Tartine #3 White-Wheat very flat
My latest attempt at the Tartine #3 White Bread (Ode to Bourdon) on page 46 was equally disappointing.
Though in a different way this time: lack of rise.
Two images attached: the flat loaf; the crumb.
I halved the quantities Chad Robertson suggests; and used the flour types - as discussed here.
In bowl 1:
- 125g All Purpose
- 125g Whole Wheat
- 125g Whole Grain Wheat
- 125g White Whole Wheat
- 35g Wheat Germ
In bowl 2:
- 350g filtered water; less than the 375g specified because of the advice given in this thread.
- 75g of a very healthy, bubbly, lovely-smelling, beautifully risen KAF AP leaven which was poured off from my kept starter and fed at room temperature twice (1:2:2) a day each day for two days before beginning this recipe - and doubled in size.
The starter originated with the KAF kit. But I have been successfully feeding it for a couple of months with KAF organic All Purpose. Usually 1:1:1 twice a week with Britta-filtered water and plastic/silicone tools. Stored in fridge. Always looks and smells what I take to be just right.
Yet it is tempting (to me) to think that - despite this - the starter is just not giving the bread the sustained rise it should… even though at warm proofing (see below) the dough rises very well.
Added contents of bowl 1 to contents of bowl 2; OXO stainless steel. Four hours autolyse at room temperature. Little sign of any appreciable rise. A couple of folds.
Added 13 g salt and just enough water mixed with more starter (room temperature) to make what seemed to me like a nice springy dough. Much more workable than my last attempt, which was far too sticky. I was able to pick up the dough from the bowl this time with two hands. Some tearing. But passed the Window Pane test.
Rotation-folded half a dozen times carefully as on pp 38-39.
Proofed at 80°-85°F in Bród and Taylor for six hours.
Rose significantly (60%-90%) between each fold.
Transferred to brown rice-floured cloth-lined banneton. Covered with cling-wrap.
Transferred to lower shelf of fridge (< 40°F) for eight hours (overnight).
In the morning back to Bród and Taylor 80°-83°F for four hours. No real further rise.
Preheated conventional electric oven (elements top and bottom exposed) to 500°F with Challenger + lid on for 55 minutes.
Removed Challenger from oven. Closed oven door immediately.
Inverted loaf (by now no higher than 3") onto double-folded parchment paper. Dropped out of banneton with ease.
Placed onto shallower Challenger pan. Added three ice cubes. Sizzle sizzle. Put Challenger lid back on. Into oven.
Baked for 15 minutes at 435°F. Oven is 50°F slow. I have two thermometers in oven. Showing that my setting of '485°F' does give exactly 435°F.
Took Challenger pan out of oven; inverted cover/top below pan; back into oven for 30 minutes also at 435°F
Removed from oven. Load very flat. Not at all what I am trying to get.
Over-proofing???
Very grateful for any help anyone can give as to what I may be doing wrong, please :-)
Comments
OK that’s a lot to digest. I agree with you the dough was quite overproofed. I’ve been there a lot lately as I’ve been trying to figure out 100% wholegrain sourdough so I know it is hard.
So your dough is about 75%+ wholegrain, so this will ferment fast.
When you add contents of bowl 1 to bowl 2, you’ve started bulk fermentation, not autolyse, Autolyse should contain no levain, once levain is added it is the beginning of bulk. Some of us when we’re working with mostly white flour will do this and call it fermentolyse but that’s for another post. You left this for 4 hours - so it had already been fermenting for 4 hours which is often long enough to complete bulk fermentation for a high wholegrain dough, albeit usually at warmer temperatures than room temp. Then the dough was given another 6 hours of bulk fermentation at a warm 80-85ºF.
Ok to start, do the mix and do autolyse with bowl 1 and bowl 2 but without the levain so that will be a true autolyse. Do a few hours to allow the bran to become well hydrated and for gluten to start to develop. Then add levain and salt if you like to keep things simple. Now you’ve started bulk fermentation. Now keep this in your Brot and Taylor, I like 80-82ºF myself and during the first few hours organize the gluten and build structure with your folds. After each fold, watch the dough, once it is starting to relax and fill the proofing vessel time for another set of folds, usually around 30 mins. Once it seems to keep its structure and isn’t relaxing and filling the bowl, holding its shape then stop folds.
Now comes the hard part, when to end bulk and shape? I’m guessing that for this dough with the flours you’ve used and the levain if active your bulk should be done in around 4-5 hours at most assuming active levain and the temperatures above. This is why I use an aliquot jar, I like the objective data it gives me. In the case of the bake above I would have known what the rise actually was from the aliquot jar when I shaped and when I started cold retard. Then knowing that the bread was overproofed, I can say, hey it was really overproofed so I’d better reduce the rise of the aliquot jar from 80% to 50% next time.
