February 25, 2024 - 7:42am
Large bubbles on top crust; what am I doing wrong?
Symptom of over proofing?
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Large bubbles on top crust; what am I doing wrong?
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The Fresh Loaf
A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.
you most likely trapped a bubble in the dough during shaping or perhaps didn't degas the dough adequately. If you gently palpate the shaped loaf with your fingertips, you'll usually be able to tell if there are any large bubbles lurking near the surface. Once you find them, just deflate them before baking.
Paul
Thanks for the response
I concur with Paul. Don't be afraid to pop the bubbles - the whole loaf won't deflate. Sometimes these bubbles can be persuaded to join back into the dough by slapping or patting them. Part of degassing is dealing with bubbles like these, so don't worry that you are doing something wrong in getting them.
TomP
Honestly never heard of degasing artisan bread, especially if an open crumb is the goal.
Can you tell me the process and when to degas?
It's basically what is often called "punching down" in the non-artisan world, though you want to be gentler than that term sounds like. You know how the dough will deflate when you ease it out of the fermentation container? Just help that along by gently pressing the dough until obvious bubbles be absorbed or popped.
When you start folding or rolling up the dough during shaping, more largish bubbles may appear, and just get them out of the way too.
Don't worry that degassing will cause you to lose all that CO2 that has built up during fermentation. The loaf will refill nicely during proofing.
Here's a very nice video on shaping, and she talks about dealing with bubbles arounf 6:30 into it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhmboEstDPo
Here's one that directly compares (very extreme) degassing with no degassing -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB_SodNobVQ
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Bulk firm was conducted in a container with measurement lines.
The dough almost doubled, 75% to be exact which too, 5 hrs.
Shaped and into bannetons. Sat on counter top for 45 minutes before going into fridge for 10 hours.
700 gm ap flour (150 fresh milled hard white and 550 AP), 73% water, 120 gm starter, 15 gm salt.
Baked in dutch oven in 500 degree oven. I'm wondering if temp was too high, killing yeast before a proper oven spring..... just a thought.
If the loaf was in a dutch oven dont sorry about high temp. Temperature always kills yeast, the problem is when crust sets too quickly the inside cannot expand anymore and youll end up with a denser loaf. Thats why we use steam and/or dutch ovens.
my thoughts, maybe use a little less water. Crumb seems ok, but flat dough can be causes by high hydration.