Gummy Crumb

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BetterBoules on 2 May 2018 at 14:19

Made my first ever boule of artisan bread--Country Brown from Flour Water Salt and Yeast.  With the very slack dough I practically "poured" it into the Dutch oven and was surprised it came out as well as it did.  Big holes, really dark crust and hearty flavor of the rubbery crumb.  Next time I will fold more and make a tighter skin ball.  Anybody have a clue why the crumb is rubbery?  Tempt. was a bit higher than expected when it came out of the oven at 211 F.  Thanks for any input.  ( I can't seem to get a pic uploaded yet.)

What flour did you use? This looks to me like very high protein bread flour. Did you use any additives?

Let us know the formula and the instructions, it may provide some clues.

Dan

I used KA organic wheat flour and KA organic AP flour.  No bread flour in any part of the starter, levain or final dough.  The formula for the levain was 100g mature starter, 400g KA AP flour, 100g KA whole wheat and 400g water--reverse osmosis. For the final dough 604g AP, 276g whole wheat, 684g water, 22g, fine sea salt, and 267g levain (incl. the 50g additional in my cool kitchen as suggested). 

Following Forkish's instructions to the letter:  Autolyse 30 min., Mix using his "pincer method", Fold then after 15 hrs. Divide, Shape and Proof in bannetons,.  Baked in dutch oven preheated to 475 for 30 min. covered then 20 more min. uncovered.  Didn't slice until early evening -- hours after cooling.

Looks pretty good, tastes good but the crumb stretches.

 

If it were me I’d try another bag of flour. Use only a single type of new flour. Maybe one of the bags of flour had a problem. Very rare, but maybe possible. If the same results occur you will have ruled out possibility. 

Other than that, I have no idea what could cause the problem. All things look good to me.

I know that rubbery crumb. In my experience the problems have been either flour or additives such as vital wheat gluten or diastatic malt. And you said, “no additives”.

HTH

Dan

You mean try using, for example, only AP flour instead of AP AND whole wheat?  I'm new at this and don't know enough yet to alter a recipe but I don't think Forkish meant for the result I got.  The picture in Flour Water Salt Yeast looked much whiter than mine even though the name of his bread is Country Brown.  I' really really like a good levain recipe for WHITE crusty bread.  Got an idea for that? 

Thank you so much Dan for the time to suggest possible remedies. 

I am suggesting the that you try a single flour from a new bag. Add the white of the white flour and the whole grain flour and use that total weight for a test bake. I figure 880 grams. The purpose is to isolate a single variable, the flour, in order to see if that might have anything to do with your problem. The bread should taste fine and bake well also.

If you are new to SD bread, maybe another recipe would be a good idea. I say that because the bread you baked is very wet. I figure 81%hydration. That is a tough recipe to start SD baking with. And for the most part, you did a GREAT job.

A nice recipe might be the 123 Bread. You can search the forum for the recipe. Check this out. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/search/node/123%20bread It is 1 part starter (Levain), 2 parts water, and 3 parts flour. This bread is less wet than the one you baked. The first link on the page looks like a good one. You could use the following weights. 100g starter, 200g water, 300g flour, and 6g salt.

Don’t know where my head was. A 123 Bread would be 300g flour, 200g water, 100g starter, and 6g salt.

Too many figures in my head ;-)

Dan

NOTE: I corrected the error in the post above.

You wondered about the color of the crumb in the photo in Forkish's book for the Overnight Country Brown.  Last month I baked a couple of loaves of it, and included are photos of my loaves, which are also browner than the one in Forkish's book.  Lighting can affect the view, but perhaps these resemble yours.

I have never been able to follow Forkish's timelines.  (Do a search of TFL and you will find that most others have experienced the same.)  My one attempt to do an extended bulk fermentation resulted in a completely unusable slurry when the dough broke down.

As for a crusty white bread recipe, I like Paul Hollywood's British Baking book, which contains a nice Crusty Swansea.  Easy to make and with a nice flavor.  Perhaps give it a try.

Thanks for the compliment.  Whatever I can do is the result of practice, practice, practice as well as paying attention and trying to understand (hence, reading comments and blogs about baking bread).  The top loaf was baked in a Dutch oven, but the bottom one was simply free-standing on a baking stone.