Benny
Benny,
Thanks so much for your long and helpful answer!
It really, really helps :-)
(Does whole grain ferment faster than white?)
Thanks for pointing out where autolyse begins and ends. Yes, of course! I see that now.
Pages 36 and 37 of Tartine #3 definitely suggest the sequence which I followed; so should I also be using the term fermentolyse?
But perhaps better to avoid adding the levain as early as Tartine suggests - as you say (your paragraph 4).
Even though it’s not what Chad Robertson specifies:
Make the dough/premix: In a second, large mixing bowl, add all but 50grams of the liquids specified in the recipe. Add the amount of the leaven specified in the recipe to the liquids and stir to disperse. Add the flour to the liquid-leaven mixture and stir.
Could this be an inaccuracy/misprint in the book? Could he have found a way to make it work which my inexperience is overlooking
I can certainly see how blithely jumping over the boundary (between autolyse and ferment) which you point out - thank you - must almost certainly lead to over-proofing/over-fermentation.
Have I understood, Benny?
Do you have a recommendation (perhaps an Amazon link) for a suitable, dedicated aliquot jar… I can see how - provided I keep it close - I'll see when my dough is proved.
Should I only wait for one doubling in size (and so, in height in the aliquot); then stop?
Much appreciated :)
Because whole grain contains all the parts of the grain it has more nutrients for the microbes so fermentation goes much faster.
I’ve just reviewed that section of Tartine 3 which I own, but didn’t recall that part of the formula. I’m quite surprised that he is suggesting doing up to 4 hour fermentolyse at warm room temperature. Let’s say warm room temperature is what 74ºF, four hours is a long time to have levain in a dough when you’re not doing anything to develop it. I hate to contradict Chad but I wouldn’t follow that, it would be overproofed if I did that with any of my 75% wholegrain breads.
Do a standard autolyse, keep things simple. For mostly white flour 30 mins will do, for a lot of whole grain 2 hours should do, so mix flours and water, hold back some of the water to add when mixing salt and levain later. Then after your 2 hour autolyse, sprinkle your salt onto your dough and then spread your levain. No the salt coming in contact with the levain won’t kill the microbes. Use your holdback water to wet your hands and use your fingers to poke your levain into your dough all over. This helps get the levain into the dough. The wetting your hand again, start folding your dough over and over and over. This starts to layer your levain and dough. Doing this repeatedly until gets the levain well mixed throughout the dough. Start adding a bit of water at a time working it into your dough as you’re folding it until all the water is absorbed. There you’ve mixed and started bulk fermentation.
The only way I’d see adding levain that early on is to either do a short fermentolyse of only 30 mins, but this doesn’t give sufficient time to fully hydrate the bran and give time for the amylase to work to break starches down to sugars for the microbes to eat. Or do the fermentolyse at a very cool temperature, but this then takes a very long time to warm up later and mean that bulk will take a long time.
All I can say is that you tried it as written and the result was overproofing, and reading what you did I would have guessed it would be overproofed without seeing the photo.
Aliquot jar, any narrow tall small jar will do. Aliquot jar thread have a look at this thread to learn how to use an aliquot jar. Many people will use a simple spice jar, a medical specimen jar also works well.
Benny,
Chad uses a very young levain. He feeds 1:40 (!!!) and after 4 hrs at 80-85F he mixes it with the unsalted dough. Basically, it's like feeding the very young starter at a very high dilution ratio again: 150g of very young stater per 1870g of dough. So overnight sitting at room temp. won't damage it, only make it sweeter, as he says on p.23.
By doing that he essentially creates a 100% sponge for his breads. Very clever.
OK that makes a huge difference. In reading Mark’s formula I just assumed without checking Tartine 3 that Mark also followed Chad’s levain build. So Mark used a mature levain presumably which after 4 hours warm would be quite well fermented. Chad mixing a 1:40 levain and used very young for sure would be fine at 4 hours warm, it will still have a long way to go to becoming mature.
Benny
Hi Mark,
you reduced water 20% against quantities indicated in the recipe (850g water per 1 kg flour). That translated into drastic increase of salt per gram of free water in dough. Essentially, instead of being 2.5% salt, it became 3% salt. Have you ever tried 30g salt per 1 kg flour? I have. By mistake, I added salt twice. The crumb was exactly like yours in the picture. Salt does it to the crumb.
There are several deviations from the recipe as described in the book, they might be responsible for the differences. All flours must be from hard red wheat, i.e. bread flours: white bread flour, whole wheat bread flour, whole grain bread flour, white wheat bread flour.
