Lately, I have been baking Forkish's overnight country blonde/brown recipes, and I am having trouble removing the loaves from the banneton.
The loaves have seemed fine up through bulk fermentation, they shape well (slightly sticky but manageable). I then put them in a banneton for 4 hours as instructed.
Forkish says that the finger dent test does NOT work for pure levains, and that his experience is that 4 hours is better than his initial schedule of 3 hours.
At this point, when I go to remove from the banneton, they get stuck and end up tearing when I try to remove them as delicately as possible.
I am guessing they are overproofing in the banneton, but wondering what I should try first?
I have thought about using rice flour in the banneton as some people have suggested, but I've baked dozens of instant yeast and hybrid recipes and never had a problem, so I don't want to hide any larger issues. Other thoughts:
1) shorten proof
2) shorten bulk fermentation
3) something else?
After some additional research, one other thought was that it has to do with proofing in a grocery produce plastic bag that is essentially sealed by folding itself under the banneton - could this perhaps be keeping in too much moisture?
or half rice and half all purpose flour in your bannetons. Seriously, problem solved!
There aren't any larger issues that would be hidden by coating your banneton with rice flour. I mean, "dough sticking to banneton" is just a common irritation, and shows nothing about your dough other than proving that you remembered to put water in it - which yes I sure hope you did. ?
Rice flour is a revelation, at least it was for me. Before trying rice flour I would always have some issue with the dough sticking to the banneton, now I use rice flour and I'm not having sticking problems.
If you search on this site for "Country Blonde" or "FWSY" problems, you'll find that a lot of people have had to adjust the fermentation and/or proofing times for Forkish's recipes. Also some people adjust the hydration down a bit, and still make nice bread. The fermentation and proofing times seem excessively long for a lot of people. When your proofed loaf is sticky that's often a sign of over-proofing. Dough shouldn't stick to a well-seasoned banneton (as you said your other dough is fine), but rice flour certainly does help.