help with recent bake (posting on behalf of mother)

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mmmmmmuffins on 7 Dec 2024 at 12:33

(posting on behalf of my mother)

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/MG2S7oR

 

My mother has been baking sourdough for many years, and has been mostly successful! She loves making whole-grain sourdough, and I can attest to the fact that her bakes are delicious!

 

Today she made a loaf that was not a complete failure, but certainly not the success she had hoped for. The recipe she followed was The Perfect Loaf’s Cranberry Walnut. 

 

Side note: I have gotten into sourdough a little over a month ago, and actually made this recipe with better success. I have opinions as to why, but I am far from an expert— I have watched hours of SD videos online, but have only made 5 SD bakes so far. We are looking for more experienced bakers to provide insight. 

 

Underproofed? Overproofed? Other issue?

 

Recipe was followed as written. 

 

levain: overnight, 1:10:10 for 12 hours; she thinks it was slightly over-ripe

 

80% bread flour 

15% ww flour

5% rye

20% walnuts

14% cranberries 

3% walnut oil

80% hydration

 

Three sets of stretch and folds (one she forgot about and it went 1.5 hours between them). 

 

Bulk fermented for 3 hours at 76F in proofer, pre-shape, rest, shape. 

 

Overnight proof in banneton

 

Baked at 450F, covered for 20 min then uncovered for 25 min. 

 

I'd look a the starter. Is it healthy and firing on all cylinders? 

If it is then it would be in the bulk ferment. How developed was the dough before moving onto shaping? Had it risen well?

Does well with all other bakes then we can safely say the issue is not with the starter. 

So the only thing I can think of is either it was over ripe and/or the timing for the bulk ferment was off. 

Try the recipe again but only make one loaf at a time till the problem is sorted. Inore the timings for the bulk ferment only moving onto shaping once it has risen well. 

And would ask further about the levain. Was the 1:10:10 levain also fermented at 76F? Also - was the % of pre-fermented flour maintained at 10% according to the original recipe? I ask because the original recipe (at least from what I can see from the website) uses a 1:5:5 levain rather than a 1:10:10, so just to be sure that % PFF remains the same. 

-Lin 

It’s actually 1:10:10 (8g, 80g, 80g) but the flour is split 40g each rye/ap. 

In my opinion how you get to the levain volume (ie ratio) is less important, as long as it is roughly peak or so. Mine are usually 2-3x volume when I use it. 

My strong feeling on my mother’s bake (which I did not mention earlier as I wanted this to be unbiased) is that it is seriously underproofed. I do not go by time, but signs that bulk fermentation is ready. Mine took roughly 6 hrs for this same recipe, which at 76F dough temp yielded approximately a 45-50% rise. In comparison, here was my bake (I used apricots rather than cranberries as I had them on hand, but otherwise followed the recipe). https://imgur.com/gallery/dUjTycj

 

My strong feeling on my mother’s bake (which I did not mention earlier as I wanted this to be unbiased) is that it is seriously underproofed. I do not go by time, but signs that bulk fermentation is ready. Mine took roughly 6 hrs for this same recipe, which at 76F dough temp yielded approximately a 45-50% rise.

Agreed! Watch the dough, not the clock. This is the golden rule.

Reason why I ask is because a dough that uses 10% PFF as this one does means the BF has to be really well established with a strong levain before the dough is cold retarded. If your mother already suspected that the levain was too acidic, then getting the BF done with 10% PFF within 3-4 hours might be a challenge.

I think that it is more common for recipes to have say around 20% PFF or so, and it might be this difference that has resulted in a slightly underproofed bread for your mum? Perhaps extending the BF as you did might result in a better bread. But it might also not, if the levain is already way too acidic, or too weak (e.g. it's not great for some young starters to take large ratio feedings, but I guess your mother's is well-established).

Perhaps consider the following for the next bake? 1. Make sure that the levain is active and not over-peak. If 1:10:10 at that temperature results in a levain that is too overripe, then perhaps use it an hour earlier. If the 1:10:10 levain doesn't get to between double-triple, then the starter needs to be taken care of first (or sometimes it can mean adjusting the ratio depending on the starter). 2. If levain is active and lively then just extend BF proof to 40/50% rise before shaping and cold retard. 

Let us know how her next bake goes! 

Just to clarify, the PFF is half the levain %, so this recipe does not seem all that atypical. According to Andrew Janjigian, his range used:

10 to 20% prefermented flour (or 20 to 40% 100%-hydration levain) for “classic sourdoughs”

But I think the lower the %, the more robust the starter needs to be, and ofc BF will be longer compared to a higher %PFF. I was just trying to think of reasons why this particular recipe fails for your mum. The 1:2:3 recipe that is very common when starting out, for example, has about 15% PFF; recent blog posts on this forum have used between 7 to 20%. If your mum has always been using the recipes from Maurizio Leo with success, then the PFF is not the issue because he does use pretty low %PFFs. 

My gut is that some of her other bakes are also unproofed, but not to this extreme. I think Leo’s bf times are far below what the average home baker would need for a proper bf, but that’s just from my limited experience. I have done three of his recipes that called for 3 1/2 to 4 hours (at the same temps), and each of mine have taken 6 to 7. 

Even if the recipe is followed to a T, variables like starter strength, flour freshness, fineness of grind, water quality etc etc can play a big role. If you find that following ML's recipes usually means almost doubling BF time for 40/50% rise leading to a great final result,  perhaps your mother could use some of your guidance to aim for the same %rise at the end of BF. If extending the time doesn't result in more rise during BF, then other problems such as starter strength or levain acidity etc might be the case, especially if you say many of her bakes have not been well risen. 

Agree with this completely. What I have learned during my short time with sourdough is that it’s not possible to just follow a method blindly without considering your variables and watching for clues along the way. 

sounds like you have already gotten the help you needed to diagnose: seems underproofed and always better to watch the dough than the clock. just wanted to chime in because i have made this recipe a few times and am in fact making another loaf of it today with raisins substituted for the cranberries (trying to use up some raisins). i always bulk for much longer than maurizio calls for in all his recipes, but i don’t use a proofer and tend to bulk at 60-65 degrees.

i will note that this recipe calls for whole walnut halves, which are really large, and i think that it can be more difficult to judge how risen the dough is with big heavy inclusions. the dough also needs to be really well developed (good gluten network) to be strong enough to hold those big chunks without tearing, etc. if she sticks with it, tho, i bet she’ll quickly get a feel for how far to push the bulk fermentation.

hope this helps!

-uvc

I think Maurizio lives in the warmer climes of New Mexico. He is also a professional baker who probably has the means of perfect temperature control. 

If you live in a colder climate, plus it is winter time, then expect the timings of your dough to differ. 

And I am sure his starter is much more robust— I believe he feeds twice per day. I’ve been doing once per day at 1:6:6 (2g, 12g, 12g) and it certainly doesn’t make it the full 24 hours between peaks but I am not willing to take put any more time into the process; it’s “good enough” for me. I may also end up refrigerating it at some point, but for now I have managed to use up the discard in muffins/waffles/crackers. 

I add salt to my starter and that helps it to hold up using a once-a-day feed.  I use 1% of the flour weight.  I also use bread flour, since that degrades less during the 24-hour period.  Not that I would use the starter to build a levain after 23 hours since last feed...

TomP