Issues with gluten development in fresh-milled sourdough
Hi,
Long-time, first-time.
I bought a grain mill several months back, and have been trying to... make things with my own grain. While I've never made anything really great, my rate of "miss" has gotten very high.
The most typical case is that my dough either fails to develop or to retain gluten. I very often end up with dough that i can just pull apart with no resistance. There is no connection between the various bits of dough.
Process notes:
Grain: Recently I've been using a lot of Central Milling Kamut (I got a good price on 25#), though I also use or mix in Hard White Winter that I've gotten at co-ops, and some Great River Soft White Winter.
Mill: I try to mill at the point where my Mock Mill stones are clicking, then generally sift with what I think is this one (thrift store purchase). I get roughly 10% out/90% extraction, though my flour still has a coarse feeling.
Starter: I try to feed at least twice a day. I used to do almost entirely KABF, but have tried to mix in at least 15% fresh-ish milled. It's pretty vibrant and generally more than doubles in its quart container.
Environment: I'm in the NorthEast so generally 60's in the house this time of year.
Methodology: I have been trying a preferment, sometimes trying to build it gradually. I usually start in the morning, sometimes stiff (60g flour - 30 g water - 20 to 40g risen starter), sometimes 100% hydration. Sometimes I build with another feeding of about 100% the weight of the full preferment, sometimes I drop into 40-minute autolysed dough. Generally 2-2.5% salt; 70-80% hydration.
I'm going for either bread or a pan pizza/focaccia, and I've really just not gotten anywhere near there recently. By and large, when I just use commercial flour (KABF), I get a pretty good to great product.
I'd love anyone's advice!
A few questions to narrow down the issue:
- How long do you mix the dough?
- How much gluten (protein) does your flour/flour mix roughly contain?
- Do you do stretch & folds during BF?
Tell us a bit more about your process too (ratios, mixing time, BF time, final proof time etc.)
One thing I can already say that 70-80% hydration is quite high when working with weaker gluten doughs. I recently tested a dough with 80% wheat bread flour + 20% grain mix (wheat, rye, spelt and few others, just for different flavor) and 73% hydration. It resulted in my flattest loaf ever and I had to drop the hydration down to 63% to be able to even touch the dough without it sticking everywhere.
So when working with doughs with weaker gluten, dropping hydration can counteract this to some extent and you get a dough that doesn't turn into soup.
Thanks for your response and interest in helping with this. These would have been helpful for me to include!
How long do you mix the dough?
Gluten/Protein:
Yes to stretch and folds. Typically I start in the morning - autolyse for 30 or so minutes and then mix in starter, give that probably 4 hours, add the rest, mix, and then stretch and fold every 2 hours or so. At that point I'll either cook it (if it looks decent) or put it in the fridge overnight (?), then in the morning pull it, shape it fairly cold and cook it in a hot dutch oven.
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Thank you for your point about hydration - I don't think I put quite enough thought into that. I also got it into my head that fresh milled "needed" to be higher hydration, which is probably just something I'm much better off shedding and instead saying "what's appropriate for this application and these ingredients?" ?
I've been baking with home milled hard white spring wheat (Prairie Gold) and Kamut. Kamut is "vitreous" or glass-like and takes a looong soak to absorb enough water to make dough, If you don't pre-soak it long enough, it just makes "wet sand."
By pre-soak, I mean just the flour and water, no starter/levain, and little to no salt, If you put salt in your pre-soak, it will take longer to absorb the water.
I'm going to recommend the opposite of BaniJP, and suggest you increase hydration to a minimum 85% to get your HWSW and Kamut to turn from "wet sand" into "dough."
First, since home-milled Kamut is hard to work with, don't use more than 25% of it in your dough mass, at least to start out. Suggestion: 25% Kamut, and 75% home milled hard white. After you get experience, and see what it takes to get glutenous springy dough, then increase your Kamut percentage on future bakes.
Second, when usng these two home-milled grains, go right to 90% final hydration (after adding in levain/starter) and "work your way down" in hydration with successive bakes. I found that 88% final hydration is my _minimum_. And 85% pre-soak hydration, with or without salt is the minimum for pre-soaking -- an hour without salt, or 1.5 hours with salt.
My "mass" of near 100% home-milled flour, water, levain (and optionally salt) usually does not turn to smooth "dough" until AFTER a 1 hour (or 1.5 hour with salt) pre-soak PLUS another 30 to 60 minutes AFTER mixing in the starter/levain. But I use a Vitamix blender to mill grain. So I'm probably using coarser grain than you are.
