles produced during bulk ferment are no longer in the dough when it proofs. Don't worry your bread will still be very open.
Happy baking
Over proofed by a little bit.
Are you folding your dough during the bulk rise? If so, how many times and what is your folding method?