May 31, 2020 - 6:46am
Bread no holding shape/no oven spring
we are baking sourdough with 75% hydration. Our dough is not holding its shape. As soon as we transfer it into the Dutch oven from the proofing basket it just kind of oozes out.
Im not sure if we need to develop more gluten? We did 6 stretch and fold during our bulk fermentation. It does well during the bulk ferment and doubles in size.
Im not sure what we’re doing wrong!
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If you could provide a few more details about your bake, that might be helpful. Several possible suggestions: lower the hydration amount in your dough until you get a better result, lower the inoculation temp during bulk ferment (perhaps it is too warm where you are?), do a dough retard in the fridge after final shaping and before baking (if you aren't already).
We let it proof over night in the fridge. When baking We have it covered in the Dutch oven for 20 minutes and then uncovered for 30 minutes. The air bubbles are very uniform and we have a nice crumb.
We haven’t been able to get a good oven spring. We will try less hydration, maybe 65%?
We need more information.
What was your mixing procedure? What mix of flours did you use? Maybe you didn’t develop the gluten enough? How long was bulk and at what temps? How much flour did you preferment and at what hydration? What was the status of your starter when you mixed? How long did you proof the shaped loaves before fridging? What temp is your fridge?
I know you want an easy answer, but the reality is a dough system is so complex already, when you add in SD fermentation, you really need to track everything to get *consistent* results. (Yes, once you’re experienced, you could make dough by feel and not even weigh anything out, but you need a lot of embodied experience to get there).
My “easy answer” is reduce the hydration to 70% and try again.
Personally, I think it’s possible that if your bulk fully doubled (with sourdough, not CY), the final loaf could’ve overfermented. But I hesitate to say that cause nearly every new SD baker on this forum (and everywhere else!) is underfermenting their dough. More information would allow us to give more informed answers.
Oh, also, when you try again, pictures at different stages would reeeeeally benefit the diagnosis process :D
Do you have a picture of the crumb of the bread in question?
My levain doubled in size. I’ve been timing it to make sure I use the levain at its peak once I do my full mix. I do autolyse for 1h with all the flour and 700g of water and then I add the last 50G of water during the mix.
Once i shape the dough and put them in the colander I have been putting them in the fridge right away. And then I let it proof overnight (14 hours) Should I let it proof on the counter for a bit?
I finally started a sourdough journal so I can keep track of what we’re doing!
Are you using a recipe that worked well in the winter but now in late spring is not? If so, you might need to adjust for warmer temperature and higher humidity (assuming you live in an area affected by these changes).
My go-to pan rustica recipe was working reliably until about two weeks ago. All of a sudden, the post-proof dough was incredibly sticky and wet and would not hold its shape. I basically had to pour it into the dutch oven. It looked kind of ugly after baking, but had decent spring, fairly good crust and an open crumb. Pretty tasty too.
So, after some research, I believe I had an over-hydrated dough due to humidity. Next time, I will cut back hydration by 10% and see what happens....
The final shaping matters. If you don't properly shape a high hydration dough it will quickly lose shape when you remove it from the proofing basket. I have also found that overnight fermentation in the fridge helps with high hydration dough. The coolness helps keep the dough shape. I just bake straight from the fridge after 12hours.
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We were letting it sit out before baking it so we’re definitely going to try baking straight from the fridge next time