Also, realize that freshly home milled whole grains ferment faster than a mostly white-roller-milled-flour loaf. I use only 7% pre-fermented flour in the levain for about a 4 hour bulk ferment (not countng pre-soak) and 1.5 hour proof. If I do an overnight bulk at room temp or an overnight proof in the fridge, then I drop down to about 3 to 3.5 % pre-fermented flour. But I also use near 100% home mlled whole grain in my starter/levain too, so I have a powerful starter.
It took me a long time to realize I was over-fermenting/over-proofing my dough, _ even though the dough did not rise much during ferment/proof_
I used to work in the salt about an hour after mixing in the levain, but now I just mix it in the pre-soak.
Net: We're using slightly different grains. You have hard white winter, and I have hard white spring. Mine has been dried out a little, as it is at least two, maybe three years since harvest. But, in my experience, you will need to use around 88% _or more_ hydration, and a good two hours after wetting the flour before it absorbs enough water for the gluten to come together.
So if the "wet sand" description fits your dough mass situation, then we have been on the same track. My "wet sand" doughs made a very cake-like crumb. So if that is what you got, then 1) more water, and 2) more time, will turn the mass of wet sand, along with stretch and fold, or just plain hand kneading, into a nice glutenous dough.
bon chance, et bon appétit.
Dave, thank you so much for your consideration.
"Wet sand" really resonates, and I appreciate your advice on actually increasing the hydration, especially for Kamut.
I was probably a bit ambitious in going right to 100% Kamut, so I'll get some reps in both incorporating the HWW and the high hydration, long soak.
Question: is that soak any different from an autolyse?
I will do some research into vitreous...ity(?) in wheat and be seeking out a bulk supply of Hard White Winter.
You also make a good point about adjusting to the rise difference in whole grain - I am guilty of wanting more volume increase, and probably just letting the whole thing devour itself.
To be clear - when you refer to % of pre-fermented flour, are you saying that the levain is itself only 3.5/7% prefermented flour (that it gets only 3.5/7% of its flour from starter, essentially)? Or is that of the final dough mass?
Thank you again for all of this helpful information - going to digest and try to incorporate it into my next few batches and I'll report back.
"... dough that i can just pull apart with no resistance. There is no connection between the various bits of dough."
That's another thing we had in common.
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Also be advised, that if you add salt after you add the starter/levain, the salt will tighten up the dough mass, to the point where it might be difficult to stretch and fold. Do not (necessarily) add more water to compensate, as the dough will eventually slacken again. If it is still too tight after 30-45 minutes, then add water.
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With home-milled grain, it can be hard to recommend an exact hydration percent for the dough, because wheat kernals can dry out over time. And there is just a lot of variation between types/varieties of wheat.
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If you make a loaf with partial AP/Bread (ie, white-roller-milled commercial) flour, do not put the white flour in the pre-soak, or it will absorb the water first, denying it to the coarse whole grain.
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If, after you add starter/levain (and salt, if you did not put salt in the pre-soak), you find that your dough is still too slack/wet, you can save it by adding some AP or Bread flour. Because if you add coarse milled flour at this point, it won't fully hydrate. Finely ground AP or bread flour will quickly and easily absorb the "slack".
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kamut has extra protein, but not the kind that makes good gluten. After you feel comfortable with your hydration levels, and soak/ferment times, and still feel like you need to tweak the gluten and crumb structure, then a SMALL amount of Vital Wheat Gluten might help. Not as much as recommended on the box, though. I used 2 tsp for 625 g of home-milled flour, and that helped.
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These are my experiences. You mileage may vary, etc.
Helpful points all around, again. I really appreciate your emphasis on the impact of salt timing, which I'd not been considering, and your tips for "saving" a dough.
Noted on the whole grain moisture/hydration and Kamut protein qualities as well - I'll keep that in mind.
Is there a good book, guide or online table of wheat types and their innate qualities?
% prefermented flour, or PPF (Thanks DanAyo for teaching me that), refers to the total dough.
So, if the total flour, including the flour in the levain, is 625 g flour. And I used 90 g of 100% hydration levain, then the PPF is 45/625, or 7.2%.
Fer instance, if I include 580 g of flour in the pre-soak, and later add 90 g of 100% hydration levain, and that would give me 625 g total flour.
