Every loaf I bake turns out very dense. It tastes great and I get a great oven spring, but I cannot for the life of me get a bread that is lighter or fluffier than the pics I posted here. My starter is healthy, bubbly, active at 11 weeks old. Consistently doubling or more. Usually eyeball the feed the night before baking and by morning it’s ready to go. Help!
100g Active starter
325g Water
500g Bob’s Red Mill Bread flour
11g Salt
- Mix
starter
- and water until bubbly
Mix in flour and salt and knead until til shaggy dough form
Rest 45 min
2 rounds stretch and folds 30 min apart followed by 2 rounds coil folds 30 min apart
Bulk ferment 8ish hours or until jiggly, domed, and bubbly
Pre shape into ball, rest 30 min
Final shape
Cold proof
Bake and enjoy
How do I get it lighter and fluffier?
by stratusnimbo
43 Comments
You have mixing flour at 2 steps, I’m assuming the fist is water with starter, then adding flour, salt.
I usually do an autolyse which is water with flour , mix that to a shaggy dough the add starter and salt after an hour . You can do a fermentolyse with starter, flour, and water then add salt. I’ve also started to get way softer crumbs now that I upfront knead for about 10 min upon adding salt and starter. Still do stretch and folds 4 rounds every 30 min.
Hard to say about BF, but looks likely under-proofed by smidge. I go off visuals super bubbly and jiggly when I move the bowl , somewhat easy to pull away from the sides of the bowl and puffy.
Mainly proof longer, adding hydration may also help. I highly recommend the bulk-o-matic checklist to assess when proofing is done. Do NOT copy paste bulk proof time from a recipe, this is completely dependent on variables which are too variable: starter activity, flour strength, room temperature, dough temperature, hydration and many more.
You are making bread. That’s what bread looks like.
Look at that ear! Luvit 👍🏻
I think it looks great. If you are going for that airy instagrammable crumb increase humidity to over 75%
The hydration level is what… 65%?
Maybe try upping it to 75% (375g water) but not changing anything else and see if that helps.
Are you cutting in to it before it fully cools?
Your boule looks fine to me! Doesn’t look dense at all.
I mean, this looks nice and fluffy to me.
But you could try croissant bread or search for sandwich sourdough recipes to get that really soft texture you’re looking for.
This looks like regular sourdough to me.
You just need to let it sit more before baking. Are you cold proofing or doing the second proof on the counter? It’s probably either this second proof after shaping that you need to extend a bit more or the first one, but probably the second one.
It looks like sourdough to me
Is the dense loaf in the room with us?
Use AP flour. Sounds like you don’t like bread flour loaves cause there is nothing wrong with that bread.
Use more water. You are at 65%. Go to 75%.
Proper dough manipulation: 1. aggressive slap and fold. Rest 30 min. 2. Lamination fold. Rest 30 minutes. 3. Coil folds. Rest 4. Coil fold. Preshape, shape, refrigerate.
This is not dense
Maybe you are looking for fluffier sandwich bread? You’ll need a few extra ingredients for that. For some inspiration, check out this lady’s recipe:
[https://thatsourdoughgal.com/same-day-sourdough-wonder-bread-copycat-recipe-no-tang/#recipe](https://thatsourdoughgal.com/same-day-sourdough-wonder-bread-copycat-recipe-no-tang/#recipe)
I don’t know if I’d classify sourdough as “fluffy”
That looks really good to me tbh and not dense at all
You gotta enrich that dough
No, I agree with OP. I see the dense spots. I think OP wants slightly fluffier in those areas and that does impact eating experience. Not that many others would not complain about how that looks. But I like a slightly airier loaf and if the crumb is too dense in spots I’m not a fan but it IS well baked bread!
I think it drives me a little crazy whenever I see pictures like this, which seems like a perfect loaf of bread, and op is complaining about it and asking how to improve. 😭😭😭
They look nice. If you want them to be less gluey – use less water. Otherwise the texture and crumble is excellent.
Something that took a while for me to really understand intuitively is how delicately you need to handle your dough. It’s surprisingly easy to collapse the internal structure you need for a light open crumb, and this makes it hard to build gluten structure at the same time.
Think about picking up a handful of soap bubbles from the sink or a bathtub, and trying to shape them without collapsing the whole thing. That’s kind of what you need to do.
So a couple of things I think: learn how to stretch and fold, learn how to coil fold. Recognize that gluten strength wis your best friend for maintaining crumb without collapsing, but gluten relaxes over time too. More time = more bubbles but less strength. This might sound vague and a lot of it is genuinely feel, but one of the things I found is that the most delicate moment is right before baking.
Your bread looks pretty good though. Try playing with different handling techniques, hydration, and timing.
1. *Tangzhong*ing. [https://www.theperfectloaf.com/sourdough-sandwich-bread-with-pre-cooked-flour/](https://www.theperfectloaf.com/sourdough-sandwich-bread-with-pre-cooked-flour/)
2. Diastatic malt. [https://www.theperfectloaf.com/what-is-diastatic-malt-powder/](https://www.theperfectloaf.com/what-is-diastatic-malt-powder/)
3. Increase hydration.
BUT, the loaves look great.
No
You’re looking for a problem. These look like really good loaves.
Damn fine loaves 😄
I mean your bread looks amazing.
If you want it lighter maybe try proofing/baking without the loaf pan.
If it has more area to expand while proofing you may get something puffier.
Push counter fermentation. Temp your dough and use the aliquot method.
Big holes are often a sign of over or under fermentation, I’m leaning more towards under fermentation on this one though
I think it looks great and a fairly open crumb already.
Try doing half AP flour and half BF.
That’s the same recipe I use except I use 10g of salt. I bulk ferment for 6-7 hours.
https://preview.redd.it/lj9t745ij6vg1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb8c1cf9cbe2467b9b349e407e970fb164f2efc5
If you’re trying to make a more “sandwich style” bread, I would find a recipe that includes oil and sugar. That will help provide a more commercial style crumb and taste. You could also try subbing some or all of the water for milk, that tends to make a softer crumb.
That being said, it could also be a starter issue, but it sounds like your starter is healthy, so I would try a different recipe first.
This bread is illegal. Please send me the bread for proper disposal. Thank you.
What is your bake process and temperature? I found that baking at a lower temperature for longer reduced gumminess.
try 350g water. thats what i use. exact same recipe minus some stretch and folds. i rest for 1 hr and do one really good round of stretch and folds. then bulk ferment
Well that’s way better than I can do lol
Don’t compare sourdough to soft white bread. They’re different types of bread with different textures. These dont look dense at all they look beautiful!!!
They look lovely! Maybe slightly underproofed. My loaves looked similar until I bumped the amount of starter to 25 -30%. (Evidence attached – this loaf was 68% hydration and 25% starter btw). Maybe try that? Since then I’ve been getting decent loaves (in my opinion).
https://preview.redd.it/513499ogl6vg1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b0450c9d852db0559e7d15737ee742751667054
It looks great but do you mean it’s gummy? If so, I the same issue and it was just a combination of the type of flour I was using and the starter needing a bit of tlc – it was a quick fix.
Sourdough IS a little chewy naturally. These look fine to me but you might could push bulk fermentation a touch longer or use a higher hydration ratio. Toast the bread and you’ll find the “chewy” isn’t an issue.
Looks like higher hydration is your only option because these breads looks amazing.