Shaping, Scoring, or Something Else? Issues with ears and oven spring
Hello! First time posting here and so excited/eager for your wonderful help and feedback. I am new to sourdough baking but have baked 14 loaves so far in the last 2 months. Despite my determination and practice, I still am not getting an ear, and while my loaves have some height, they don't have the oven spring I am looking for. All of the loaves have tasted delicious, but I am in search of that height and the ear. I'm also struggling to get my lame to score cleanly; I always feel like it sticks and drags in the dough so I have to score slowly; when I try to do the quick cut like I see in photos, my dough and blade (which is VERY SHARP) do not cooperate. I'd love your help to figure out WHAT ON EARTH is going on. Is it my shaping, my scoring, or something else that is causing my loaves not to rise and the ear not to form?
- I have a 10-year old starter (50% rye, 50% AP at 100% hydration). It is active and always doubles or triples and passes the float test before I bake.
-This is the recipe I've been using (I add 325 g. water verus the 350 in the recipe to make it easier to handle). Brands of flour I use are Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat and KAF Bread: https://www.abeautifulplate.com/artisan-sourdough-bread-recipe/
- I now proof in a box at 78% F. My bulk fermentation time for my latest bake (photos attached) was 4 hours and 20 minutes after the levain was mixed in
-I shaped this latest dough into a batard (and thought I did an OK job shaping?) but I am having the hardest time scoring my loaves and don't understand why. My blade is super sharp, but always seems to catch and drag. I also worry I am not going deep enough(?)
-I bake inside a challenger bread pan
As you can see from the photos, I am getting some nice air holes but every time I go to score my loaves the dough sort of "splats" open and becomes kind of flat. Is it because I'm not shaping tightly enough? Could my dough be over proofed? Am I scoring badly? HELP! I don't know how to figure it out and am about making myself crazy at this point.
From the side/batard end
Example of my typical dough just after scoring - the is actually from the prior bake, but I scored the two very similarly. The dough was hard to cut and I had to drag the lame in little increments. After scoring, the "slatted" open, and went from being a tidy batard shape (pre scoring) to really spreading out wide as you can see below. For the final, baked loaf you see in this post (pictured above and below), I tried a slightly more shallow score (about 1/2 inch) and that didn't work either.
Baked loaf from above. No ear and the scores have all but disappeared.
I believe that you need for the dough to hit intense heat to get good oven spring. Is your bread pan thoroughly preheated? You didn't mention this.
My pan (a cast iron challenger breadware pan with a lid) was preheated to 500 degrees F for a full hour, so that's not it! Thanks though.
Hi, Erin. Welcome to TFL and sourdough baking!
First off, your bread looks pretty good, but I see your concern.
You should get amazing oven spring and bloom in the Challenger pan, from the experience of other bakers who use it. (I don't.) Your photos strongly suggest that you are over proofing your loaf. So, try baking a bit sooner.
Also, there is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation regarding how to get ears on a loaf. Here is a link to a bread scoring tutorial. The section on ears is towards the end, but I recommend you read the whole thing.
Scoring Bread: An updated tutorial
Happy baking!
David
Hi David! Nice to meet you :) Yes, I did read that scoring tutorial and found it very informative. Judging proofing and knowing when to end bulk has been so challenging for me. I attached photos of some of my loaves at the end of bulk. They don't look over proofed but maybe I am wrong? Is there a tell tale sign I am missing? I know experienced bakers can judge the dough, allowing them to play around with different flours and bake in different environments, but I feel stumped as to how I can progress this point. Thanks again for your help!
End of Bulk.jpg
End of Bulk 2.jpg
I really can't assess your doughs just from those photos. With bulk fermentation, I judge by how much it has expanded and by feel. If you ferment in a glass container, you should be able to see the dough being full of little bubbles. It should feel puffy. With most breads, you want the dough to expand to about double the volume during bulk fermentation.
With proofing, many use "the poke test" to judge how complete it is. If you poke a finger about 1/2 inch into the loaf, it springs back immediately if under-proofed. If completely proofed, the hole fills in slowly. If over-proofed, the hole remains and doesn't spring back. This works pretty well, except for very high hydration doughs.
David
Hi David,
Thanks for chiming in! I tried a new recipe today (basic country from Tartine) and followed the signs of small bubbles and the sides being concave; I also lowered the hydration to 70% to make it easier to shape. At 3 hours, it looked pretty complete! Can you explain what you mean by "Feel" of the dough by chance? Or too hard to explain?
Tartine Ferment at 3 hours-side.jpg
Tartine Ferment at 3 hours.jpg
In general: Do you know how to judge when a steak is done to your liking by poking the surface? It's a similar thing with dough. I would say, use the poke test, but feel the surface of the dough - how much resistance you feel to very gentle pressure. It should feel puffy like a partly inflated balloon. Feel your dough at multiple stages of fermentation every time you make bread. You will learn when it is "right" to divide and shape.
To make it more frustrating, what is right will be different for different recipes. That's one reason it is so often recommended that you make one kind of bread over and over, until you feel you have mastered it, before branching off to other breads.
This stuff is so hard to communicate in words. It is so much easier when you can demonstrate in person. Absent that, they say, "Experience is the best teacher."
David
My 2c; first of all the crumb looks excellent, it seems to be a long retarded proof? From my experience that lovely crumb has an oven spring trade-off. It is almost fully proofed before going into the oven which gives nice honeycomb crumb but not enough 'proofing' is left for the oven. I would bake it earlier to get and ear but you might loose out a bit on the crumb.
About the blade catching well that is just practice. I find razor blades work best, slightly tilted and no hesitant motion.