BLUF, TL;DR: first sourdough loaves, no or little oven spring with doughy crumb despite looking good through prep
First sourdough loaves
Recipe:
1000g flour - 850g AP, 100g Rye, 50g Emmer
800g water (80% hydration)
160g starter (16%)
20g fine kosher salt (2%)
Autolyse for 1.5 hrs
Stretch and fold every 30 minutes x 5
- great stretch, good windowpane, some bubbles noted
Bulk rise for 3 hours
- slight doming
Proofed overnight in fridge x 15 hours
- felt adequately proofed at start of bake with slow incomplete rebound
Bake: 500deg in combi-cooker x 20 minutes
very little oven spring
450deg open x 25 minutes
Comments: nice crust, tasty - slightly sweet, tangy, though doughy, damp
Any thoughts on why there was little spring and doughy crumb?
Used starter in small jar
At end of stretch and folds
Final products and close up on the crumb
Your dough was severely under fermented. You used 7.4% pre-fermented flour and you say it bulk fermented for 3 hours. You left out the room temp during the bulk ferment, but at any reasonable temp the BF was too short.
Starters are unique, so it is difficult to know how much fermentation time is needed. Looking at your image of the 2 starters, I wonder if the photo was taken at maturity or if more rise was expected. Please let us know.
What do you estimate the room temp during BF?
Determining the degree of final proof on a cold dough after retarding is not reliable. For this reason the room temp BF needs to be adequate.
HTH,
Danny
Thanks for the response. Room temp is on the cool side, 66-68degF
In regards to the starter, that was an hour or so before adding it to the autolyse, so it rose a little more.
That is very cool for that amount of levain and a relatively short fermentation.
yeah very underfermented - if you have a microwave at home it makes a great proofer - stick a cup of boiling water into it and get the steam going and then bulk in that. You might consider increasing water temperature...its a variable that you can control...it might all sound pedantic but when youre making bread, especially over a long period, its important that you keep the dough environment at around 24 - 26C. to make that happen you need to know air, levain, flour and water temperature and adjust accordingly. Easiest one to adjust is water. its all a bit fiddly at beginning but once you have your conditions right and variables adjusted youll bang out great bread no bother.
Thanks for the advice. I’ll try again this weekend, adjust my times so that my starter will be closer to peak activity, more starter, higher temperature and watch my bulk fermentation for adequate rise. I’m also going to stick to one loaf at a time until i get the hang of it! Thanks!