No matter what I do, I can't seem to get rid of the "gumminess/stickiness" of my crumb. I bake longer: I get stickiness. I bake hotter: I get stickiness. I wait five, six hours before slicing my loaf after cooking: I get stickiness. What the heck am I doing wrong? I use my trusty levain, hydration of 78%...I can put all of the ingredients down, but I'm completely at a loss and it is SOOOOO frustrating. Any help or suggestions would be most appreciated! Thank you!
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First - use less water.
Second is the starter - which is tough to tell. My bet is the starter. But At least the two may help. I should note - without detailed info help can be difficult. Enjoy!
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a go.
I second the suggestion that your starter is the culprit, I don't think it's related to your hydration as 78% isn't that high. What is your feeding/storage of your starter in the days/week leading up to your final mix and bake? What is your flour?
Than you for your comments. I don't think it is the starter. I created a whole new starter, 1-1 flour to water. Was doubling in volume very nicely after a few hours. I used the "float" test to make sure the levain was filled with gas and proper for the recipe. The starter had been out of the fridge for a few days, getting fed 2-3 times a day.
As I read more - it is a starter problem. At that ratio it would be weeks - at least - till ready. Enjoy!
It looks like it's under-proofed.
I agree with Tony, the crumb looks under fermented to me and that can lead to gumminess.
Benny
I was thinking it might be both under fermentation and sluggish starter.
It is easy to start worrying that a bulk ferment is getting too active (enzymatically) and mistake that for fermentation, if the starter is a little slow and the dough is getting slack and to then move to proving and baking too early.
Getting the starter well active and being more accurate with volume growth using some measuring device could be a good idea here.
All that said, the crumb doesn't look bad. I don't mind a little chewiness in a nice rustic type loaf like in the pictures.
Think the problem is minor, a little under proofed based on the crumb I see.
One more thing, try an additional tray on the shelf underneath the one your bread is on to get rid of that dark bottom!
Good luck 🤞
-Jon
Terrific suggestion! Thanks!
I"m looking at the top crust where it tore so lovely and all the moisture in the crumb there. I agree with using less liquids in the recipe. I also think the crust bottom is too dark, maybe temp slightly too high. Lowering oven temp down a bit and baking a tad longer might solve it as you're not too eager to take it out of the oven when it starts to smell like it"s burning. Give more time for that moisture to bake out.
I've definitely been keeping the loaves in longer to bake out more moisture, but that doesn't seem to solve the gummy crumb issue. There can be times when the loaf is in the oven for more than an hour. I typically bake in a Dutch oven with the top on for 30 minutes at 450, then I decrease the temperature to 400 and leave it uncovered. If/when the top fo the loaf begins to get too dark, I put a sheet of aluminum foil over it, but theres plenty of space for steam to still escape.
Aside from baking time and temperature, what is the temperature inside the loaf at the end of baking? That's what really counts. And even with a high enough internal temperature, sometimes the bread needs to stay at temperature for a time to drive off more moisture.
If you haven't measured bread temperature, run right out and get a probe-type meat thermometer, the kind with a thin probe that you stick right into the meat or bread. You should bake this kind of bread until you get to 209 - 210 deg F at sea level. If you live at altitude, look up the temperature to boil water and knock off two degrees.
If you still get gumminess, then we'll really be scratching our heads. Then it might be something about the flour.
TomP
Great comment! I have measured the temperature in the middle of the loaf and most recently it was 205.
Try 210 or even 211, and see if that matters.
q. what kind of oven are you using -- gas or electric? How accurate is the thermostat?
a. you might want to completely remove the loaf from the DO after the first 30 minutes. This might end the bottom scorching problem & perhaps allow for more of the moisture to bake out. You might also consider shortening the lid-on time.
Rob
Tried again to solve the problem with the gummy crumb. I took a lot of the advice above but still have issues.
I made the basic Tartine Country Loaf:
White 900g
WW 100g
Water 750g
Salt 20g
Levain (1-1 mixture) 300g
Did 4 turns, one every 30 minutes after incorporating the levain into the autolysed dough.
