hi all,
having issues with my sourdough and hopefully someone might be able to help.
the dough loses its shape prior to baking and spreading out - I know how to tension the dough so dont think its technique as my normal yeasted loaves turn out very well.
The crumb is also really gummy/rubbery when baked
Using a wholegrain spelt starter 100g - really active, doubled in size, sour smell etc.
450g strong white bread flour
310ml water (72%) also tried 70% so dont think its too wet
10g salt.
The recipe uses a rye made starter but I have swapped it for my spelt.
Everything starts ok with the video recipe I follow, the 2 hourly folding sessions holds its shape well, it feels tight when balled up, its only towards the end stages with pre shaping and then final shaping where the dough starts to lose its structure too much and is very difficult to fold and ball up. The dough is then very loose for final shaping.
The whole process from start to final proof takes around 6 hours.
It then spends the night in a banneton in the fridge 12-14 hours. There is hardly any rise over night in the fridge.
Baked in the morning, 230c for 15 minutes then 190c for 25 mins. Even though the shaped dough spreads a fair bit theres stlll oven spring.
Does a spelt starter work and fatigue a lot quicker than the normal rye? I know spelt is lower in gluten causing a tighter structure if using spelt flour but as im using it with strong white flour I would have thought this would be ok.
thanks
for some reason the starch in spelt breaks down to sugar quickly. So in my view, it is a "sugary" flour. That may not be technically true, but that appears to be the effect.
So what appears to be happening, is that the fermentation in the dough in running too quickly, getting out of hand.
With all whole grains, and even "white" spelt (ie, refined/branless/germless) the fermentation continues in the fridge, even when you don't see any/expansion. Those little bugs are still at work.
Net: You have what I call a "super-charged" starter. Assuming your starter is 100% hydration, you have 10% prefermented flour, (50 / 500) , which is a lot for spelt, and means short bulk-ferment and proof times.
You can compensate for the supercharged starter two ways: a) use half as much starter and keep your timings the same, or b) halve your times for the bulk ferment and proof. That will get you "in the ballpark" as we say, and then you can adjust exact amounts/times from there.
Bon chance.
thanks for that, think I will start off halving the starter. I'll report back tomorrow
I halved the starter to 50g, added some spelt flour with the white and cut the hydration a little. Also changed my method and left it 12 hours to bulk ferment over night at room temperature while giving it some stretch and folds for the first few hours before retarding for an hour while the oven heated up.
The dough was much more manageable this time round, it did spread a little and didnt rise as much as I would have liked but the spelt probably helped and the yeast was probably pretty exhausted. Will try a 10 hour over night bulk next time and give the yeast a chance to grow a little more.
Great flavour though, very tangy.