I made a sourdough starter last month and have been baking with it at least twice a week ever since. I've gotten some mixed results and some questions about my latest 'loaf' of bread. Previously I only baked bread in the pyrex loaf tin, and so didn't seem to have so many problems. I have based the recipe on this post, but have been more than a little slack with the instructions and scaled everything down, so it goes like this:
The afternoon before I mixed 1 oz 100% whole wheat starter, 4 oz water, and 4 oz atta flour. After a few hours I placed it in the fridge overnight.
In the morning I mixed 8.8 oz all-purpose flour, 4.8 oz atta flour, and 9.3 oz water and let it autolyze for 30 minutes. Then I added the levain and kneaded by hand (no mixer) and added the salt after 10 minutes of kneading. At this stage the dough wasn't very stretchy, but I figured it must be the atta flour and thought nothing of it.
After a few stretch and folds I let the dough sit at room temperature (about 27C) for 6 hours. I shaped it in the late afternoon and plopped it directly into a colander lined with a handkerchief. I probably should I left it in the fridge or baked it earlier in the evening, but at around 10 pm I checked the dough and it was kind of bubbly on top. I was afraid it might have overproofed and decided to bake it immediately.
What happened next was that the dough just spread like a giant pancake after I tipped it out of the colander onto the parchment-lined stone (I just use a big slab of marble?). I didn't score it because it looked impossible to do so. I also used my fingers to sprinkle water in the general direction of the oven floor. In the end it baked okay and rose a tiny bit. but I wasn't very impressed with the shape. My mom isn't a fan of the sour flavour, but everyone agreed the crust seemed my best so far.
Here are some pictures of today's bread.
1. How do I stop the bread from spreading? Or do I just really need a dutch oven for higher hydration doughs?
2. Is there any way of reducing the sourness of the starter and the bread?
3. Is baking with atta flour beyond the abilities of a newbie like me?
4. My loaf-tin breads (all sourdough, 70-72% hydration) have generally worked out well but this attempt to go without the loaf tin and using a different flour has been a humbling failure. Is there anything that I am doing wrong?
Many thanks in advance for the help and advice!
Gloria
I have all the same issues and it makes no difference if I proof more or less, if I knead more or less. I do know that if you want more sour, use less starter (go figure).
I guess if I want to reduce the tartness, I'd have to use more starter and a shorter rising time then.
From my own mistakes, it looks overproofed and lacking surface tension from shaping!
I botched the proofing and shaping due to pure inexperience- I guess I have learned a little more this time!
Those photos are a sight familiar to me (& probably to everyone at TFL). It's a very sad looking loaf, but I bet it still tastes good.
I've got a handful of suggestions.
1. Add the salt with the levain before you knead. It's important that the salt is evenly distributed because it acts as a brake on the yeast and helps prevent over-development.
2. Ten minutes of vigorous kneading is perhaps too much. If you over-knead whole wheat doughs you achieve the surreal experience of your dough turning into a runny, sticky, gloomy mess. What's happens is that, as you work the dough, the bran in the flour slices apart the gluten strands, releasing the water bound up in them. It was a disconcerting experience the first time it happened to me. Unfortunately, there's no recovery from this. It's why stretching-and-folding with period rests between usually works better than intense kneading.
3. Six hours at 27C is a long time for bulk fermentation. You don't want your yeast to exhaust itself to the point that it has little power during the final proof. Might it be worth experimenting at a third or half of your bulk fermentation time? Possibly at a lower temp (24-25C)?
4. You're right about the final proof. If it's spongy and bubbly, it's gone too far (unless it ciabatta or focaccia) and your yeast has run out of food. Don't trust proving times on recipes because there are so many other factors which can affect the dough's rise. It's better to use the tried-and-trusted finger-poke test.
5. If you do over-proof, all is not lost. This is where not exhausting your yeast is a great help. I'd suggest gently de-gassing the dough, re-shaping then setting it aside to prove again. Most dough are resilient enough to create another rise. It will take longer but it you keep checking it you'll get a good loaf. Obviously, if your yeast has already run it's course, then this will not work.
6. Dutch ovens are great, but I'd suggest it might be worth re-thinking your approach to high hydration. It's not a means to and end in itself, especially if you are working with an unfamiliar flour. How about aiming for a dough that's coherent and shaggy after only a few minutes kneading? One that doesn't flow through your fingers? The shagginess means the gluten is starting to develop and the dough will respond well when you stretch-and-fold during the bulk rise. Don't be afraid to add a little more flour to achieve this consistency, but it's the last time you should do so.
7. The sourness might be because of two factors. There are different bacilli doing different jobs in a sourdough culture. Refrigeration promotes the lactobacilli which create acetic acid, so keeping the culture on your worktop (out of direct sunlight) gives you a more mellow flavour. Also, your culture can build up a big reservoir of acid. Trust your nose. If the culture smells very sour, it might be time to discard the bulk of your sourdough, keep ten per cent and rebuild. I hate having to do this, but it does work.
Wow, thanks for the reply. I have learned quite a lot from your comment!
It seems dough with whole wheat flour needs more delicate handling. Should I just leave the gluten to develop on its own and avoid the risk of over-kneading?
The bulk fermentation was that long because I went out to meet a friend and forgot to put it in the fridge... I learned a lesson this time, lol.
Great advice on the flour and the starter- I do think I need to learn to look at the consistency of the dough itself instead of just the numbers, and to learn to respond to what I see, touch, and smell. Thanks !
It's fun to bash dough around, I used to. But the quality of my bread was transformed when I learnt to treat it with delicacy.
Don't sweat the gluten development, it's best to keep hand kneading each batch until you develop a sense of the feel of a dough, just don't do it for so long. Like Kalikan says, it's hard to over-knead by hand but it can be done (I have). With practice you learn to recognise when the dough's ready, especially if you stretch and fold during the bulk rise. I've just done a batch of Julio Hevia's Crocodile Sourdough and it took four half-hourly S+F turns. Usually it's three. Once it was five.
On your point #2 - according to Reinhart, it's next to impossible to over-knead the dough when kneading by hand (at least without intentionally trying to do that). Last week I did a 20min French knead (picking the dough up and then slapping it down on surface) on my dough and had no problems.
It's just finely ground wholemeal flour - sometimes (depending on the mill) it has extra white added into it. Who knows what the actual gluten content is.
Personally, I'd stick to making chupatties with it and buy strong bread flour to start with.
-Gordon