Not everyone uses a 100% hydration levain -- there is "firm" (drier) and more liquid. So total starter/levain, or poolish, or biga, or barm, as a baker's percentage, can be misleading. PPF is a way of standardizing the measurement.
By pre-soak, yes, that is autolyse, with no levain. Though sometimes I cheat, and include the salt in the pre-soak.
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Also be advised that Kamut is very close to durum, which is where semolina comes from. It has to be ground very fine, or soaked a long time to get it suitable for bread. It is "glassy" and harder than standard white and red wheat varieties. But being glassy or vitreous, is what is good for pasta.
Europeans actually refer to our "hard red" and "hard white" wheat as "soft wheat", because they are softer than durum.
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There is a book or two on Amazon about using home-milled grains, but I have not read them. The way I have learned is to pick a "main" grain, mine is hard white spring wheat, learn it, and then experiment by adding small portions of others. So far I have used spelt and Kamut, up to about 50%. And others in small amounts, such as quinoa, yellow millet, dark millet, amaranth, and rye,
Ancient grains, or grains other than the standard red winter, red spring, white winter, white spring, are lower in gluten, and don't rise as well. Spelt, Kamut, rye, durum, einkorn, emmer are such. They take a bit extra work, or added vital wheat gluten, or to be kept in the minority in the loaf.
I just remembered, Chad Robertson's "Tartine Book No. 3" does go into ancient grains, and describes them, and has some recipes. But he doesn't get into the home-milling aspect.
Use the search box here on this web site, and you can see recipes and review discussions about home-milling, home-milled 100% whole wheat, spelt, emmer, einkorn, durum, etc.
When you get the hydration, soak/autolyse (and maybe added vital wheat gluten) down pat, it makes coarse ground home-milled flour as appetizing, or more so, than store-bought fine grind whole wheat flour. I don't worry any more about sifting out the larger particles of bran and middlings. Yes, I can feel them during the stretch-and folds, but by the end of the bake they are fully absorbed, except for the ones that happen to be on the surface of the loaf, and were not fully enclosed. But to me, that's just "rustic."
if you can't get a good window pane with your flour and enough water to make a dough, then you are short on gluten, or mixing, or you have too much bran in the dough to allow the gluten to hold together. You should probably run a test to see what the moisture content of the grain is before you grind it. As I remember, it wants to be around 14% but may vary by type of grain. Soft white wheat is low gluten to begin with so don't expect much. Kamut and spelt are short on something and using any whole grain that has been home milled will produce something that feels more like a brick than a "loaf of bread". So perhaps sift, sift, sift, then bolt to get only the fines. Yield will be low. Under 50% probably. But you might be able to make bread out of it if you add 50% KABF.
You don't see much ciabatta made with 100% semolina, and that is where you are headed with your choice of grain and hydration.
Start with an all white flour formulation that you are happy with and add home ground grain at 2%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 50%, or until it fails to meet your expectations. Work to fix it when you first see it. Then advance to the next step. Have fun along the way. You may never get to the top step. I can't make good ciabatta with even 20% home ground white whole wheat, ground at 12% moisture and sifted to yield 80%.
Hi all, and thank you all collectively, and especially Dave, again. Sorry to go so long without closing the loop on this. Let's see...
Kamut
A longer autolyse and more water made a world of difference. (For sure, pulling back on the percentage to about 50% helped as well.)
I did a few batches of 50% HWWW, 50% Kamut. With the Kamut I did a 60-75 minute autolyse, no salt, 90% autolyse, and the HWWW 30-45 minutes at 80%. I'd roughly mix them (I found they didn't combine all that well, but over the course of stretch-and-folds, came together just fine), and then go ahead with my regular process.
Now that we're in quarantine mode, I'm hoping to bake more bread (and maybe donate some?), and I'll report back.
One other note - I have pulled the mill back a bit from the point where the stones are clicking and not noticed a huge difference in final product. I'm really curious about how these settings translate.
Hello all.
First time poster.
I was in search of solutions to this very issue when i found this being discussed here. I've recently tried incorporating freshly milled Hard Red what flour into my usual recipe with disastrous results.
My typical recipe consists of 50% strong white flour, and 50% whole wheat bread flour, mixed with 1% salt, 30% (50-50 whole wheat) levain, and 68% hydration. This recipe usually results in a very good oven spring with a nice chewy and irregular crumb.
