Sourdough Bread Troubleshooting (Part 1)

[jackal10]

Welcome to the wonderful world of sourdough and bread baking.

a) If the dough is that wet you need to support it in a battenton (linen lined basket) during proof. You might find it easier if you scale down the water a bit, to say 65% or so.

b) The effect of the steam is to gelatanise the outside to give a shiny crisp crust. Oven spring is governed by many thing, one which is not to overprove the bread, but also by the rate of heat transfer, especially bottom heat. Thats why putting the bread in direct contact with the hot stone helps - bread dough is a bit like a souffle, you are trying to make the gas and steam expand before it cooks and sets.

Edited April 22, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[glennbech]

Welcome to the wonderful world of sourdough and bread baking.

a) If the dough is that wet you need to support it in a battenton (linen lined basket) during proof. You might find it easier if you scale down the water a bit, to say 65% or so.

b) The effect of the steam is to gelatanise the outside to give a shiny crisp crust. Oven spring is governed by many thing, one which is not to overprove the bread, but also by the rate of heat transfer, especially bottom heat. Thats why putting the bread in direct contact with the hot stone helps - bread dough is a bit like a souffle, you are trying to make the gas and steam expand before it cooks and sets.

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a)I improvised a battenton with a basket and a linnen cloth. The dough started to fall down and spread outwards the moment I took it out of it.

I guess the Idea is to work fast then ?

The original Recipe I worked with sait absolutely nothing about support for a rustique bread with 72% water. Book authors should really try their recipes. I ended up with a pancake the size of my baking stone 1 cm thick :-)

b) I have a pizza stone, heat my electric oven to max (250c), and put the stone on the floor of the oven. I let the stone heat for 45-60 minutes. I guess this aproach is ok ?

By the way jackal10; I saw that you had made some kind of makeshift shovel for plywood or something to insert baguettes into your oven (Not sure what the proper english word for that is).... I saw the picture in the baguette demo thread.

I got Inspired and made my one from oak. A bit heavy, but works like a charm .-)

http://www.glennbech.com/2006/04/making-sh...ting-pizza.html

Edited April 22, 2006 by glennbech (log)

[Beanie]

Welcome to the wonderful world of sourdough and bread baking.

a) If the dough is that wet you need to support it in a battenton (linen lined basket) during proof. You might find it easier if you scale down the water a bit, to say 65% or so.

b) The effect of the steam is to gelatanise the outside to give a shiny crisp crust. Oven spring is governed by many thing, one which is not to overprove the bread, but also by the rate of heat transfer, especially bottom heat. Thats why putting the bread in direct contact with the hot stone helps - bread dough is a bit like a souffle, you are trying to make the gas and steam expand before it cooks and sets.

←

a)I improvised a battenton with a basket and a linnen cloth. The dough started to fall down and spread outwards the moment I took it out of it.

I guess the Idea is to work fast then ?

The original Recipe I worked with sait absolutely nothing about support for a rustique bread with 72% water. Book authors should really try their recipes. I ended up with a pancake the size of my baking stone 1 cm thick :-)

b) I have a pizza stone, heat my electric oven to max (250c), and put the stone on the floor of the oven. I let the stone heat for 45-60 minutes. I guess this aproach is ok ?

By the way jackal10; I saw that you had made some kind of makeshift shovel for plywood or something to insert baguettes into your oven (Not sure what the proper english word for that is).... I saw the picture in the baguette demo thread.

←

It's called a peel. Here's what a commercial peel looks like. They come in different sizes. I love your blog .. and that shovel!

[glennbech]

This is what my schedule have been so far today....

12.00 Preferment time

I mix this into a glass bowl, and try to make my kitchen 30 degrees c.

230 g of lukewarm water

230 g of flour

114 g of sourdoug starter (57g water/57g flour)

Please note that I the eGullet tutorial state to use equal amounts of starter, water and flour in the refreshment phase. That would have emptied my Jar completely. I used about half of my starter in the pre-ferment. To compensate for this, I guessed that a couple of more hours in 30 c would do the suffice. Im not quite sure on this point. If anyone could shed some light, i'd be glad!

I also made sure to increase the size of my starter. So I now have more next time.

This is how it looks like after 5 hours. Nice and bubbely!

19:00 Dough time ...

The refreshed starter from 12.00

413 grams of flour

190 grams of water

This gives me a total hydration of about 68% (total water to total flour ratio).