The starter must be fed 1tbsp + 200g 50:50 blend + 200g warm water, ferment for 4 hrs at 80-85F for 4 hrs before mixing dough. See p35.
There must be no folds during autolyse. 30 min is enough, especially if you don't use hard bread flour.
You added more starter than in the recipe: "Added 13 g salt and just enough water mixed with more starter"
Bulk is only 3 hrs at 80-85F, not 6hrs. It should rise only 30%, not 60-90%, because it must be a young starter, not a fully ripe one, as it was in your case.
Overnight basically means about 12 hrs, not 8, but that is not so important. What is important is that Chad doesn't tell us to warm it up after cold proof. He tells us to bake it cold. So your 8 hrs cold and addtitional 4hrs at 80-83F is a deviation from the recipe.
Your baking is very complicated. It is enough to place your loaf on aluminum baking sheet and cover it with the glass of thin steel cover and bake it (covered for the first 15min). It doesn't even matter whether you preheat the oven or not. In both cases you will get a phenomenal rise, rest assured, it's been tested by the scientists. The only difference is that when you start baking from the cold oven, you start counting baking time form the moment the oven reaches the desired temp. For example, you placed your bread into the cold oven, turned it on, and are waiting for it to reach 450F, only then you begin to count 15 min of baking under cover, and the remaining min to readiness.
I didn't get the trick with the ice cubes. You placed them inside the challenger? right next to the bread? And then coverd it all? When baking under cover, we sprinkle the inner surface of the cover and of the loaf with water from the spraying bottle. That is enough for the steam and majestic opening along the cuts. This loaf is not steamed, because you see from the picture in the book how floury its surface is. No need for steam and even 'no steam' as in "please, don't cover".
So, all these differences probably made your dough overacidified (you introduced too much acid and too much yeast with your ripe starter, and with too much starter) and overfermented on each step, not just overproofed as in rising before baking.
Benny and Mariana!
Thanks so much for all of this!
I'm going to copy and paste everything you've written into my dough notes (!) And then incorporate what I've learned.
I really didn't think that two such kind and expert people would come along in under three hours and supply 99% of the wisdom I need to put my own beginner's efforts back on the right track.
I know this forum doesn't accept paid membership as such. But - apart from hoping some day soon to be able to 'pay on' the support I'm receiving - is there anything else i can do to show my gratitude, please?
More once I've digested this. The loaf does taste very acidic and rather salty. Now I can see why!
Thanks again :-)
If I recall, around Christmas time, there is a possibility of helping out by making a donation, keep your eye out for that. It can really help Floyd.
Benny
> There must be no folds during autolyse.
Why is this? Does the resulting gluten development inhibit absorption? I've seen this same comment before but have not found an explanation.
The goal and purpose of autolysis is to destroy flour, not to make it stronger. During autolysis both proteins and starches are degraded. Starch breaks down and becomes sugars, gluten breaks down and becomes stretchy, capable of expanding more during fermentation and baking giving us taller and larger breads.
Stretches and folds give gluten strength, annulling the effect of autolysis.
Generally speaking, no preferments or other kinds of pre-dough are kneaded before or during fermentation/rest to avoid this gluten strengthening effect, because it would be difficult to blend them to homogeneity with the remainder of the ingredients in the formula later on.
Benny and Mariana - thanks again for your detailed and clear description of all the things I did wrong!
It actually truly encourages me: I will only learn by correcting mistakes. I would never have said that quantities of salt could make such a difference. But now I know.
You have both also clarified why the premature introduction of the levain which was not young - as it should have been - caused such a disaster :-)
If Chad says to do it his way, that's what I'll do next time. I do intend to repeat this recipe until I get it as I know I can - thanks to the two of you, and Dave who oversaw what I was doing.
The ice cube stage, BTW, comes from the Challenger basic sourdough video.
I think part of my problem has been the mistaken idea that I can be more free with quantities, timings, ingredients and temperatures than would ever actually work.
I have added what you have kindly gone to such trouble to explain to my Sourdough notes. And written a new step-by-step workflow. May I let you know next time how well it goes
Thanks again!
Mark, until you have more experience and understand the effects of changes you make to the process, you should try to follow the instructions as closely as possible. I didn’t realize that Chad’s recipe called for an extremely young levain, knowing that for sure it could be added and have up to 4 hours of warm fermentation so long as you followed the rest of the recipe.
Most of us who use a cold retard, will bake the dough straight out of the fridge. That sudden temperature change is quite beneficial, it helps with oven spring and blisters among other things. I didn’t realize how far from his recipe you’d deviated, so sorry I didn’t provide the answer you needed. Fortunately Mariana who was obviously very familiar with it came along to help.