Bulk fermented in cool kitchen for 5 1/2 hours. Dough had increased by 30% in volume. Shaped dough and let rest on counter for 15 minutes, then shaped again in banettons and set them in large ziplok bags. These went into the refrigerator and retarded overnight for 9 hours.
Heated Dutch oven in 450 F oven, and baked for 30 minutes covered, then 30 minutes uncovered at
400 F. Internal temperature reached 215 F. I waited 4 hours before I cut into a loaf and here are some photos. The temperature was taken 30 minutes into the bake time.
Flavor is excellent, but slicing ain't so easy due to the gumminess! Arghhh!!
am I understanding correctly. winestem, that the loaf had already reached 215F halfway thru the bake? Hard to fathom ... .
In all the external characteristics, your breads look great.
I checked the Tartine recipe in the NYTimes -- printed years ago -- and it suggests 200g starter, 70% hydration, and a bake time 40 minutes.
I wonder what kind of flour you are using.
Rob
I'm using Bob's artisan bread flour, and you're absolutely right, I'm using a higher hydration and more starter. Not sure why the temperature in the loaf surprises you. The oven is 400-450 degrees and the moisture in the dough is steaming (literally > 212 so it forms steam because of the boiling point of the water).
Or your thermometer isn't calibrated exactly. If you've got all that much moisture and it hasn't been cooked out, no surprise if you have a gummy crumb. Try reducing the temperature setting and baking the loaf outside the pot longer. This will dry it out without burning up the outside.
OTOH, if you actually reached a temperature inside > 212 deg F (assuming you are basically at sea level), the loaf ought to be way overcooked inside (and probably outside too), and the temperature would probably be shooting up. It shouldn't be gummy in that case. But it's not looking overcooked like that.
In many years of baking bread, even when a loaf was nearly burned up outside I have never seen an interior reading more than 210 or 211 deg F. The temperature tends to stall out at that point until most of the water has turned to vapor, because the heat of vaporization is very high.
As a general guide, when the outside is more cooked than the inside, reduce the temperature next time. And a larger loaf should be baked at a lower temperature than a smaller one because the heat takes longer to penetrate from the outside. You are baking a large loaf, if the recipe makes one loaf. Even if you scale the dough into two loaves, they are still good sized.
I also don't think the crust should have that much color after 30 minutes of baking. Perhaps your oven runs hotter than you think. It's hard to be sure but in the last cross-section image, the bottom crust look very dark and overcooked. If so, that would also indicate too hot a baking temperature.
I like your thoughts on this. Thank you!
this article about internal temp may give a hint why I was surprised that you reached 215F after 30 min: https://newsletter.wordloaf.org/p/on-internal-temperatures-in-bread
As for flour, I've found Bob's bread flour to be quite humid & clumpy straight out of a freshly opened bag. It behaves very differently than, say, King Arthur Organic bread flour. Most of my comparison comes from making 100% hydration pans de cristal -- Bob's struggles a bit to become sleek dough while KA operates as if you could push the hydration even higher. 75% should be well within its wheelhouse -- but I figure that, since the overall look of your loaves is so good -- ear, crust & even crumb appear magnificent -- it might be something about the flour that it's not releasing water after an hour at 450F - 400F.
Rob
This link generally matches my experience, except when the dough is very wet. Then I have found that continuing the bake at a lower temperature is needed to drive off more of the moisture. Yes, you are probably sitting on the flat part of the curve as sketched in the link, so the temperature reading isn't that helpful, but the interior is still too wet.
Thank you! I'll give KA a try and decrease the hydration, too!
My experience with Bob’s Red Mill artisan bread flour was terrible. I had high hopes for it but my results with it were so bad I never used it again. I think the protein content is over 13% which is a very high gluten flour that gave me a gummy crumb as well. I now rely on KA AP and BF or a mixture of both.
If you’re wanting to still use the BRM I would recommend increasing the hydration to 80% or even 85% with an extra fold.
