Long time lurker, first time poster.
Recipe: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/best-sourdough-recipe/
Made two 450ish gram baby batards.
Figured I’d change things up and make a high hydration bread.
I’m just not a fan. 🥴 Maybe I should’ve incorporated a coil fold after each stretch and fold. I noticed Maurizio did something like that in the video but of course I didn’t watch it until my dough was in the fridge for the night. I ended up with some holes that seemed too big. Maybe under fermented? Dough too weak? Idk. Help?
My toppings just fall through the holes and unless I’m eating this plain, I just get annoyed eating it…
by bubbl3tea4lyfe
13 Comments
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I’ve tried his recipe before too and it felt noticeably wetter but I didn’t get such a good rise. Those loaves look perfect to me 👌🏻 I do think performing those coil folds could help redistribute the gasses responsible for those bigger bubbles
Looks amazing
I mean pretty great results.
I think being rougher to degas during shaping can help get rid of those giant voids. Or potentially some more strength.
But yeah aesthetic bread means dip and tear bread, not sandwich bread. To each their own.
You can make high hydration bread that is not so holey. Ferment longer and be rougher in your shaping
Nice job scoring! How do you do it? Looks like a pretty shallow angle.
Not underfermented, but if you let it bulk longer the larger holes will coalesce and the ones that dont you can pop at the time of shaping. Maurizio follows the tartine method of shaping dough very young which often can lead to this sort of wild crumb
Is under fermented, that’s why you get big holes and then tiny dense holes in the borders.
Dough isn’t weak, if it was weak it wouldn’t rise that much.
Just let it ferment more in bulk
It’s not under its just gassy
Agreed with previous comments. This is definitely underfermented. It’s not a shaping or dough strength issue as you obviously have a very good shape but the fermentation pockets are not evenly distributed. Did you also follow the FDT of 78F as the recipe suggested? If not, check your dough temp and let it bulk ferment longer.
I dont think people saying this is under are right. All of the bubbles have super thin membranes, there are no ‘dense spots’. Looks pretty well fermented to me! I think the shaping was just a bit fucked up and left some big old air bubbles
It’s not the hydration, per se, it’s the handling…though 85% is definitely high hydration. It’s not over or under proofed, it’s just what Trevor Wilson in his book —-[Open Crumb, 2nd edition](https://trevorjaywilson.com/products/)—-calls “wild, extreme.”
In that book, pg 128, there is a picture of a “Modern Tartine-Style” bread that looks exactly like your pictures. It’s not a crumb that I like, particularly. Best for dipping, not great for sandwiches.
You can’t make this extremely wild and open bread without having a high moisture content dough. So cutting down the moisture will definitely create a more dense crumb. On the other hand, rougher/different handling can deflate the bubbles, too, and result in a loaf with open crumb but not wildly open. Let’s say pleasantly open. A loaf that Trevor Wilson calls “Honeycombed” (open and even) or “Classical Artisan” (open and irregular).
A few years ago, I managed to get over to the famous (in sourdough circles) Tartine bakery and sample their bread. To my taste, it was way too open and salty. Preferred my own loaf, even though the recipe originated with Chad Robertson, author of Tartine Bread.
I can recommend Trevor Wilson’s book. It’s brilliant, and covers topics in depth that I’ve not found in other bread books. Written for intermediate level bakers. I’m now reading for a second time.
These are definitely just a little under fermented, but better handling—popping big gas bubbles early on, coil folds, firm but delicate shaping—will also improve the crumb