I have a Kenwood Kitchen machine, and used it to mix the dough. I let the machine work for about 10-15 minutes on the dough, and added the water a little at a time.

After 10-15 minutes I have a real sticky dough. Actually, I've never experienced wheat flour this sticky before! The gluten is also highly developed, and I can easily do the "window test" .

I kept the bown with the dough in room temperature covered with plastic.

20:00 Turning the dough

The dough is rising a lot ! I tried to handle the dough with only oiling my hands and my work surface, but I had to add a couple of handfulls of flour after a while, as the dough were sticking to absolutely everything.

At this time I added the salt. (10g, or ~ 2.1%)

It was quite hard not to knead all the air out of the dough, and mixing in the salt at the same time.

22:30 Shaping and Putting it back in the fridge

It's very funny, I've never seen a sourdough (Since Im a beginner at this) rise like this ! It's incredible! I lost a bit of volume at 20.00, turning the dough. Now it's right back up, or higher!

I put it in the fridge so that I can bake it for breakfast tomorrow morning. I'll post pictures of the finished result then!

Edited April 22, 2006 by glennbech (log)

[glennbech]

It's called a peel.  Here's what a commercial peel looks like. They come in different sizes. I  love your blog .. and that shovel! 

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Don't make fun of my peel! :-) thanks for adding a new english word to my vocabulary ! .-)3

[Tepee]

It's very funny, I've never seen a sourdough (Since Im a beginner at this) rise like this ! It's incredible! I lost a bit of volume at 20.00, turning the dough. Now it's right back up, or higher!

←

LOL, oh yes, I'm absolutely thrilled to see the bubbles in my sourdough each time, and seeing it GROW...so much so I tend to overprove.

Can't wait to see your finished loaf!

[glennbech]

- In a dough with about, let's say, 1 kg og flour. Is there a magic formula to determine how much refreshed starter / sponge to make? Can I compensate for a small sponge by bulk fermenting the bread longer ?

- In norway the supermarket flour contains 10,7 % protein. This is gluten right ?

Is it protein content that determines the water absorbtion abilty of a flour ? Is this what is refered to as "strength" ? Or are we talking about how fine the wheat is milled ? How does this attributes affect the bread ?

- How much oven spring can I rely on getting from a dough? Let's say I bulk ferment my dough for 5 hours, shape the loaves (they will collapse a bit during this process), and put them straigh into the oven. Will the bread rise at all ?

- I've seen vitamin C in some recipes. What's the right way, and reason to apply witamin C in bread baking ?

- I have some recipes on wholegrain soursoigh breads, and bread with a coarser ground flour. Can I use my nice and acitve fiine starter for these breads ? The recipe states to use another starter. (From rye). Is this only for taste ? Will the bread rise just as well with a fine flour starter ?

Hope someone can help me shed some ligh on this magic .-)

[jackal10]

I'm sure other and better experts will join in but here is my understanding:

- In a dough with about, let's say, 1 kg of flour. Is there a magic formula to determine how much refreshed starter / sponge to make? Can I compensate for a small sponge by bulk fermenting the bread longer ?

Most bread formula are in terms of Bakers, percentages, that is relative to total flour.

Different bakers have different formulas. The amount of levan can vary from typically 20% to over 200% (200% means half the flour is in the levan).

A typical formula for white bread might be:

Liquid levan:

Flour 20% (200g)

Water 20% (200g)

Mother starter 1% (10g)

Ferment for 8-12 hours at 30C

Dough

All the levan 40% (400g)

Flour 80% (800g)

Water 45% (450g )

Salt 2% (20g)

This formula has 65% hydration with the water in the levan. Varying the amount of water by small amounts will make big changes to the viscosity of the dough and hence its ease of handling, and to a lesser extent the hole size in the finished dough. Don't forget the dough will get much wetter as ferments and proves, as the acid attacks the starch and converts them to sugars.

Different flours adsorb differnt amounts of water. Wholemeal will adsorb more, say 55%/550g/75% hydration.

You can compensate for a smaller sponge by fermenting longer, but it will make a different bread. There are many different processes happening, and very long fermentation stages tend to weaken the gluten. Crudely, I think the sponge step develops the flavour, and dough step the texture.

- In norway the supermarket flour contains 10,7 % protein. This is gluten right ?

Is it protein content that determines the water absorbtion abilty of a flour ? Is this what is refered to as "strength" ? Or are we talking about how fine the wheat is milled ? How does this attributes affect the bread ?