The only change I made to the recipe is the introduction of fresh milled Hard Red wheat berries, in place of the Whole Wheat Bread flour. I use a vitamix to mill the wheat. The consistency is fine to the eye, but feels somewhat gritty to the touch.
My process includes a 30-60 minute autolyse, including flour and water only.
At no point does the gluten properly develop. The dough tears apart easily during the initial kneading and during stretch and folds. It actually feels like it's losing strength the longer I knead and builds minimal strength if I handle it less. It's only slightly better after the bulk fermentation and I need to be very gentle while shaping. The loafs are as flat as a pancake after a 20 minute bench rest, and the oven spring is practically nonexistent. The flavour is excellent so I'd love to find a way to get back some of the texture that I had before.
I had read somewhere else that the milled grain can act like little glass shards cutting the gluten network, which seems plausible in my case since the gluten breaks down with additional kneading.
Any tips and suggestions would be very welcome!
Thanks in advance.
Duramax, if you see this, pls go back up on this thread and see my comments about hydration and other hints. Fresh milled flour needs more hydration than store-bought WW. My suggestions in various comments above, while not perfect, helped titive get on track.
(BTW, I use a Vitamix too!)
With 50% fresh milled whole wheat, you will need to be somewhere between 75 and 82% hydration, just guessing.
After you read the above comments, see this one too: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/451521#comment-451521
Hope this helps.
Good luck, amigo.
Thanks!
Yes I will certainly start to play around with the hydration. I'm currently at 72% total hydration after the levain is added.
What has me somewhat perplexed is why the gluten seems to break down with increased handling.
Have you tried sifting out some of the larger bran flakes and did that help?
I don't have a sifter but I will buy one if it's helpful in this regard.
Thanks again.
Whoops, just noticed you said you don't bother with sifting any more...
Thanks.
My guess is that you're probably not developing gluten in the first place, at least not among the WW portion.
You're hydrating the white flour, but my hunch is that your home milled WW is never hydrating properly, and the WW is acting as "wet sand" and interfering with the white-flour's gluten. The more you knead, the more the wet sand tears apart the white flour's gluten.
Study the whole above thread, let go of pre-conceived notions, and try to implement as much of the above as possible. (also read the 7 points at the link I just gave -- an important point is the tricky way fresh milled starts out too wet, then too tight, then slackens -- so it takes good note-taking to "dial it in", and trust your notes about what is going to happen on later bakes.)
It's almost like I had to forget everything I knew for pan loaves with all white flour. Home milled WW is a new beast, assuming you are doing a boule or batard. Home milled is also a different animal than store-bought WW.
If you are experiencing the "wet sand" phenomenon, even with red wheat, then the above suggestions will "most likely", but not absolutely guaranteed, fix you up.
Next loaf, go right to 82% hydration total/final, but autolyse the fresh milled WW at 85-88%. You'll bring down the hydration when you add the levain and white flour, and whatever extra water.
That is the main thing: fresh milled flour, especially the coarse/gritty milled stuff from the Vitamix, needs EXTRA Hydration, and EXTRA _time_ ( compared to store bought WW) to turn from "wet sand" into "dough."
Also, home milled flour ferments FAST, so don't go as long in the bulk ferment and proof as you did with store-bought WW flour. And you'll likely have to use less levain too.
(If you were using 100% home milled, the final hydration would need to be 88 to 90%. )
Also, don't worry about the gritty bits. As long as you do enough hydration and autolyse time, they will disappear at some point of the bulk ferment or the final proof, or in the bake.
Caveat: things also depend on the moisture level of your raw whole berries, and how old they are. They may have lost moisture or gained moisture in storage.
The protein % of your white flour plays a factor in the hydration needed, too, Higher protein usually means higher hydration is needed.
Also, chill your wheat berries in the fridge for several hours before milling to avoid heat damage.
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re-reading your first comment.
1. autolyse needs to be 60 to 90 minutes. fresh milled WW only. not mixed with white flour, because the white flour robs the WW of moisture, getting to it first.
2. Do not knead the autolyse, just mix and fold enough to fully and evenly wet the flour. Do not stretch and foldthe autolyse after it is fully mixed..