I’ll look forward to your next much more successful bake.
Benny
Benny,
But you absolutely did help, thank you!
Now I can see how closely to what has worked for others I should work. That's what I plan to do next!
My only remaining question is that - as you may have seen here in this thread - one suggested solution with over-sticky dough (it really was more like batter with Chad's suggested hydration: maybe I shouldn't have been trying to halve all my quantities) is to reduce the amount of water to make it manageable.
How could I best achieve that compromise, please?
Mark, when trying a new recipe for the first time, especially from a new source that you haven’t baked from before, it is usually wise to reduce the hydration, I’d go down for 5% to start and if that is still a sticky mess then drop a further 5%. I don’t know where you live and how humid it is there or where your flour came from and in what conditions it was stored but those factors may cause two bakers using the same flour to have completely different feeling doughs. So perhaps it is more humid where you live compared to where Chad is. Or your flour mixture you came up with isn’t really equivalent to his. Drop the hydration when you are unsure, you can always add some water later if you feel your dough is really unusually stiff. It’s easier to add water than flour, although now that I’ve said that I have saved my dough twice when I’ve added the hold back water in the initial mix and then again later and then had to sprinkle flour in to get the dough back to a workable dough.
Anyhow, so if the recipe says a hydration of 80% you start by calculating how much water 75% would be and start there. Don’t forget to account for the water in the levain, in a correctly written recipe the water and flour in the levain is included in the total water and total flour.
That's what I'll do. I'm in Southern California; not particularly humid at this time of year. Flour stored in the dark in the coolest part of the house.
I tried not to. But - no matter what I did and how I looked at it - I couldn't get a correct Bakers Percentage from those quantities on page 46.
Was I making a mistake in trying to halve the quantities, do you think - especially per Mariana's corrective about salt?
Could I even refrigerate or freeze the half which I might not bake?
I rarely make two loaves Mark so when I look at someone’s recipe for two loaves I try my best to do the math carefully and divide everything by two. Now that being said, I typically want to bake a 900 g dough loaf, so often I have to do a bit more math than just divide but two, but ultimately it is easy math. Does Chad provide baker’s percentages in his recipes?
If you decide you want to bake two loaves, you can certainly bake both, maybe even par bake one and freeze it whole wrapped well, and then finish baking from frozen later on. I wouldn’t freeze the dough though, I’m not sure how well the microbes would do from frozen.
Yes, I did divide Chad's exact weights (in grammes) by two. I didn't want 2,095g of bread.
He does provide baker's percentages [p 46] but I can't make them add up to 100%:
flours, of course (1,000g) = 100.
wheat germ = 70g + water = 850g + leaven = 150g + salt = 25g, which is 108.5%. Even without the levain (containing water and flour) then the rest still equal 93.5%. Not that I shall lose sleep over it. But the more I know… :-)
BTW, at your suggestion, I have been in touch with Floyd: what a fantastic community!
Baker’s percentages do not add up to 100% except for flour. Remember, each percentage is that ingredient divided by total flour. Only total flour which includes the flour in the levain since there is flour in there too totals 100%.
So if you had a dough with 500 g of flour in total, and you had a 50 g 100% hydration levain, so the flour in the mix would be 475 g and the flour from the levain is 25 g. Let’s say the hydration of the dough is 78%. So total water is 0.78 x 500 = 390 g so the water in the mix is 390 - 25 = 365 g. Using the typical 2% of salt gives you 10 g. So your flour adds up to 100 which it should and it includes the levain flour. Your water and salt add up to 80%, not 100 but that is correct for this made up formula. Throw in inclusions and you can easily get to over 100 for all the non flour ingredients.
Thanks, Benny. I had obviously misunderstood. I thought that the other ingredients than flour (water, salt, oils etc) together should make up the same total in weight as the flour. And so each contribute to making the same 100% in weight as the flour does.
I can see now, thanks, how to calculate the actual quantities of flour(s) and water which are present in the levain - assuming that I have stuck to hydration ratios such as 1:1:1 in maintaining my starter.
I confess, I haven't always been doing that. Has seemed such a 'waste' to discard, say 200g of starter when I have a 300g starter in the fridge - just in order to be able to feed with 100g of flour and 100g of water (to get a 1:1:1).
But I should be prepared to discard, shouldn't I :-)
Last week I bought smaller Weck jars (half Litre) and kept only a small quantity (100/150g) of my starters. Of course they doubled in size in a morning. I plan to keep smaller starters.
I think I've been considering my starters as 'substances' - and so thinking that I need a lot of them. But now that you've kindly helped me put the spotlight on as little as a 'Chad tablespoon', I ought to think of them more like dissolved yeast, shouldn't I?