I'm sure that flour will make fine bread. I think here is often too much emphasis on the exact paramters of the flour, since technique is more important. Better to choose one or two typed of flour you can easily obtain, and work with those. Oneof the problems is that millers and supermarkets do not always supply an identical product: the same flour packet may contain subtly different flour in the spring or the autumn, or on damp days and dry days.

You raise a large subject here, and if you can, go and find books on cereal chemistry. Flour is complex stuff, and there are many more parameters than just protein content, which is used as a surrogate for gluten. although it says nothing about the quality of gluten, and can be misleading for wholemeal flours since the bran contains protein. The amount of gluten is often referred to as strength, but you can (and I do) make good bread from weak flour. In France baguettes are made with weak flour. Each culture has ended to evolve local breads that make best use of the flour locally grown and available.

Other parameters people measure. Many of these interact, and none really tell you what the flour is like to bake with:

Moisture content

Colour

Grade of grind and particle size

Milling temperature

Milling method

Wheat variety and type (spring/winter etc)

Extraction (percentage of the whole wheat)

Enzyme content

Hagberg Falling number (measure of amylase activity)

Gel protein test

Damaged strach granules (Farrand units)

Water adsobption (Farinograph)

In France and Germany ash content is quoted, used as an indication of mineral content.

- How much oven spring can I rely on getting from a dough? Let's say I bulk ferment my dough for 5 hours, shape the loaves (they will collapse a bit during this process), and put them straight into the oven. Will the bread rise at all ?

My loaves more than double in the oven. I get bigger final volume from less expansion in the feremention and proof stage and more oven spring.

Try and see what happens if you bake directly after shaping. You will certainly get some rise.

Retardation (putting the bread in the fridge) is another issue, The cold slows some proceses more than others. I reckon (for me) overnight int e fridge is about equivalent to two hours proof, and sometimes I shape, put the dough in the fridge, and then bake next day from cold.

- I've seen vitamin C in some recipes. What's the right way, and reason to apply witamin C in bread baking ?

Another complex subject. Vitamin C combines with the help of an oxidase enzyme present in the flour wih the oxygen in the dough to form dehydroascorbic acid, which then oxidises anothe enzyme in the flour that would otherwise attack the gluten, and also appears to assist forming the bonds inthe gluten structure.

Its more important for freshly milled flour, and for high intensity mixed doughs. If you are mixing by hand its less important - people have made fine bread for years without it. Some bread flours (King Arthur, for instance) have it already mixed in at the millers - check the fine print on the packet.

You can just add it when you make the dough. I'm experimenting with some success with mixing the dough flour, water and vitamin C together and letting them stand for about an hour beforehand.

I have some recipes on wholegrain sourdough breads, and bread with a coarser ground flour. Can I use my nice and acitve fine starter for these breads ? The recipe states to use another starter. (From rye). Is this only for taste ? Will the bread rise just as well with a fine flour starter ?

Absolutely. I only maintain one basic white starter that I use for all my breads. A baker I know just maintains a rye mother starter that he uses for all his breads, so that he can make gluten free breads without changing starter.

Hope someone can help me shed some ligh on this magic .-)

Hope this helps and welcome to a great adventure. Please don't take these remarks as gospel. They are only my current opinion, and you should not beleive everything you read on the Internet!

Jack

Edited April 23, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[glennbech]

My Experiment is now complete. Every step along the way documented, and I now have a baseline to experiment furhter on. Mission accomplished!

Here was today's program.

09.00 Baking

I put my pizza stone in the bottom of my electric oven, and preheated to 230 c for 45 minutes. I took the shaped breads out of the fridge, flipped my improvised bantenton onto my hand crafted peel Im proud of this one. Big Ugly Heavy thing. But I did make it!

After 40 mintutes. I took the bread out. It looks like this ;

Results and reflection/conclusion

- I cannot trust my electric oven. The Breads were not done in 40 minutes. Since this is my first experiences, I was unsure exactly how long to leave them in there.

I took one out, and left one in there.

- I should have added some steam to the oven, for example by putting a cup of water in the oven with the bread in the beginning. I have gotten better crust earlier doing this. From now on, I wil always do that.

- I damaged the loaves when taking them out of the plastic bag they had been resting in overnight. (In the fridge). The dough were sticking to the plastic bag, and I lost some air when I peeled removed the bag.

