Overnight Country Blonde - Undercooked crumb
Hello, everyone! First-time baker here so, please, pardon my ignorance. :)
I wanted a good challenge and went straight for Ken's Forkish Overnight Country Blonde, which, as it turned out, was not a great option for a complete novice. I followed the recipe precisely with the only difference of reducing bulk fermentation time by an hour or so as the dough seemed ready by then (almost doubled in size), and I was too scared of over-fermenting it. My room temp is about 70F during the day and 68F at night.
The whole process was quite enjoyable and I didn't experience much difficulty working with the wet dough (mixing, applying folds, shaping, transferring, etc). When placed in the dutch oven the boules were perfectly round, tight but airy and jiggly.
As you can see, the bread has a pretty decent shape and nice big holes (or too big?) but it's quite moist inside. Otherwise, it smells and tastes amazing. I did let the bread rest for 2 hours before slicing it.
What could have gone wrong here? Considering the crust has the right color and crunch but the crumb is wet, am I right assuming my oven temp was too high? I had it set to 475F but I know some ovens run hot. Should I try and reduce the temp by 10-20 degrees after taking the lid off and increase the baking time by, let's say, 10-15 minutes?
Was it a fermentation issue? Over/Under proofing? Also, my starter is quite young - day 11, but fed every day, never refrigerated, and seemed pretty active.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you!
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Hi Kristina, I’d say there are a couple of things going on here. It is underproofed, the crumb is a bit tight and then there are the large holes above the tight crumb, typical of underproofed bread. Your starter may not be strong enough yet. Another thing I think is that your flour may not have been able to take as much water as Forkish’s flour. I’d try again but reduce the hydration by about 5% (by baker’s math). To me those are the primary issues. You can get your starter stronger but making sure you allow it to peak and just start to fall before you feed it again. Once you are used to your starter’s rhythm of rising and falling then with each feed you should be getting it stronger so that you’ll be able to ferment the dough sufficiently to get a good bread. That combined with reducing the hydration I think will make a big difference to your next bake. Good luck.
I should add, the crust you baked up looks really good, love the dark bake which gives the bread so much more flavour.
Benny
Hey Benny,
Thanks so much for the tips! My starter did rise and fall predictably at that point and I used it at its peaked activity (and it passed the float test with flying colours) so I'm more inclined to believe that it was either the hydration issue or I just didn't bake it long enough or at a high enough temp.
Oh well...I will definitely go back to this recipe once I have a bit more bread baking experience but this weekend I think I'll try Chad's tartine bread which seems to be more suitable for a novice - not the 20-page long recipe in the book but the simplified version by The Regular Chef. Haha
P.S. Thanks for complimenting my creation! We worked around the gummy crumb by toasting individual slices. So good! Oh, and I made pretty mean crepes with the leftover levain! :)
475 is not too hot. I bake at 525 then reduce to 475 with easily-burned semolina.
Undercooked crumb means more time+temperature needs to reach the crumb, but without burning the crust.
How much total cooking time did you use? What temperature did you preheat the dutch oven?
How high in the oven was the bread? What type of oven do you use (convection, gas, electric, etc.)?
Yes, I think I'm with you in regards to the temp setting as I was quite satisfied with all other aspects of the process and the final product. The recipe called for 475F throughout the whole baking time (30 min covered and 10-25 uncovered). When I go back to this recipe again, I think I'll bring up the initial temp to 500F, and then once the bread is in the oven I might reduce it to 475F or bake at 500F with the lid on and then reduce to 475F, something like that. I would much rather adjust the baking temp/time than reduce the hydration level as from what I understand, the higher hydration results in superior texture/structure of the final product.
Thanks for your comment! :)
sorry to be late to this.
I wonder if your sourdough starter, though active, is inconsistent. I turned to sourdough (100% rye, ~90% hydration) about 9 months ago. Afer ~2 weeks I could make passable bread -- but the crumb was always weirdly uneven -- big air holes some places, tight holes in others, wetness in some spots, dry in others. I didn't come to understand it and get good results until I'd been working in tandem with it for ~6 months.
I made the country blonde yesterday & baked today. First, bc of my work schedule, I let the levain go 14 hours -- it was a monster by the time I got back to it. Then, I ran out of bread flour & subbed in 100g of spelt. I also cut the salt by about 50% (personal preference: I find almost all formulas to be too salty.) After reading many TFL comments about how temperature-sensitive Forkish's fermentation times are, I decided to treat it this way: 4.5 hours of bulk in my 80F kitchen, then divide & conquer with a 5 hour cold proof. I did an envelop fold & some dragging before plopping the boules in the fridge. I baked on a sheet pan for 35-40 minutes, with steam for the initial 25. The bread is fine.
rob