Starter is a mix of whole wheat and unbleached APF. Feedings are 1:2:2. 6 weeks old and was doubling every few hours. Home temperature is between 72-73F. Low humidity.
Recipe used:
- 280g water
- 100g starter
- 8g salt
- 200g unbleached APF
- 200g whole wheat flour
Once ingredients were mixed, I let it rest on the counter for an hour. After the hour, I stretched dough every 30 minutes about 3 times. Placed into a bread basket and let it proof overnight on the counter. I noticed it didn’t rise much but was bubbly. Oven set to 425F for 35 mins and then 10 minutes without top. Pan of water was placed in bottom rack as well since I didn’t have ice to throw into the oven. Baked it and this is what came out.
by bruhwutwedoin
26 Comments
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Your starter isn’t ready to use, keep feeding it daily for another 2 weeks
So the recipe itself isn’t too bad. It’s pretty high hydration, 74%, but not out of the ordinary. A few of my guesses would be that either the starter wasn’t used at the appropriate time, at peak or just after. Or maybe the stretch and folds didn’t give enough strength to gluten, try making sure that the dough is well-mixed when you first combine everything, and do some slap and folds before the stretch and folds to be sure. Thirdly, it is possible that proofing overnight way overproofed it, so it completely lost shape and that’s why you think it didn’t rise.
Typically, after the stretch and folds, you would do a bulk fermentation by leaving it out at room temp for a couple hours, then you’d do the shape and a cold proof overnight or for at least 12 hours. If I did a room temp overnight proof, I know my dough would be way overproofed, wouldn’t hold shape at all. Maybe check out the Sourdough episode of It’s Alive with Brad Leone and Clair Saffitz, and that will give a better idea of where you’re headed.
Congratulations, it can only get better! 😂
That bread needed to rise much longer and get much bigger than it did before going into the oven.
Next one will be better! My first loaf was a disaster too.
I think the starter just may not be quite ready. Keep doing what you’re doing and feeding it. Get it strong! You can also just keep trying loafs here and there, you’ll have plenty of starter and discard to play with while you get it stronger.
When the starter reaches the double mark, is when I throw it into the mixer. That’s when it’s the most active.
Something else I may try changing, the temperature. While I’m letting it bulk and between stretches and folds, I’ll put it in the oven with ONLY the light on. It’ll bring your temp up into the 80s instead of low 70s. I notice a big change with that.
If starter is standard 100% hydration then your total dough hydration is 72% approx. thats pretty wet for any beginner. id consider dropping your hydration to 60%. that will give you a chance to make dough that holds shape. your dough baked like a flat pancake. that means either it was too high hydration (didnt have enough tension to hold shape) or it was way way overproofed.
when you first mix starter in is when fermentation starts. if you over ferment/proof then the dough can get really wet feeling and lose all shape. your picture has almost no bubbles. ive not over proofed to the point where no bubbles show up so im not sure if youre over proofed (to the max) or if starter is not ready.
you can buy dried starter flakes on etsy and thats way faster than making starter from scratch.
I use a small straight side shot glass and put a chunk of dough in there (right after I mix in starter). I use that shot glass to tell me how much dough has risen. usually go to when its just under doubled and then cold proof in fridge covered.
Seems like the starter is still weak. This happened to me as well. My starter finally became established after about 2-3 ish months. Other people have luck but for me it took about 2-3 months. For your recipe maybe try all AP flour and proof overnight in the fridge after a couple hours on the counter. But because there’s are no bubbles to speak of I think the main problem is the starter. Keep at it tho!
Seems like people already gave you great advice for your starter! My two cents is to start with only about 10% whole wheat in your recipe and increase as you gain experience. Whole wheat is notoriously more tricky to work with.
Bit unsure about the other replys. If your starter is 6 weeks old and consistently doubling every couple of hours it should be ready.
