This is a white sourdough, 70% hydration with Shipton Mill white flour.
All these loaves went in my Rofco B40 at the same time (270c dropped to 200c for 35mins), with steam.
As you can see, only one of the loaves seems to have developed half decent ears, whereas the rest have either barely done it or failed miserably. One of them is flat.
Where am I going wrong??
I bulk fermented for nearly 7 hours - I felt that the dough was a bit too wet when I shaped them. I proved them overnight in the fridge and they went into the oven cold.
It's because the dough doesn't have enough strength. You need to build more strength during bulk and then create more surface tension while shaping.
Extensibility increases in the fridge making the dough more slack, but this isn't always a problem if the dough has enough strength before going into fridge.
Many thanks, Alan.
How do I go about creating more strength during the bulk? What should the ideal process look like? I do a lot of stretching and folding about once every 30mins - 1hour, and that's it.
Strech, fold, laminate, pre shape. If you can't get more strength, then your fermentation time could be too long, especially if your starter is highly active. Reducing your hydration can be another option if building strength is too difficult.
Depending on your flour and starter you'll have to find the right balance.
Your dough should be able to hold it's shape when it's ready to hit the oven. If you see it starting to spread, it'll continue to spread in the oven so an ear will be difficult to obtain. In your picture you can see your breads have spread.
Maybe shaping as mentioned, but also consider bulk fermentation time and final proofing - as well as steam quantity. Poor ears are something I am struggling with at the moment and am starting to work my way through it.
Seven hours seems like a long BF to me. Of course this is interrelated with temperature, levain rate and levain activity. What dough volume increase did you have? My current thinking and that of @DanAyo and others is that you should aim for around 35 - 50% increase - no more.
70% hydration doesn't seem excessive - I usually go for 75% with UK flours, unless I'm using a lot of wholegrain flour. I presume you are quoting true hydration with levain included?
Perhaps describe your procedure/recipe in more detail and we can have a closer look.
Lance