3. Do use stretch and folds to incorporate the levain, white flour, salt, and any additional water. Do not knead at this point either, just small stretches and folding to evenly incorporate. If the autolyse is too stiff to use folds to incorporate the levain and white flour, then there was not enough water in the autolyse. To fix/salvage, try to get more water into theautolysed mass before adding levain/white-flour/salt.
Note: even after 90 minutes autolyse, my "mass" is still wet sand. It does not turn into "dough" until maybe 30 to 45 minutes after incorporating the levain and small amount (10%) white flour. Your proportions are different, so you may or may not get it turned into "dough" during the autolyse. For _me_, the transition from sand to dough is after mixing in levain.
4. Once it turns into stiff "dough", wait until it relaxes before any further stretch and folds. If it never goes stiff, maybe you overhydrated -- you can fix by folding in white flour (not WW as it won't hydrate/soften fully at this point.) If the stiff dough doesn't relax in an hour, 90 minutes, after going stiff, maybe it needs more water.
Again, these are _my_ experiences, using 90% home-milled "Vitamixed" whole wheat. Your mileage will vary with your 50% formula.
It only took me about 10 tries to "dial it in." ;-)
Good luck, amigo.
I just wanted to second idaveindy on the need to autolyse your home-milled flours for at least an hour (or 2 for Kamut) before adding any salt or leavening. Elly's Everyday channel was helpful for me learning to work with freshly-milled flours, and one thing i learned is you can do an overnight autolyse in the fridge the day before you want to bake. This is a simple, easy way to make sure your flour is well and truly hydrated and ready to roll. It also improves the flavor of the bread by allowing time for some enzymatic changes in the flour. I kind of like in our current pandemic conditions because I can mill and mix the autolyze in the evening, stick it in the fridge, and it's ready to go in the morning when I get up and want to get going on making bread.
Hi all,
Just a quick update from my last bake.
I experimented with varying lengths of time for the autolyse. 1 hour, 2 hours, and over-night by mixing 3 separate 500 gram batches followed by a 10 minute kneed.
The recipe was basically the same except I reduced the starter to 25%.
50-50 White Bread Flour and Vitamix milled Whole wheat, 25% Starter and 1% salt.
There was very little difference between the 1 hour and 2 hour autolyse. The dough barely formed any gluten and the gluten deteriorated the more I kneeded. It was like mashing pancake batter after 10 minutes. I could not achieve a window pane at all. I continued to kneed the 2 hour sample for 40 minutes (!) just hoping that the gluten would come back or improve, but it didn't. I proceeded to bulk ferment, shape, proof and bake - resulting in two very flat loafs.
The third sample that auolysed over night was noticeably better before I even touched it. I didn't want to ruin the loaf so I only gently kneeded the dough and could achieve a window pane, but just barely enough to see through before the dough would break. Not nearly as strong the window panes I get when using commercial Bread flour. I proceeded to bake this loaf and did achieve slightly better results. A little oven spring and an even crumb. No large irregular holes. I'm ok with that because the flavour was off the charts good! The nice even crumb will lend itself well to spreads and sandwiches.
My next attempt will be much the same with a long autolize, but I'll experiment with different keeding times. I'm still puzzled as to why the gluten is breaking down with keeding.
I may also sift out some bran to see if that has any impact.
Thanks!
Forgot to mention that I did increase the hydration to 75% for this experiment. I was reluctant to go to 82% because I don't have the greatest skill handling wet doughs...
Will try 82% next time.
Good to hear that you're getting an improved result from an overnight autolyse. What are you using for the whole wheat fraction? I suggest sticking to hard white or red only until you get consistent good results.
After your autolyse, what is your process for mixing in the levening and salt? If you knead them in by hand it should take 3 minutes for full incorporation, then another 2 or 3 to finish gluten development. Then bulk proof.
After the bulk proof I have learned to do 2 letter folds (aka lamination) a half hour apart to strengthen and organize the gluten and to build tension. Then divide the dough, round it, bench rest, shape, final proof and bake.
After your overnight autolyse, more than 5 minutes kneading is neither useful nor desirable.
Organic Hard Red Spring wheat berries, Vitamix milled, make up half of the flour.
Robin Hood White Bread flour makes up the other half.
I would guess I take about 5-10 minutes to incorporate the salt and starter. I can try to reduce this time slightly. This is followed by approx 3-5 sets of stretch and fold at about 20-30 minute intervals. Then I bulk ferment. for a few hours. I perform one last, gentle, stretch and fold as I pull the dough from the bowl and bench rest for about 15 minutes.
