Bread Either Splits or Falls *confused*
Hello,
I’m new here and new in the world of sourdough. I was given a starter by a friend and have been really into baking the past month or so.
My problem comes during baking. I bulk prove for 3 hours and then fold and separate and prove for another three hours. The recipe I use is menough for two loaves. This is where it gets tricky. When I make two loaves then the bake is no good and has no rise. When it comes out of the second prove it’s very airy and seems to collapse.
I also use the same recipe for four smaller loaves essentially cutting each loaf in half. When these smaller loaves bake they seem to split and explode. I originally thought i wasn’t scoring properly so I went into the next bake with confidence and scored pretty well. Still exploded.
Regarding the bigger loaves I thought they were overproved and that’s why they collapsed. I cut three hours to two and they still come out feeling very fragile and don’t rise on the bake.
What would cause the bigger loaves to not rise and the smaller loaves to overrise?
And to preempt your question on recipe this is what I do:
800g bread flour
460ml tepid water
10g sea salt
320g starter
and my baking is as follows:
450F 30 minutes for big loaves and 25 minutes for smaller loaves. two small loaves at a time and one big loaf at a time.
PS. id add pics but they don't seem to want to work.
Preempting the preemptive preempting ?:
When starter is 320 g, then it probably matters how much of the starter is water, and how much is flour.
when I got my starter, I was told to keep it simple with a 1:1 ratio. after having issues with my bakes I spoke to my sourdough guru friend yesterday and he suggested for my application the starter is probably over-hydrated and I should try a 2:1 ratio. so on my bake today I used my normal 1:1 ratio and instead of 460ml of water I only used 400ml. the dough was so much easier to work with. then after todays bake I fed 2:1 as suggested by my friend.
however, even with using less water this time the small loaves exploded by one or more score lines. I'm waiting to see what my first bake with 2:1 starter will be like.
to explain the pics:
the one where there is only four loaves is from my bake today with the reduced water.
the other two pictures are of my normal bake yesterday with the full water and 1:1 ratio. you could see the bigger loaves are flat and sad and the smaller loaves are bursting with joy.
Is it possible that the way you shape the larger loaves is not as good as what you do with the smaller ones? Could that be part of the problem?
This could be. I use the same bowls for the bigger and smaller loaves proving so it’s probably not the proving but it’s very possible I don’t get the larger loaves tight enough.
Shaping and Tension is where I'd put my guess. The bread looks full but quite out of shape.