And be prepared to spoon off smaller quantities still to make a specific levain for a specific bake.
Or even - as in the Tartine bread we're discussing - start a dedicated starter for that bread some days earlier.
Maybe my model of a 'stock' starter is wrong?
If you are doing 1:1:1 feeds your starter is going to get weak pretty quickly Mark. It would be beneficial to do larger feeds. I don’t know how often you bake but lets say I usually bake twice per week and rarely only once or three times. I essentially have zero wasted starter so no discard on a week to week basis. Once a week I feed my starter, usually doing a ratio of at minimum 1:2:2 and often much more 1:4:4 or so. After my bakes I aim to have anywhere from 3-5 g max of starter left. Then when it has been 7 d since the last feed I’ll feed my starter planning to have enough starter for my two bakes and leaving some behind to feed again. So with 3 g of start I’ll feed it 1:5:5 so 3 g starter fed 15 g water and 15 g whole rye flour. Typically I only need at most 15 g of starter for a bake. If I decide on a formula that requires more starter to build the levain than I have, I can do an 2 step levain build. Let’s say I need 150 g of levain and I only have 15 g of starter left. I don’t want to use it all up so don’t want to do a 1:10:10 build, so instead I can take 10 g of my starter leaving behind 5 g to be refreshed. Then I’ll feed 10 g starter 1:2:2 and have 50 g of levain and then can feed it 1:1:1 which then gives me the 150 g of levain that I need.
There is no reason to keep large quantities of starter for the average home baker unless you are making a ton of bread on a regular basis. This way I have essentially no discard and can give my starter large enough feeds that help keep it healthy and active.
Benny
Benny, the master method in T3 has a starter maintenance recommendation of once daily 1:2:2 feedings. 75 g, 150 g, 150 g. Page 34.
Then 2 days before making the levain, page 35, he says to feed twice daily, in the same amounts as page 34.
Then to make levain, sgain page 35, take 1 tbsp starter and feed it 200 g water and 200 g flour, and use the levain in 4 to 6 hours.
Then, most formulas (based on 1000 g flour) call for 150 g levain.
So, Robertson is kind of wasteful in like manner to Forkish.
My internal debate is whether to burden the novice sourdough baker with our shortcuts/workarounds for more cost efficient starters up front, or leave things uncomplicated -- just follow the (wasteful) formula/procedure as written -- and learn the shortcuts after establishing a baseline of a few successful loaves.
Yes I get it, but it is good to know that there’s more than one way to build a levain and many ways to maintain your starter that isn’t wasteful. I really dislike waste. Mark can consider it or just follow Chad’s instructions as written.
Thanks for that, Dave. I see what you're saying and appreciate your pointing it out.
I almost think - thanks to everyone here - that I now have a much better idea of why things work (or don't!) as they do (or should).
I feel comfortable following Chad. But as I gain in experience - and perception of what's going on - the additional glosses will become ever more helpful, I'm sure.
As long as I listen and take in what you all say, I feel anything that goes wrong is down to me :-)
Benny,
Not sure I really understand why. I can see that when I only offer as much flour and water as is there to begin with (say 50g ((original) starter) + 50g (flour) + 50g (water)) on the first feed, I'm not giving those 50g of starter very much to 'take advantage of'. But doesn't that new starter, 150g in weight, all count as mixture to be fed next time? The original starter cultures and ferments everything around it, doesn't it?
Until this last week or two, when I saw that I might actually make a better job of baking sourdough bread (!), I've been baking once a week. Assuming my loaves become more edible (!), I'd like to think that perhaps once every four days is feasible.
Your schedule makes sense, and I have noted it (as usual). Thanks!
What you're doing is almost the opposite of what I have been doing - and obviously I need to (and can easily) - specifically adjust my quantities of starter to meet the needs of upcoming bakes. Simple really, thanks!
I do have some other questions, if I may:
My understanding is that the LAB will start reproducing faster than the yeast. With such small feedings you risk reducing the population of the yeast because of their initial slower reproduction. With larger feedings you give the yeast more time to populate your starter. So at 1:1:1 you risk the food running low before the yeast can really get their populations up. I think only doing 1:1:1 feeds isn’t as good for long term starter viability as even just 1:2:2. It certainly fits with my experience with my starter over time.
