I was mixing up some dough earlier and misread the recipe and added 3 cups of water instead of the cup and a half it calls for. I mixed it up anyway and will use it but I think I might have to add more flour than the recipe calls for. It's got three of five cups in now with two to be added tomorrow. But I am thinking I might need to make that three cups. Is this going to have a deleterious effect on the bread? Is adding one additional cup of flour going to be enough to offset the overhydration?
You add the correct amount of salt to the additional flour you add. Now because you have played around with the recipe and corrected the hydration mistake then it's likely (I haven't seen the full recipe) that the starter/yeast is now off. So simply bulk ferment till ready and don't watch the clock.
Keep the salt the same ratio called for in the recipe.
Here are all the ingredients for the recipe I'm using. I just put it in the fridge for its overnight retard.
1 cup (227g) ripe (fed) sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups (340g) lukewarm water
5 cups (600g) All-Purpose Flour, divided
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
The recipe then says to take three cups of flour and all the water and mix, let rest four hours, refrigerate overnight. Then then next day add the other two cups of flour and the salt.
At what stage is the starter added?
This is an 'interesting recipe'. I think there are many far better recipes out there.
For now... do the best you can. Add enough flour till you get a nice dough. Trouble is you're going to end up with a lot of dough. For every extra cup of flour added you can add another 1/2 tsp of salt. You're just going to have to wing it I think.
Find a better recipe would be your best bet.
If you have a fridge you can always cut your dough in half and add back the dry to make it whole. Use the stuff from the fridge a few days later. I find a few days in the fridge can actually work to your advantage AND you get to keep your original dough size for this bake.
Or another rolled grain? Keep the dough cold and fold in a cup of rolled oats instead of a cup of recipe flour. Let the oats do their work for an hour and then see how the dough behaves. They are great soaker uppers. Then decide if you need to add more oats or flour.
if you need more soaker uppers after adding a cup of oats and a cup of flour, try kneading in some dry bread crumbs. Taste them first and make sure they are not off tasting. They are balanced with their salt content (no need to add extra salt) and will just soak up extra moisture. Their pre-gelatinized starch will melt into the bread matrix with heat. You might even come out with a great recipe!
So I added two more cups of flour and a teaspoon of salt. The dough is still a bit woobly but subsequent deflating during a five our proof (deflate once an hour) has stiffened it up a bit. I have now split the dough into two more or less equal pieces, and one is rising in the banneton prior to baking, while the other is back in my proofing bowl resting. When I put the first loaf in to bake I will transfer the other half to the banneton too rise and bake that after two hours. I have seen large bubbles in the dough and tried to deflate those as much as I can. It's all a grand experiment.
Thinking back on what I've done I realize that I could have simply doubled the recipe entirely since I had doubled the water. But it would have been problematic I think. Five cups of flour becomes ten, and 227g of starter becomes 454g. And frankly that's a lot of dough to deal with at once. So we'll see how this turns out. I've got an hour and 20 minutes till I have to transfer the dough for the first loaf from the banneton to the cloche (which will preheat for half an hour prior to transfer).
Thanks for all the suggestions. Mini I don't have rolled oats in the house, but I might try that next time for to try and make a multi-grain bread.
out between loaves so you might want to hang, rack, or place the banneton where it can dry out a bit before putting the second loaf in it. Or line the banneton with several layers of paper towels or cloth. Just a heads up.
I appreciate the advice. I tend to really flour up the bannetons to help prevent sticking. Is the banneton still going to get damp?
So it wasn't the disaster I had feared it might be. Good crumb, thin but crunchy and chewy crust. Here are the results.
First loaf.
Second loaf in a side by side comparison, second loaf on the left.
And the first loaf cut into to check crumb and taste.
Overall I think I can classify this a success despite having to work around a mistake. And now I'm wondering if I should up the water content in future batches. Not double of course. Just maybe go up to 2 cups from a cup and a half.
Lovely loaves. Try and work out the hydration since it's worked very well for you and the flour you're working with. Break the recipe down into total flour and water including the flour and water from the starter.
beautiful color too!