Hello everyone,
I have been studying the fine art of sourdough baking for a while now, and have gotten good results, but am working on consistency.
One of problems I'm having is that when I try to make high hydration boules, (anything above 75%), I often get bread that has a dense hole structure at the bottom, a nice hole structure in the middle, and one or two big pockets of air on top. If only the hole structure was even throughout, I'd have the perfect bread!
The recipe I use is the "High Hydration Sourdough" recipe from the blog "the perfect loaf". It is 87% hydration with 15% barm. I autolyse for one hour, then add the starter, then the salt, then mix, S+F at fifteen minute intervals for 3 stretches, then 3 more at 30 etc. The recipe and method are on the blog if you care to look.
Has anyone experienced the overabundance of gas at the top of the loaf, and resultant density at the bottom? What is the cause of this? The solution?
Thanks in advance.
I'm also having difficulty locating the high hydration sourdough recipe with only 15% levain. Did you use less than the recipe or is there another recipe? Perhaps too gentle with the degassing?
https://www.theperfectloaf.com/high-hydration-sourdough-bread/
If this is the correct recipe then you might want to compare the autolyse made with the levain with the later addition of salt. That would mean that the levain yeast had time to ferment before the salt addition and that might have speeded up the bulk rise. A change in the levain% might also mean the dough had to bulk longer than the recipe.
There could be many other reasons for the layers of different sized bubbles.
Look carefully at those bubbles and show or tell us how they are shaped... round, oval, headed in a direction and which direction. Also the general shape of the large bubbles, odd shapes or round? Also crust colour all around.