The risk as I see it to immediately refrigerating your just fed starter is that at a cold temperature the microbes may not be very active at all, especially for temperatures 4ºC or less. But let’s say your fridge is warmer say 6ºC which is kinda warm, but still a temperature that they can multiply. How long will it take for them to multiple and regain their density in the starter? I have no idea. So if i hasn’t been long enough, you risk using a diluted starter with few microbes in it when you go to build a levain and have an unpredictable levain build. A fed starter that has peaked and then been refrigerated at 4ºC or less is more predictable. It is fully populated with the full density of microbes. At these low temperatures they are fine for up to at least a week (Doc Dough on TFL says he has data that shows up to two weeks) without your starter needing to be refreshed before levain build meaning you can take out what you need and directly make an active levain. No extra feeds are needed to “activate” it.
I keep one starter only, a rye starter, if you are a purist and want a truly 100% whole wheat bread then with several shorts feeds the small amount of rye from the starter is essentially zero. I’m not a purist, so I’ll use my rye starter and with a high ratio build, like 1:6:6 for the levain, the amount of rye in the final bread is low enough that I don’t care and I’ve never been able to taste it.
I use filtered water because chlorine will kill some of the microbes. I don’t sterilize my utensils but I do wash them.
I hope that helps and doesn’t cause you greater confusion.
Thanks, Benny. Yes, it all really helps.
In fact I have always kept a starter fed in the morning out until bedtime. Maybe that was a good intuition.
I can also now see and understand that 1:1:1 is very unlikely to fit in better/properly with the baking schedule (the 'creation' of the right levain quantity for the upcoming job) against which you have explained it is wiser to plan starter feeding.
I suppose I have always felt (without any justification!) that there is something 'magical' about a sourdough starter; and that I need to keep as much of it (back) as possible, lest it somehow wither and die.
In fact the opposite is true, isn't it: even your minimal 3 - 5 g can do a lot of work. And do it better if it has more new flour to work on.
If I think about it, then always feeding with more new flour/water (1:2:2, 1:5:5) also always presents the previous starter culture with the nutrition it needs. It is an arithmetical fallacy that successive starter quantities can ever behave differently from one another in terms of how much new flour and water they need just because they are being added to.
I think… !
So if I decide only to maintain one, it should be Rye? And it is a mistake to mix flour types in the same starter? Can I mix, though, a rye starter with an AP or WW levain?
I have a preference for using rye, it is simpler to use just one flour, less work to mix. Also rye is a really ideal flour, whole rye that is in particular because it has good amounts of amylase to break down starches into sugars that the microbes can then consume to multiply along with other nutrients. When bakers find their starters sluggish, generally we turn to rye to boost it. So why just use it to booster our starters? Why not just use it all the time to feed our starters that way they are vigorous. In the past I used to feed my starter whole organic whole red fife, thinking that an organic whole grain should be good for starter health. However, at least twice, it became very very sluggish for reasons unknown to me. Each time I kept it on the counter and fed it rye for several days each time waiting for it to peak before feeding again. After the most recent episode of this I decided why not just switch to rye and ever since no issues with the starter. It is totally reliable and predictable now, which I like. Mixing rye at first is odd because it feels like mixing cement, however you get used to that very quickly. I like that it isn’t runny when I need to take some out to build a levain so it is easy and tidy to spoon out of its container.
So that’s just why I do what I do. However, lots of bakers do different things, many mix AP and rye for example, while other just feed white flour and any combination you can think of. And since you can use any starter to create any type of levain, it doesn’t truly matter what you have been feeding the starter, it will make a levain based on any flour so long as it has the appropriate food for the microbes.
Benny,
Does that mean that the flour should be hydrated more; or that one just has to learn to manage its stiffness?!
Really? No hint of a left-over taste? I felt that this most recent loaf of mine was rye-like (in sweetness, for instance).
But probably that was just the over-saltiness that Mariana explained. And the other imperfect processes I was following?
Should I not, then, be worrying about overwhelming as little as 3, 4 or 5g of starter with (to keep it manageable, as you suggest) 30, 40 or 50g (15, 20 or 25g each of flour and water) feed?
You’ll get used to it if you decide to go with an all rye starter, it’s no big deal just different. I don’t taste rye unless I purposefully add rye to my dough. I usually make 1:6:6 builds of the levain and then of the total flour only 9-10% of the final flour is from the levain, this is the prefermented flour PFF. So a 13th of 9% is rye, so just over 1%, I doubt most people could taste 1.17% rye in a dough.
You can use whatever hydration you wish in your starter but for ease of mixing, I’d stay with 100% hydration for now until you have more experience.
With feeds of 1:2:2 to 1:6:6 I wouldn’t worry about overwhelming your starter, these aren’t unusual ratios whatsoever.
Thanks again, Benny!
What a lot I've learned.
All noted in a growing Obsidian Vault.
Ready to make my next loaf (a rerun of the Tartine) rsn :-)
Benny,
(Still continuing to maintain starters well - I think!)
