I've been making breads recently which, while they're delicious, seemingly well-baked, and with an open crumb, are a bit tacky/sticky to the touch and during slicing.
For the most recent of these, I used the following recipe/process:
66.67% 600g King Arthur Bread Flour
33.33% 300g Whole-Grain Einkorn (locally grown and milled by River Valley Community Grains, in NJ)
20% 180g Liquid levain (King Arthur AP Flour)
2.1% 19g Kosher Salt
75% 675g Water
Levain built and matured for 3 hours @85F . Flour blended and autolysed for 2 hours @85F. Levain hand-mixed, Rubaud style, for 5 minutes. Rest for 30 minutes @76F. Salt hand-mixed, Rubaud style, for 5 minutes. Rest for 30 minutes @76F. One set of strong Stretch & Folds. Rest for 30 minutes @76F. Stretch dough into rough 10"x17" rectangle, laminate and move to clean vessel for bulk. (Rest for 45 minutes @76F followed by coil folds) - repeat 3x. Rest 50 minutes. Turn out to lightly floured counter, divide into 2, preshape. Rest uncovered for 25 minutes. Shape into batards. Place in bannetons. 25 minute proof at room temperature. 16 hour cold (38F) retard, in closed plastic bags. Bake in preheated, covered DO at 475F for 20 minutes, then uncovered at 450F for 20 minutes. Final internal temp 211F
Sliced after cooling for 4 hours. The crumb is open and definitely "finished" - the bread can be compressed and springs right back. The dough was definitely NOT underproofed - I'd recently been overproofing and this particular bake was, if anything, still a little over.
The problem is that the crumb is very tacky to the touch and a bit sticky on the knife. This isn't the worst that could happen :), but I would really like to understand why the stickiness, and how to get rid of it. Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks!
Jeff
stickiness is usually not cooking off enough moisture. So you __may__ need a longer bake, which will mean a lower temp,
side question: Does the 675 g of water, and 75% hydration include what's in the levain? You/we need a hydration % of the levain too, to figure out how much flour and how much water is in the levain. "Final" or "overall" hydration is supposed to include both the water and the flour in the levain. If those figures do not include your levain, then you have at least 77% final hydration assuming a levain of 100% hydration. Maybe 80% final hydration if your levain is more "liquid" than 100% Hyd. Same with the salt %, it is computed on total flour.
So if you're over-shooting the original formula's hydration due to miscalculattion, that would be the first thing to correct. It may be that you just need to cut back on the water.
If the actual final hydration does meet your goal, or whatever formula/recipe you're working from, then the next suggestion for something to tweak would be bake temps and times.
475 F covered, and 450 uncovered for 20 min seems too hot to me for only a 30% whole grain loaf: 300 g einkorn / (900 g + 90 g from levain) = 300 / 990 = 30.3%.
If adjusting the bake times is something you want to explore, I'd suggest trying 450 covered for 25 minutes, then 400 uncovered for 25-30 minutes. Start taking internal temp at 45 min total time, and then allow 7 or 8 minutes for every degree it needs to come up.
I bake high hydration (88-90%) near 100% whole-grain loaves. I find that I need to bake the moisture out before the top crust gets too hard and seals in the moisture, and if that happens then you just end up over-baking the crust while it's still gummy inside.
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Though my guess is, that if you are getting the internal final temp to 211 F (even 210 F is usually good enough even for a mostly whole grain loaf) and it's still gummy, then your hydration was too high to start with. So I suspect a miscalculation, and you might actually be doing 80% final hydration. If so, fix that, and try it with your standard bake temps/times, And then, if the problem persists, then add to the lower hydration the lower/longer bake temps/times, too.
Bon appetit.
Thanks. You’re right, the actual hydration is around 77%, and I understood that from the start. I have done wetter doughs at similar times/temps without the gumminess but I take your point - your lower/slower suggestion makes sense to me and I may well try that on my next go-round.
A new bake this morning. I tried your suggestions, kinda - 2 large (880g) loaves baked covered at 465F for 25 minutes, then uncovered at 425 for 25 minutes. Internal temp when I took them out of the oven was, again, 211F Just a tiny hint of tackiness this time around, well within the bounds of acceptability (I.e. no one but me would notice or care).
I think it's quite common to get some stickiness if you are slicing fairly soon after the end of bake. Maybe try leaving it a bit longer?
Lance
Take the temp before cutting into it. It should be room temperature. You might want to leave the bread in the oven for 10 minutes with the oven off and door ajar to help wick away some of the extra moisture.
Thanks for the suggestions about leaving the bread to cool longer. I have, however, always let my bread cool for at least 4 hours, until it’s at or very near room- temperature, and it continues to be sticky - even when left in the oven to “steam out” for a little while after baking is completed.