June 19, 2020 - 12:58pm
Giant cave in my bread!
So I've been making sourdough fairly regularly for a few months now and all my loaves have turned out OK. However the last 3 have had the same problem. I get huge cave like holes in the middle and then the rest is quite dense. I think it's to do with the bulk fermentation time which is honestly the part that I have the most trouble figuring out when it's done. I hope someone can help me. 
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How long are you bulk fermenting and what temperature are you doing it at?
That looks very underproofed. How active is your starter? What temperature and for how long are you doing bulk fermentation?
what is your recipe and process?
It looks like you have a tight crumb in the rest of the loaf and then a large whole in the center which would indicate a couple things:
You want to keep your levain and the dough itself during the kneading/ rising and proofing (unless you are rising in the fridge overnight) above 75 degrees. The yeast can't stay active enough under that temperature and especially if you didn't start above that temp to begin with. My suggestion is to make the levain and final dough around 85 degrees (+- depending on where you live). I temp my loaf after kneading and a couple times throughout the bulk rise.
Next is kneading thoroughly. I am not a fan of the "no knead bread" books or styles because you need enough gluten development to create a proper crumb! And very rarely can you "over-knead" a dough if doing it by hand. I knead by hand for about 5-10 minutes depending on batch size. I also give the dough 4 folds for the first two hours and a fold-over as i am about to scale and shape the dough as i put it on the cutting board.
Finally when you are baking it, i suggest baking inside of a preheated dutch oven like in the "tartine" or "ken forkish" book. Scoring is essential for letting the dough's final rise develop evenly in the dough. In your case it seems your score was not deep enough and the air was trapped underneath the dough, as well as the crust forming too fast to let it escape. If you dont have a razor blade, use scissors.
Hopefully these tips will help