I can now get the freshly-fed (1:2:2) to double in a matter of hours - by keeping them out, in the oven with light on :-)
But once they are then ready to go back into the fridge (just under 40°F), should I stir them in the Weck jars; or let them stay expanded with bubbles, do you think, please?
If you’re not sure when you’re going bake and it could be anytime in the next seven days, make sure you allow your starter to fully peak and just start to fall so you know it is matured. Then put it in the fridge. I don’t stir it again, but you can if that makes you feel happy.
Thanks, Benny! That's just what I have been doing. Shall carry on the same way :-)
Mark, with the recipes that you try for the first time, you follow them to the letter, except water. Unfortunately, with the Tartine #3 book layout, you have to jump all over the book to assemble all of the instructions in one place to bake one loaf, so it's tricky, not beginner friendly.
Grams of water are not important, what is important is the dough consistency. My flour would actually take much more water, 20-30% more water, than in Chad's recipe to obtain the same levain and dough consistency and silky pudding like bread crumb as in Chad's pictures and videos. And then I would add more salt. Otherwise my bread would taste watery. Chad's flour is moist, he bakes in San-Francisco where air is humid, so his flour has about 15-16% moisture content. My flour in Toronto is very dry, 5-6% moisture content, so it needs more water.
If you are not happy with the amount of water, you can always reduce it to the level you feel comfortable with, just cut down on salt accordingly. Chad's recipe is rather high in salt. I am used to breads with salt in 1.5-2.0% range. His 2.1-2.5% for me is almost too much.
Eventually, you will experiment and learn how much water your flour can take and still make manageable dough. Normally, it is somewhere in the area of 115-120% max hydration for white flour breads like ciabatta. Therefore 79% hydration for half-wholegrain bread as in Chad's Ode is really modest. (1175g total flours, including flour from levain, 925g total water, including water from levain) But for some reason, it is too much for your flour or your level of skill, then adjust and bake comfortably.
The trick with the handmade bread (no machine kneading) with high hydration formulas is to
1) start with a chunky, shaggy mix at the autolysis stage and keep your dough relatively cool, around 68F/20C, to maximize gluten formation as it autolyzes.
2) then add water incrementally, a little bit with each ingredient addition and with each fold as it ferments. See 1 min illustration here. This dough is similar to the Chad's Ode's dough (50-50 white - whole wheat flour) except its hydration is 115% and it has oil on top of that!!! So, it's for ciabatta.
https://www.facebook.com/ceorbread/videos/1801473596846582
This guy's breads are not just decent, they are excellent. His name is Guy Frenkel and he bakes in Los Angeles, so his flour is moist enough as well.
https://www.facebook.com/ceorbread/photos/?ref=page_internal
https://www.instagram.com/ceorbread/
Good luck with the next batch of dough and your next bread, Mark. Godspeed!
Thanks, Mariana!
I like reading:
It explains a lot :-)
Weight is less important than controlling dough consistency - which I think I can recognize.
That difference between 15-16% in northern California vs 5-6% in Eastern Canada is significant, isn't it. I'm 30 miles north of Los Angeles, Low Desert. Rarely humid.
Could I even calculate the humidors between the Bay Area and where I am and adjust %ages to allow for that accordingly, do you think? Or is that going too far :-)
Your steps 1 and 2 for hydration formulas very helpful, thanks.
In future, I shall aim only to add water up to the silky smooth point :-)
Thanks again!
Mark, if you live in a very dry climate, similar to Palm Springs, then your flour would be very dry too. And you would need more water, not less. You can get yourself an indoor humidity meter and place one where you store you flour or and where you work with dough. Then you will know you flour moisture content instantly.
https://www.amazon.com/ThermoPro-Digital-Hygrometer-Thermometer-Temperature/dp/B07R3YC1BC
Maybe you used a different kind of flour, not as strong and water absorbent as Chad's bread flours, or maybe it was a simple matter of skill, of adding water in steps or stages. Letting gluten form and become strong before separating its chains with water and forcing them to re-link themselves into sheets of gluten with air in between as you stretch and fold them.
Gluten is waterproof, impermeable and absolutely non-sticky, so you would be able to trap a lot of water in high hydration dough and and keep it non-sticky, non-gluey, and fluffy, if you use the method of not just double hydration, as Chad shows, but hydration at every fold, as Guy does.
You bake an excellent looking bread in your bread machine, so I believe that once you learn that there is no freedom in baking by hand, just as there is no freedom in baking in the bread machine - small deviations lead to big failures, small corrections - to big gains, sticking to the recipe is a must, except for water, you will be on your way to success.
