am struggling to get my bread to the next level. Can anyone please help me diagnose what I need to do for less spread / better over spring and more of a molten crumb? I have watched a lot of videos on youtube and other posts here, and can't seem to figure out what I need to tweak.
You might notice that the shape looks pretty good at the center, but there is a lot of spread. Towards the sides and ends, it gets flat.
I do notice that the dough looks "less silky" than thesourdoughjourney videos. And my dough seems to have lost a lot of shape coming out of the banneton at cooking. I thought I was mixing as much as him. But my dough was always a bit tighter / less elastic. Note my dough does seem to pass windowpane test only after 1 stretch and fold anyway.
Recipe
900g KAF bread flour
50g KAF whole wheat
50g medium rye
200g levain (100% hydration)
20g salt
750g water
Steps
Took cold starter and made levain at 1:1:1 ratio with warmer at 80 degrees F. Levain peaked in 4 hours and I used at the 5 hour mark as peak was starting to fall.
Mixed levain and into water and flour, shaggy dough, and fermentolyse for 40 mins.
Added salt and remaining water, mixed until reincorporated.
4 additional stretch and folds at 30 min intervals.
Bulk ferment at ~78 degrees for ~30% volume rise (was about 4.5 hrs total) so the dough was left untouched for the last ~2 hours.
Preshaped into taught balls and waited 30 mins
Shaped into oval banneton, gingerly
40hr cold proof
Cook directly from fridge in ceramic cooker. Scored. Sprayed with water. Using aluminum foil, sealed up edges of ceramic cooker where steam can escape.
450 for 35 minutes lid on
450 for 25 mins lid off
by Wascally314
3 Comments
I think this is overproofed, which means the gluten strands are weaker and more… flabby, which leads to the spread. This happens because the yeast have digested too much of the flour and broken down a bit too much of the protein in the dough so it doesn’t hold its shape as well. Here’s a cool diagram I found today. Try 8-10 hours cold proof next time maybe.
https://preview.redd.it/h7x9g21hq53e1.jpeg?width=612&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6eaf65512f62ef3d77aeb010e4c10513487fc112
If you want to develop more gluten, try slap and folds after your autolyse.
You can also try to reaply get that surface tension before you pop them in the bannetons.
Last note is that 5 hours of BF in such a hot kitchen might be too long. The cold proof is essential for good flavour; I’d rather keep a long cold proof and cut my BF time down. If your kitchen is always that hot, cut down your BF time to 4 hours and see what happens. Or cool down your kitchen.
Everything looks good with the recipe. It’s the final shaping I see some improvement needed. Don’t get me wrong, I’d hit that bread hard. Check out “The Perfect Loaf” video on batard shaping.