I will try some KA flour and see if there's any difference there.
What's the temperature of the cool kitchen in which you BF the loaf, winestem? You could experiment extending the fermentation time slightly. Alternatively increase the BF temperature slightly for the same duration. I find that judging when to cut off BF for cold retard can be tricky. If you consistently use a 30% gauge, try 40% the next time and go from there. You got a lot of oven spring and an excellent ear so I think you're very far from being overproofed.
Another thing you can try is replacing part of the bread flour with AP flour. That might make the crumb more tender and less gummy, especially if the loaf ends up slightly underproofed.
-Lin
The kitchen was 69 F. Which for us is cool! We are at sea level in Southern California.
https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/our-version-of-tartine-style-bread/
My suggestion would be to abandon this recipe. Choose some nice proven pain au levain at under 70% hydration, something like this, that actually works for everyone.
Thank you! that may be the best advice of all!!
I'm pretty sure the main issue is the fermentation. Either in the starter or in the final dough. Or in both.
Starter: it might slightly be too acidic. In your latest recipe you have 30% starter. This is way too much for wheat flour if the starter is not well balanced.
30% increase in volume is not enough if you bulk ferment it at colder temperatures. In the fridge (temperature???) it cools down faster than a dough bulk fermented at higher temps. This slows down the fermentation a lot more. Maybe even stops it, depending on the temp. in your fridge and your starter.
What I would do next time: less starter (10%-15%), bulk ferment warmer (24C-25C if possible, but not warmer) until the volume increases by 30-50%. Preshape and final shape, then final proof at the same temperature as the bulk fermentation.
I don't agree about the starter amount. I use 30% all the time and don't have a problem like this. I also don't agree with "too acidic" because I use starters that haven't been controlled about their acidic content - meaning they must vary a great deal - and don't have a gumminess problem. Basically, a small variation in most anything is usually going to make a small change in the result, not a large one - pannetonne is one exception! and there are some flours that are very touchy about their hydration.
I'm not sure about the 30% volume increase in bulk because some bakers do that on purpose to get a more dramatic rise and ear.
TomP
I appreciate the comments!
Thanks for weighing in on this mystery!
Pls keep us posted on the progress. I'm very curious, what was the issue, how you solved the problem at the end. I'm pretty sure, you'll get rid of the gummy crumb. Hopefully rather sooner than later.
Will do!
Maybe another suggestion: try and bake the same recipe with poolish (with commercial yeast) instead of sourdough starter. In oder to keep the amount of flour, water, salt, etc unchanged you could use the same amount of poolish instead of sourdough starter. I assume you are using a starter with 100% hydration.
The bulk fermentation will be way faster than with sourdough, in the fridge it will fermet probably also faster, so you have too keep an eye on it. If you get the same gummy crumb, then it’s for sure not caused by the sourdough starter or the cold fermentation. It must be something else: flour, hydration or something else in the process.
If the crumb is ok, then the issue must be related to the sourdough starter or the fermentation with sourdough.
The yeast based recipe will of course result in a different bread, but this is imo in this particular scenario acceptable.
It has been a while since I last baked with yeast. I’m sure that the fermentation will be faster if you use the amount of poolish. I’m just not sure if maybe it’s too fast for your process. Maybe smbdy with more experience with yeast can give you a hint about the amount of poolish.
The result is not the bread you wanted, but with only one bake you could at least get a direction, where to continue with the investigations.
I'm not sure I quite understand: are you saying I should make a poolish in the same quantity as the levain?
Basically yes. Just replace the sourdough starter with the same amount of poolish.
The better solution would be to use a smaller amount of poolish. The question is how much. Maybe only 1/3 of the amount of starter in the original recipe??? I just cannot say, what would be a good amount of poolish based on the amount of starter.
In case you scale down the amount of preferment you need to reduce the amount of salt and water accordingly.
Lose the thermometer probe and just bake to color. The higher the hydration is, the darker the color needs to be.
Don
I always bake to color. Just used the thermometer to see what was "cooking" inside the loaf for this thread!