- For some strange reason, I didn't get much oven spring. However, the dough fermented real well during bulk fermentation yesterday (20.00 - 22.30). Even in the fridge. maybe shorter fermentation period would have given me more oven spring ?

- My goal was 68% water in the comple dough. I however, suspect that my actual percentage is closer to 65 as I absolutely HAD to add a few fistfulls of flour to handle it during the fermentation (I took it out of the bowl, flipped it, folded it and put it back in the baking bowl).

- I was aiming for more air pockets in the texture. I'll try to get more oven spring next time.

- I believe the fact that I let my kitchen machine work with the dough for 10-15 minutes (5-6 minites more than I usual do) had a positive effect.

- The bread tasted ok, but nothing extraordinary :-) I'll keep working on my process. Vary fermentation times, sponge size, hydration levels until I get this perfect .-)

I guess I also need to go to a decent artisan bakery and see, and taste how a real sourdough bread looks like. It's been a while since my last visit .-)

Edited April 23, 2006 by glennbech (log)

[Desiderio]

Since we talk again about sourdough I have a question as well.

I am in Colorado so high altitude, I just bought some different flour, I use to buy the bread flour ( but doesnt say the % of protein),its the hungarian type for high altitude.Now I have noticed a hugeee difference using this flour,it assorbs sooo much water its impressive, I had to add water till was at the right consistency and was way more than the recepie called for.

Has this flour a very high protein contenent? It doesnt say on the package ( wich it drives me crazy ) but it says thta is made for the high altitude and has a good amount of protein ( how much who knows ).

Now is this a good sign for a bread flour , I know it depends probably form what you want to attain,I like very crusty rustic breads like the italian ( I miss the good bread form my home country ), the first I made with sourdough came out decent at first I thought was too heavy the crumb to dense and the crust too thin, with few days it got much better , it losts a lot of the water form the crum wich made it better and less dense , if it makes sense , and the flavor definally increased positivaly.Anyway I am wondering if this flour is good or not for good sourdough bread making.

Let me know thank you

[qrn]

<

<Has this flour a very high protein contenent? It doesnt say on the package ( wich <it drives me crazy ) but it says thta is made for the high altitude and has a good <amount of protein ( how much who knows ).

Yes it does say on the package...Look at the box with the nutrition facts...

The serving size is usually 30g and below it shows protein in grams, if protein is 3 grams its 10%...Hungarian "high altitude " is just ordinary a/p flour, there is no need for "high altitude" flour Just don't over proof or the loaves blow up.

Bud

[Desiderio]

<

<Has this flour a very high protein contenent? It doesnt say on the package ( wich <it drives me crazy ) but it says thta is made for the high altitude and has a good <amount of protein ( how much who knows  ).

Yes it does say on the package...Look at the box with the nutrition facts...

The serving size is usually 30g  and below it shows protein in grams, if protein is 3 grams its 10%...Hungarian "high altitude " is just ordinary a/p flour, there is no need for "high altitude" flour  Just don't over proof or the loaves blow up.

Bud

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Ahhh thank you I know I was missing something

Thank you Bud

[sirch1980]

[glennbech]

Thanks a lot sirch1980. The tips regarding rye substitution was very helpfull.

Now... Experimenting a an "express sourdough" ( I want to see If I can cram a baking session 7 hours in between end of work at 17.00, and bedtime, around 00:00)

What is better; Long bulk fermentation, or longer proofing? If we consider two aproaches, where only 7 hours is available.

A) 3 hours starter refresh, 1 hour bulk fermentation and 3 hour proofing.

or

B) 3 hours starter refresh, 3 hour bulk fermentation and 1 hours of proofing.

Im doing this experiemnt right now, So I guess we'll soon enough see if 7 hours will produce good bread .-)

Edited April 24, 2006 by glennbech (log)

[SweetSide]

Thanks a lot sirch1980. The tips regarding rye substitution was very helpfull.

Now... Experimenting a an "express sourdough" ( I want to see If I can cram a baking session 7 hours in between end of work at 17.00, and bedtime, around 00:00)

What is better; Long bulk fermentation, or longer proofing? If we consider two aproaches, where only 7 hours is available. 

A) 3 hours starter refresh, 3 hours bulk fermentation and 1 hour proofing.

or

B) 3 hours starter refresh, 3 hour bulk fermentation and 1 hours of proofing.

Im doing this experiemnt right now, So I guess we'll soon enough see if 7 hours will produce good bread .-)

←

Ummm... Looks like options A and B are the same to me.... Except for some s's...