Your bulk fermentation starts when you mix starter with water and flour. It seems like you did 2,5h fermentation *before* you placed the dough into your basked and then let it further ferment on the counter over night. At what time did you bake the next day? This could have been anywhere from 9-16h of bulk fermentation.
If you use 25% of a strong starter and have the dough sit at 73°F the dough should roughly take ~7-10h to bulk ferment. You also said the dough was bubbly, but did not rise. The loaf also looks completely collapsed, like zero bubbles. So either your starter is literally DEAD and provided zero rise over 10+h of bulk fermentation, or you have a decent starter but overproofed to a point the dough collapsed. Based on the evidence the second option seems much more likely to me.
your rise is not time dependent. yeast is a fungus, it’s going to need time to do their thing and reproduce. The time is dependent on temperature and humidity. You want to keep it out of the light (fungus doesn’t really like light per se) you want to keep the temperature at the sweet spot which in my humble opinion is 77 degrees F. If you are too cool you are going to have to wait a long time, a very long time. If you are too hot it won’t taste as good and the structure will suffer. You need to wait a minimum 2 hours and you need to watch it for the size increase. This is 2/3’s of the trick to making bread. Rise time is so important, it’s where you get your flavor and texture right. Everything else is gravy.
Overnight (even at cooler temps than yours) with 25% starter your recipe calls for would massively over-ferment my dough.
If you are not doing a cold proof, then you want the dough to double (at the most) during bulk ferment and then after shaping just rest until it puffs up a little to replace the air you knocked out during shaping.
Best of luck with the next loaf!
What kind of fudge is that?
In my experience, that’s a lot of starter I put in about three tablespoons. That must’ve been like glue to work with and that’s a good giveaway. Something is too much.
The biggest mistake I made was being impatient with starter. It needs to be really well established, and I’ll be honest I cheated. I thought a lie starter and followed it, and could not believe the difference. With that starter in three days, I had My first loaf it was gorgeous. I followed all the other normal instructions, but my starter was really healthy and it wasn’t doubling. It was tripling in a matter of eight hours and I only had to do that three times before I baked with it. Once you get the yeast, you’ve gotta keep alive and what you do with it will make it yours, but the start they gave me, I could not believe it.
Oh well now I don’t feel so bad about my first loaf 😂
I am an *absolute* beginner, and I did make a successful loaf, but if I’m starting anything new, I want to see what’s going on. I would make sure your bulk fermentation is during the day as you’re learning, so you can see what’s going on, and observe at each stage. 🙂 As what happened happened during those mystery hours of sleep, we can only guess.
WTH 🤦🏻♀️ lmao
Looks like my first try at focaccia. 🤣 I called it my (barely) edible Frisbee!
My friend that’s cookie dough
As a professional baker my jaw dropped lol, ya that starter just has to be dead. If you overproofed it you would have had a huge bubbly mess of dough. If you left that out and it barely did anything, that’s a starter issue.
Ooo Wee! Your starter is good and ready, but your process needs improvement. In beginner only terms: mix well, let it rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour, followed by 3 rounds of stretch and folds every 30 minutes or so, then transfer to a floured surface and shape it into a round (ideally, you do this twice! Shape and cover with a damp kitchen towel, rest for 10 to 30 minutes, and shape again), then transfer to bread basket and proof overnight in the ***fridge*** not on the counter! (unless you live in the Arctic or on Antarctica lol) Finally, preheat oven to 450 for at least 30 minutes, then bake with lid on at 450 for 30 minutes, then lower to 425 and bake with lid off for 15-20 minutes). If you will be keeping the sliced bread in plastic storage bags (such as the Gallon size with twist tie), let it cool for at least 5 hours before slicing.
This bread is effectively unleavened. Whatever you are calling starter does not fit the bill. Proofing is something that happens with working starter, so it is not relevant here. Hydration is also not the issue if you followed the recipe you stated, which is 73% hydration.
Many of us have been there!
That doesn’t look ideal.
Go read the sourdough journey
Gang gang