Every so often when making stuff with my sourdough starter discard, I worry that I overkneaded the dough. As I'm using a KitchenAid to do my kneading for me, I've heard it's rather easy to do.
Did I overwork this dough? I don't know how much it's supposed to tear after I'm done kneading it. This was 10 minutes in the KitchenAid, then I realized I forgot the butter, then about 4 more minutes of kneading. It's a sourdough discard garlic bread stick recipe I just decided to flex around with.
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (250 grams) warm water, about 100-110°F*
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
3 tablespoons (42 grams) unsalted butter, melted
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
3 cups (381 grams) bread flour, plus more as needed**
(I subbed 3/4 cup of bread flour for dehydrated sourdough discard, also added 1/4 tsp garlic powder). After that it's just knead 15 minutes, rise 1.5 hour, shape, rise 1 hour, then bake.
Outside of missing a rise - or 2 - the garlic may be a problem. Adjust for it and it won't be. And I forgot - even with a mixer - your kneading isn't a problem. Enjoy!
Why would the garlic be a problem? Does it inhibit fermentation/rise or something?
At least some - exactly how much is unknown here. Either way - garlic retards fermentation. Just allow for it. Enjoy!
I didn't know that!
So whenever making garlic bread, it is better to put the garlic in the butter/on top of the bread after it bakes, not into the dough itself?
"Garlic" bread is usually baked with the garlic outside. Treat it as a flavoring added after the fact. Enjoy!
I found a post on here that said fresh garlic does, while garlic powder/dried doesn't. Has anyone found this to be true? Not trying to start a fight, but just wondering if I could safely add a tiny bit of garlic powder into bread dough, as I love garlic flavor throughout my bread and not just on the top. If not then I'll definitely change how I do my garlic bread recipe, as less garlic is better if it makes a fluffier better product. 🤓
Try it - see what happens. That's your best bet. Enjoy!
Have a look at this thread: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22096/overkneading
Edit: It took me awhile to find this thread. It is long, but packed with info about gluten development. Best yet, there are pictures. Overworked dough does not look like yours. It's a gluey, wet, sticky mess than gloms onto the bowl and your hands.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/54803/chasing-thin-crispy-not-thicktough-dough#comment-396092
Thanks for the article! I'll read it thoroughly! 😊
Do you happen to keep an eye on the dough temperature while kneading? Possible too warm.
I don't, actually. Should I monitor it with an infrared thermometer, a probe thermometer, or just my hands? (On like the outside/or stick them in the dough every so often).
A probe thermometer would be best. But I have overheated dough dreadfully in a food processor and it didn't look like your picture. In fact, it ended up being fine except that most of the yeast had died so fermenting took a very long time.
Your photo reminds me of a sack of French T-80 flour that I had. It was very sensitive to the hydration. If the hydration was even a few points too high, the dough started to disintegrate like that after several hours and S&F sessions (hand mixed only, no mixer). Used with the right hydration levels, the flour produced delightful dough.
TomP
I did use some sourdough scrap in the dough. (I think it was 25-33 percent sourdough scrap)
Could this addition of acidity hurt/ruin the texture of the dough? (I dehydrated the sourdough scrap then ground it through my mill into fine flour).
Old sourdough can be very acidic if it has fermented for a very long time. If your flour is extra sensitive to acidity, then maybe that's involved. But I'm not all that convinced, since mixing it into the rest of the dough would raise the pH to safe levels and it would take many hours of fermenting time to lower it again.
OTOH, maybe the old sourdough has become very proteolytic for some other reason. You could make up a dough of the same hydration but no old sourdough and see if it acts differently.
Coming next week, I'll make another batch of garlic bread sticks with no sourdough flour/discard and share pictures of the dough before the first rise/ferment, as the above picture was taken after 10 minutes or KitchenAid mixing. (What's the difference between rise and ferment in the bread world?)
Oh! And I did a comparison (using a homemade pizza dough) to see if powdered garlic/garlic powder made any difference in the amount of rise. I doubled the pizza dough and put 1/8 tsp garlic powder into the dough of one. After rising, putting in th fridge, and later shaping and baking in my 500F oven, I found there to be no difference in textural structure at all in the finished product. So there's an answer!
It could also be hydration levels being off too though. I am no bread expert. That's why I'm here! 🤓
For the sack of T-80 flour that I mentioned, a hydration of 62% produced an unworkable dough (that became apparent over the hours since it was first mixed) but 58% made for good bread. Normal US flours are nowhere near as sensitive to hydration as that.
I don't recall that you mentioned what kind of flour you were using.
I was using Pilsbury bread flour for all of it, including sourdough starter flour that had some rye, mostly PIlsbury bread flour. (I don't know the protein content, as I'm fairly certain (I asked the company and they said it does indeed vary by like 2% either way) the protein content of the Pilsbury brand varies from bag to bag. I'm considering switching to a more constant protein level flour (is gold metal bread flour good, or what do others recommens?)
My experience with Pillsbury AP is that it behaves the same as Gold Medal AP, and both are well behaved with respect to hydration. I would think that their bread flour would be the same. I've only used Gold Medal bread flour a few times and it seemed all right but its protein content is low compared with King Arthur, which I would rather use.
So it doesn't sound to me that the flour per se is a problem.
You mentioned a probe thermometer. I am going to pester you with more questions if you don't mind. 😊
What temperature am I aiming for/not wanting to get above? Is it just an "don't let it get too hot or else it'll kill the yeast," or is it an "I want the dough to be around this temperature as it's the best temp for dough fermenting?" Or both?
There isn't a single answer because one can achieve different things using different temperatures. For general home baking I've baked bread for many years without checking the dough temperature. Within a range of room temperatures up to say 78 or 80 deg F, the temperature mostly seems to affect the fermenting speed, and possibly the stickiness of the dough.
I think that we are left with two possibilities:
I suggest, as I mentioned before, that you try to repeat the recipe but without any discard. Use yeast without sourdough. If you get a similar result, then it's probably the flour. If not, it's probably the discard. Even if it is the flour, it's possible that using a lower hydration the dough might still be usable, as was the case for my T-80.
Since I don't have any to play with I can't say - accept as before - it gets to acidic. If it's sitting around - it will turn - and things will change. You don't really want that. Enjoy!