Dead bread
This was my first bread dough R.I.P.
It looked and smelled so bad I didn't bother tasting
Here goes the story...
Ingredients: 300g whole wheat, 300g allpurpose, 512g water, 60g starter @ 100% (float test passed) some cranberries and a pinch salt
I first mixed up the flours and water and let them sit to autolyse for some 2-3 days, sometimes on the counter sometime refrigerated (I admittedly was too busy to keep up with the times)
Then 2-3 days post autolyse I worked in the rest of the ingredients, stretch and folded 6-7 times over 2-3 hours and then let it sit refrigerated another day
The next day I took it out the refrigerator and warmed up to room temp for an hour or two, at the end of which it still looked like diarreah
I started working the dough, it was very sticky to the touch so I kept adding more and more flour during kneading to decrease the hydration but no matter how hard I tried slapping its a** off the the dough (or whatever that was) would always tear apart and never hold its shape (window pane test always failed obviously)
I knew it was going to die even harder in the oven but decided to give it a try hoping for miracle (though mostly because I hate food waste)
I preheated the oven to 240C with a baking stone in the lower third
I lightly oiled the pan and coated it with extra flour, shaped the dough into a rectangle the size of the pan and proofed it covered with a damp towel on the stove, in the hope that the heat from the heating oven will revive the yeasts and somehow raise the dough but it did just the opposite, the dough cracked open and dried out
Then 5 min before baking I poured in a glass of hot water in a baking sheet at the very bottom right below the stone
I reduced to 200C, placed the pan on the stone and 30min later removed the loaf from the pan, rotated it and put it directly on the stone
I opened the oven door slightly to let some fresh air in and cool down the loaf
The product was a solid dry piece of concrete, lightly burnt on the bottom, smelling like it came out of a house fire, not something I would let into my GI tract
* the following contains disturbing imagery viewer discretion advised
Could it be the too long of autolyse or the over proofing that killed it?
My first thought. The autolyse was way too long. When water comes in contact with flour enzymatic action starts to take place. This action, given enough time will degrade the dough. It will get soupy, sticky, and ultimately turn to slop. The only way I know to keep flour wet and not completely break it down is by cooling it down. Either cold bulk ferment or cold proof.
What recipe/formula are you following?
Dan
I agree with Danayo - there are some varying times on autolyse but generally you will see something like this: An autolyse is the gentle mixing of the flour and water in a bread recipe, followed by a 20 to 60 minute rest period. How did you come up with the idea of stretching that into days?
If you agree with someone then you say "seconded". If you agree with two people can you say "thirded"?
Anyway... what Dan and Edo said. Far to long an autolyse. True meaning of autolyse is "self digestion". Sounds like your bread has been fully digested.
What you want from an autolyse is for the sugars to become available and a kick start to the gluten formation. You don't want complete flour degradation.
That's what I thought just wasn't too sure as I did so many mistakes I couldn't point the initial cause of this failure
I'll give it another try with a 30min autlolyse and and see how it goes from there
I just gave it another try following recipe from Patrick Ryan
I read somewhere you should use ice cold water during mixing as if the dough gets hotter than 26deg it's ruined but I didn't trust that because they always say use "tepid" or "lukewarm" water; I used just room temp water, but the starter was 40deg when I added it
After about 7min kneading it got this kind of stretchiness but didn't fully pass pane test (not sure, I had only some small panes)
The dough at this point was anyway incomparable with the dough from the first try, it was very stretchy and easy to fold/shape into something
I kept kneading some 20-30 min more and this is what it looks like right now
I'm trying to shape it back into a ball as I did prior to the extra kneading but it just keeps collapsing almost like the first dough (only that it's more stretchy now)
it looks nothing like Ryan's dough it's too runny and I can't even hold it in the air without it collapsing in my hands (not tearing though)
Is there anything wrong with this dough? add more flour? starter temp ruined it? or should I proceed with proofing?