I have been baking sourdough with intermittent success for about 3 years. I follow various recipes--most successful one is one I found called "Norwich sourdough" as a variation of Hamelman's recipe. 360 g mature starter, 900 g APF, 120 g rye/pumpernickel flour, 600 g water, 23 g salt. Rise is hours long with intermittent folds, use bannetons.
As I baked it--it rose great, and browned nicely. Pulled it out after about 35 min (450 F temp) and used steam. After cooling, the crust is soft and almost compressible. The crumb is very very soft but cooked. what did I do wrong? It looked browned and if I left it in, i worried about drying it out and/or burning it.
It sounds like under baked to me. Also did you remove the steam source after 10 to 15 minutes?
Was the internal temperature when removed it from the oven, measured with a thermometer, around 200F?
Have you measured the reliability of the thermostat in your oven? Does it reach a real 450F?
As Chockswahay asks, do you remove your steam source midway through the baking?
Are you using a scale to measure your ingredients?
Does the recipe say anything about how the crust should turn out?
That's a start.
Thank you. Sadly, I do not take the internal temp. I wing it. I have no heart to poke the bread with a thermometer. Don't want to penetrate the outer shell :) I do use a scale to measure. Recipe pics show normal "thicker" crust. I probably undercooked.
Finally--I do not have a thermometer in there. Next on my list. The cooking of other things, though, seems accurate (including other breads, pizza, etc)
with a kilo of flour in it, bake under 45 min. A half kilo, yes but I think the oven was too hot and not baked long enough. Aim for about an hour at 220°C, or turn it down after the initial spring. 450°F = 232°C If it is getting brown around half an hour turn it down further to 210°C
I used the recipe above, but divided into four loaves. One large (probably 1/3 of the dough), 2 mini rounds (each probably 1/5 of the dough), and one medium round.
Two are still refrigerator proofing. But I like your suggestions. Thank you.
That recipe's baking time (12min w/ steam + 18min w/o steam) is for 450g loaves (i.e. baby loaves :) ). I would normally split the recipe into two loaves of about a kilo each and bake at 460F for 20min w/ steam, remove steam and reduce temp to 435F for 30min w/o steam (50min total) - then a 5min rest on a rack in the heat path that's venting from the oven. Oven temps are variable depending on how your oven works in your kitchen - going with 450F throughout the entire bake is a reasonable place to start
I think simply increasing your baking time will give you a more desired outcome.
Thank you--it is the first time my crust has been so soft (but I cut into it this AM and it tasted great and cut great. It was fully cooked just not "crusty"). I will increase my cooking time to 40-45 minutes next time and hope.
Great suggestions--I will try. How do you remove steam? I have a pan in the bottom and also spray in there with a spray bottle, use a cooking stone. After a few minutes, the water in the bottom tray has evaporated.
I use a pan of water plus spray bottle as well. My electric (non-convection) oven is terrible at venting which turns out to be great for baking bread. My method is as follows:
The pan of water goes on the lowest rack in the oven. Above that, in the middle of the oven, I have a rack with quarry tiles which is where I place the dough. Nothing else in the oven. If your water in the tray is evaporating after a few minutes then you should try using a bit more. You should aim to have a little water left when you go to remove the tray from the oven so that you know it has been "steaming" the whole time.
During the steaming phase, my goal is to not open the door unless I absolutely have to (l like the loaves are about to touch) because I'll lose that precious steam very fast, and it will take a couple minutes to build back up giving the crust time to prematurely "set".
Luckily, bread making is very forgiving and even when a loaf comes out flatter than expected, or softer than we'd like, it still tastes good and is a pleasure to eat :D
in the tray, then remove the tray when you want to stop steaming :)
I get it that you don't want to poke the beautiful crusty surface. I make my hole in the bottom of the bread. No one has ever noticed.
Get a cheap thermometer when you can. You're flying blind without one. Also, get an oven thermometer as well. When possible, of course.