Good recipes of bread and remarkably good breads are rare and should be treasured. Nor just any combination of ingredients and procedures will result in good bread.
Thanks, Mariana! Not so arid as Palm Springs. But we do get static shocks from the wind and low humidity between October and March :-)
Your guidance encourages me further. I shall get the hygrometer.
I obviously need to stick even more closely to the recipe and try various ways of introducing water gradually so that it really does its job - and is not 'just another substance'.
Have added your directives to my notes.
Am determined :-)
Benny, Mariana, Dave - many thanks for all your help last time!
Crumb was not open.jpg
Height was better.jpg
Scoring worked.jpg
I followed Chad’s instructions [Tartine 3 pp 36-41], which you all kindly ‘annotated’ and helped me understand.
A young starter only five days old [per pages 34,35] at the high (1:40) ratios.
No more than 375g pure, filtered water.
Flours were:
Autolyse only two hours. Bulk rise five. The dough in the medium (not large like last week) looked like a 50% rise. Aliquot jar confirmed about a 50% rise.
Throughout the week humidity in the area where my flours are stored and I was working was in the mid 30%s. When I made the dough, 40%
Although I think it could have done with 5 minutes less in the oven, it wasn’t burnt and tasted OK.
But:
Should I now suspect the flours, their age, or the blend I used of all four to get what Chad calls for one page 46, please?
Any ideas which you offer will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance :-)
Mark I agree, you’ve overbaked it a bit, but other than that, what don’t you like about it? If I’m not mistaken it is 75% whole grain. It’s going to be a challenge getting more oven spring and more open crumb from such a loaf. I’d be pretty darned pleased with it if I was you. I’ve overproofed many a high whole grain loaf and this is not overproofed.
Now I’m not sure what your shaping skills are like, but it is possible that if the final shaping had a bit more tension you might have had more oven spring, but again, that’s nitpicking. You should be quite pleased. If you are looking for a taller more open crumb loaf, you’ll want to go to a lower whole grain loaf something < 50%.
Benny, Hi - how kind of you: always encouraging :-) !
Thanks.
And thanks, specifically, for confirming that - if I listen to my 'elders and betters' - I can avoid overproofing :-)))
Yes, it's 50% High extraction wheat + 25% whole grain wheat + white whole wheat.
Chad shows a pretty open crumb on page 48, and 'whiter', while mine is a gingery colour.
There is a tang, which I thought may come from either the wrong flours, or flours perhaps up to a year old.
I'm sure you're right re final shaping. Maybe I could have pulled it out on the large pastry board I bought, stretched it, and folded it back thinner?
The tang is from the LAB producing acid, many bakers love that sour tang from sourdough. Whole grains will generally taste more sour so again if you want a less sour bread one option is to use more white non whole grain flour.
I wouldn’t go crazy stretching out your nicely fermented dough and degassing it too much. After you have shaped it, just give it a couple of gentle tension pulls (I’m unsure if this has a name) along the counter to tighten it, again don’t go crazy and tear the skin. Also once in the banneton, you could do a bit of stitching, where you grab the dough along the edge and pull it down to the center, do this all the way around and that puts some extra tension on the skin. Remembering you do run the risk of degassing the more you handle the dough.
All understood :-)
I tasted the bread again this morning with some marmalade. Pretty chewy and tasty. Not so tangy as I thought from the little lump yesterday.
But (far too) dense.
Presumably that's because WW gave me neither rise nor spring - not from over proofing, Benny?
From what you say, thanks, I shall try a white loaf next time. Although, of course, I am aware that whole what is more nutritious.
I know what you mean by 'tension pulls' - more gentle stretching than pulling to fold :-)
In the banneton, you mean around the circumference pulling gently toward the centre: after all, this will be underneath once I invert?
Appreciated!
No it doesn’t appear overfermented to me, I think it looks fine especially with the amount of whole grain in it. You can find a recipe that has even 50% white bread flour in it, that will give you a more open crumb.
Yes in the banneton, I think it is called stitching at least when it is done for a batard, for a boule I’m not sure what its called. But yes pulling a small amount of dough from the edge towards the center all the way around. This can have the effect of tightening the surface and can lead to more oven spring, but again be careful because too much can also degas the dough.
Yes, I shall try a completely different recipe next week :-)
I know that (final) shaping on a(n almost) flourless bench (as HK insists is better in these videos) increases the surface tension. Stitching makes sense as an analogous process - to cut off roads of escape for the gases :-)
Extremely enjoyable, too, all of this, isn't it!
Yes it is especially enjoyable when you see some improvements and success. But it is all so interesting and there is so much to learn. I doubt anyone stops learning as a baker.