December 6, 2021 - 6:30am
Rate My Crumb - underproofed?
This is a basic white recipe (from Paul Hollywood's book that my wife bought me):
500g bread flour
30g butter
320ml water
10g salt
10g yeast
Notice how compacted the crumb is at the bottom of the loaf - while I'm pretty darn happy with this loaf (I did a cooler slow-rise yesterday over about 3 hours and developed some great flavors before final proofing in loaf tin) I'm always looking to improve. Is this pretty normal or can I expect to improve this, and most importantly how?? I'm almost sure it wasn't underproofed, I think I hit the final proofing window pretty well.
Really appreciate any input!
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At 64% hydration and a smidge of oil, this looks just right for a classic sandwich bread. You should be happy with the result!, but in what ways would you like to improve it?
The crumb at the bottom of sides of pan loaves will generally be more compacted than the crumb at the top or middle of the loaf. However, the crust on your loaf at the bottom seems a bit pale to me, you might improve it by baking it lower in the oven to get more heat into the bottom of the loaf. I don’t see any fermentation issues with the crumb at all.
Benny
Looks like the pan was either shiny so that it reflected the heat and/or baked on a rack where the top was seeing more heat than the bottom. Depending on your oven specifics you may have choices as to which heating element(s) you turn on.