I made a batch of bread yesterday using @Ann_T' instructions for baking bread with a new sourdough starter. The starter in question was the starter above. It showed a bit more activity yesterday than it does now, but not nearly as much as in the first photo shown above, so I used yeast to help it along. The flour was a combination of King Arthur bread flour and the special Barrio Blend flour mix I bought last spring in Tucson. I really like this flour blend a lot.
Whether it was the sourdough starter, the flour, or a combination of the two I don't know, but the flavor is excellent. What I'm not happy about is the shape. This dough was more slack than I've have expected at 75% hydration. I made the biga on Thursday night and the dough on Friday morning, then baked Friday evening.
I can think of several possibilities of where I went wrong with regard to making a nice, round, well-puffed boule.
- I used the stretch-and-fold method, but maybe I needed to knead it a lot before I started that process. (Does anyone do that? It seems to me that doing more kneading than necessary to get a good mix would be unnecessary.)
- Maybe I needed to work it more during the shaping. @Anna N once posted a link to a video showing how to get a really tight skin on the boule, and I still don't seem to have the technique. (Actually, my dough didn't look very different from what's shown in that video, but I'll bet his puffed up more!)
- Or maybe my oven wasn't hot enough (preheated to 450F for at least an hour; baking stones on bottom and top shelves; bread went onto the middle rack, not on a stone).
- Maybe I needed more steam.
- Maybe it's all of the above, or something I haven't even considered.
I only used half the batch yesterday; the rest is holding, and presumably doing a slow ferment, in the outside refrigerator until tomorrow. What should I try with that half?