I will then shape twice about 5 minutes and part then final proof. Depending on my schedule the final proof is done on the counter for about an hour, or in the fridge over-night.
Thanks for all the suggestions thus far.
Here's an idea:
Try cutting a decent sized chunk of your dough off of the autolysed mass before adding anything and kneading it for 5 minutes. You should have lovely, glossy, supple, extensible dough, with a strong windowpane that is flecked with bran.
I hope that this will help you narrow down exactly what is going wrong with your dough.
The issue only occurs when I use the Hard Red Wheat berry flour. My loafs using commercial Bread flours are excellent - huge oven spring with a nicely varied crumb.
I will try kneading the dough prior to introducing the starter and report back.
Thanks for the tip.
Thought I'd add what I did, that was semi-successful.
I didn't mill my own Kamut, I got Kamut flour from Eden Foods online. I tried baking a 60% Kamut loaf a while ago and it was huge flop. I decided to try a few different things this time and it was semi-successful (got some oven spring and even crumb-with small holes throughout).
Kamut Flour - 60%
Whole Wheat Flour - 10%
Bread Flour - 30%
Hydration - 92%
Salt - 2%
Leaven - 10%
I autolysed the dough without leaven or salt (at 85% hydration) for over 8 hours with multiple stretch and folds every couple of hours to develop gluten. It did develop some...though not much. After autolysing, I made a slurry of leaven, salt and additional water to bring the hydration up to 92% and mixed it in with pinching method. I again did multiple stretches and folds. I bulk fermented for 2 hours and did a bench rest for 20 minutes. Proofed the final shaped loaves in fridge for 10 hours before baking directly from fridge. The loaves did start to spread as soon as I got them out of the baskets though :/
I've been milling my own flour for 15+ years now. Things I've learned making sourdough loaves:
1) Make a soaker -- mixing the WW with water and no salt and let it sit on the counter or in the fridge overnight. This allows the sharp bran (that can cut gluten) to soften, and improves texture and flavor.
2) MOAR WATER. Everyone else has covered that.
3) Long autolyse. Everyone else has covered that.
4) Stretch and fold every 30 minutes for a total of 3-4, depending on how the dough is stretching.
Good luck!
I stone mill my flour, and I prep the grain by tempering - adding water. Commercial flours are 10 or 12% moisture, and my fresh milled whole wheat flour or meal is 14 or 15% moisture. Baker's Percentages are based on commercial flours, so any baker's percentage for my flour will be off by 10%. That is; there is there is 5% less flour solids in my flour and 5% more water. On 500 gram batch, I actually have only 475 gr of solids that I should be using to calculate bakers percentage for flour, and my flour has an extra 25 gr of water that should be considered as part of the hydration water.
I make bread often, so that seems like a lot of math. I have a calculator, but I do not bother. If I use any recipe/baker's percentage developed for commercial flour, I will not get much rise. (My mix will have 10% too much water in it.) I think tempering the grain gives me a better grind on the flour, and it saves the mill stones. I use baker's percentages for commercial flour, but not for my fresh stone ground flour.
I have an old floor scoop, and 3 scoops is about a pound. Close enough! I scoop flour onto my bench, and make a well in the center of the flour. I add my rather firm sourdough starter, and enough water that I can mix the starter into a wet slurry. Then, with my hand, I stir the slurry, very gradually mixing in flour from the edge of the well. I very gradually add water, and stir. At the end, I have a very stiff dough. So stiff, it takes some effort to get the ball of dough to pick up all the flour. I let it rest/autolyze for a couple of hours (tightly covered). Then, I knead it on a wet bench with hands for a few minutes, and let it rest for a couple of hours (tightly covered). I then do stretch/rests on a wet bench with wet hands, adding salt on about the 3d stretch. I keep doing stretch/rest. until I get a good windowpane test. And, I want to see a definite increase in bulk during the rest.
If I am in a hurry, I add some baker's yeast with the sourdough. I use the same procedure/technique for a straight yeasted bread, it just goes faster. Anyway, do not bother shaping the loaves until the dough has passed a window pane test.
Fresh milled flour ferments faster than commercial flours. In addition, I sprout about 5% of my wheat berries, dry the sprouted grain, and mill it into my flour. With the sprouted grain/malt in the mix, fermentation is even faster and there is more color in the crust. I find sprouting a bit of grain is easier than keeping malt.