What with the lockdown I finally had time to make a sourdough loaf:
I used the formula for Vermont Sourdough from Hamelman's "Bread." I followed his formula for Liquid Levain using whole rye flour from Grist and Toll in Pasadena, Calif. and Kroger unbleached All-Purpose flour. (That's all I could find in the store)
After six days the starter was bubbly and smelly, so I built the levain per H. After 12 hours it looked ready. I mixed the ingredients to a shaggy mass and then autolysed for 30 minutes. Then added the salt and mixed to windowpane for 3 minutes on 2 speed in my KA. Dough temp was 73° and room temp was 68°.
Bulk fermentation for 2.5 hours with two folds 50 minutes apart. Shaped and placed in bannetons. After 3 hours the loaves still felt cool to the touch and had risen to any degree at all. Having no experience with natural leavened breads I wasn't sure what to make of that. Fearing overproofing, I loaded them in the oven. They had good oven spring.
They came out feeling like bricks. They are very dense, but do taste like sourdough. Inferior, however, to the breads I make with preferments.
What do you good folks think? Under proofed? Over mixed? Maybe I was not patient enough?
Per H. I reserved 1 oz of the levain build to perpetuate the starter, and gave it a feeding. This morning it is vert active, almost doubled in the bowl. Maybe I should have given it another day.
from your starter would be my guess, you do seem to have had good oven spring, the big holes and the shape of them make me wonder also did you score or bake seam side up? How tight was the shaping? Next time do a starter float test - put a bit of starter in some room temp water, if it floats you're good to go, if not it's not ready and you either need to feed it and wait 6-12 hours for it to be ready or just wait a while longer and test again. You could also have been undermixed a bit - 73 is a bit on the low end, I usually shoot for closer to 75df .
Happy Baking!
Seeing how my starter looks today, I think you are right about lack of activity. I baked these loaves seem side down, the shape was as tight as I could get it. I don't have issues with surface tension on my other breads.
I'll try again and post here. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give it a bit more mix as well.
Hi,
If you bake seam side down, you need to score the top to give the gas an escape route (or you can just bake seam side up for a rustic look) You're doing fine, and like Martin says - one thing at a time, and keep a journal, it's helpful.
Happy Baking!
And a HECK of a lot better than my first attempt. Don’t be surprised- there’s a lot of things you have to tweak to find a technique that really ‘works’ for YOU. It really is the case that every baker has a different method... a recipe book will give you the right pointers, but you have to take that as a starting point :)
Remember: change ONE thing at a time, and keep an accurate and complete journal... you’ll be glad you did
Thanks for the kind words!
Yours are WAY better than my first attempts. My first loaves looked like flour hockey pucks.
I've always kept a journal, and that alone has really helped my break-baking journey.
give it a few more days to gain strength and it should perform better.
Did you get much increase in volume during bulk ferment?
I believe you are correct about the starter. The very next day it had a significant increase in activity. There was basically no increase in volume during the bulk fermentation.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
Likely both underproofed and underfermented.
Your starter is young, it's not your fault! It'll get there with time.
You're doing all the things correctly, imagine the bread you'll be making when your starter catches up to you :D
Y'all were correct. Here's the latest loaves. I used the starter a day too early apparently. It was actually frothing a day later. I'm happy with these. And the starter made great pancakes this morning. Thanks for the tips!