[glennbech]

Should have been....

A) 3 hours starter refresh, 1 hour bulk fermentation and 3 hour proofing.

or

B) 3 hours starter refresh, 3 hour bulk fermentation and 1 hours of proofing.

[jackal10]

You'd do better to do it in two steps

a) 8-12 hour make the sponge (before you leave for work)

b) mix, bulk ferment 1 hour, proof for 1-2 hours, depending on temperaure, bake 40 mins. This assumes you are using abou 33% of he flour in the recipe inthe sponge.

If you use half hat (say 16%) double the proof time.

[glennbech]

Yeah... Sponge devleopment while I'm at work. Should have thought of that one .-)

While we're at it; I guess the sponge/dough ratio affect how sour the bread gets? . As well as how much starter there is in the sponge, and how long you let it ferment?)

Mm... I guess I have a lot to learn. Yesterday, I experimented with a sponge, with equal amounts of starter/flour/water and short fermentation time. ( 3 hours). However, I ended up with a sponge of 450g, and a total dough weight of 700. That was really sour bread ! .-)

The taste, crumb and crust were not bad though.

Tomorrow, I'll try a sponge that is 30% of total flour weight, with a small amount of starter, and leave it while at work. I'll Proof/ferment as you suggest. I'll be back with the results!

Another thing ; I'm getting tired of handling doughs at > 70% hydration levels. They're so sticky. Do you get real big holes and soft crumb at 60-65% hydration ?

Thanks again all for excellent feedback.

[jackal10]

Yes, I get big holes at 66% hydration. Very wet doughs give large holes, but have thick webs, and a more pudding like texture. If you get full gluten development the webs are much thinner as well.

There are three seperate processes going on, all with different dynamics: gluten development, conversion of the starches to sugars (which also makes the dough wetter as it proves), and gas production. The bakers art is to optimise them.

[sirch1980]

use high gluten flour will much better,because more protein in the flour can adsorb more water.

And if u punching down the dough more times, the hold will more regular and dense

[glennbech]

More issues As I continue my sourdough experiments ;

A) In today's batch. one bread was burnty while the other was not. How is this possible ? Both of them are in direct contact with my Pizza stone that is at bottom of my electric oven.

I guess it was burned because of hight temp. Right now I'm warming my oven to 482F/250C... I might reduce this to 230C ? How one escaped this faith, but not the other amazes me.

B) Dough WILL Stick to a floured linnen cloth in a basket !! Why didn't anyone tell me this ? *grin* Will I need a "professional" battenton.. (Spelled correctly?) where can I buy those?

C) I measured 34 degrees C in my kitchen at some point when the doigh were proofing.... How will this affect the result ?

Any ideas ?

[Bill44]

More issues As I continue my sourdough experiments ;

A) In today's batch. one bread was burnty while the other was not. How is this possible ? Both of them are in direct contact with my Pizza stone that is at bottom of my electric oven.

I guess it was burned because of hight temp. Right now I'm warming my oven to 482F/250C... I might reduce this to 230C ? How one escaped this faith, but not the other amazes me.

B) Dough WILL Stick to a floured linnen cloth in a basket !! Why didn't anyone tell me this ? *grin* Will I need a "professional" battenton.. (Spelled correctly?) where can I buy those?

C) I measured 34 degrees C in my kitchen at some point when the doigh were proofing.... How will this affect the result ?

Any ideas ?

←

A) Lift your stone to about 4-5 inches from the bottom of the stove. Try 215C for 45 minutes.

B) The gluten in white flour will stick to a cloth, use rye flour.

C) It will speed up your proofing, and Lactobaccilus likes the higher temperatures so you will have a different taste to say 25C.

regards

Bill

[Beanie]

Rice flour also works well. Use alot of it. A professional banneton still needs to be floured.

[SweetSide]

Rice flour also works well. Use alot of it. A professional banneton still needs to be floured.

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And, since I've seen this come up in another thread, since it will work like a pastry cloth (which I'm more acquainted with), rub the flour into the cloth well -- get it so that it's between the fibers. And don't wash it unless absolutely necessary, like seasoning a pan.

[donyeokl]

Just baked a loaf of focaccia using white leaven at 100% hydration. Did not do a good job at dimpling the top before baking though.

Adjusted the contrast just a little to give a better cross-section of the bread.

Happy Baking...

Don