Guessing my problems lie in the shaping or pre-shaping but it's only a guess, maybe you folks could offer some words of wisdom.
Hopefully the pictures will help to show what I am asking...the first is of what I would call a blister on the outside of the loaf. The second is what I sometimes find in my batards so again guessing it is related to my shaping?
Try deflating it more before shaping. Rest of the crumb looks great!
The blisters look more like crumbs on the surface... How are you doing it? Got more details? :)
Thanks, I've been using a scraper for the pre-shape and then doing the final shaping by hand. Should I degas prior to the final shaping?
For some reason it seems that my boules do not have this issue as much as the batards so I thought it may have been more related to the final shaping.
The top one is a recipe for bran encrusted white dough from FWSY (Forkish) and the second is a recipe that I got from the Girl Meets Rye blog (rye bread). Both have fairly high hydration and that is mostly what I have been making. I have found that both techniques are similar and I just use whatever timing works for me so often a 4-5 hour bulk (with stretch and folds the first 2 hours or so) followed by 12-14 hours in the refrigerator.
Here's a crumb shot and a full pic of the first loaf, it was all white flour and I wonder if this is why I didn't get larger holes? It's the first all white sourdough I've made (well the starter was a mix of rye/white/wheat) and turned out tasting better than I would've thought.