Hello!
I've been making bread for about 2 years (not very regularly) using Poolish and Biga (following Ken Forkish's FWSY).
Around 2 weeks ago I decided to "graduate" to sourdough. I bought The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo and made the first recipe for sourdough bread.
This is my second attempt. The first one didn't rise well, I think because it was over hydrated.
This one had a great looking dough but I am not happy with the result. I realised this morning I forgot to put salt (babies are super distracting). But appart from that, why is my crumb so dense? Is it from the shaping?
Any advice is welcome! Thank you
by ceciliamzayek
4 Comments
I get similar results with my sourdough when I mix some whole grain flour with the rest of the flour. Even though the holes get smaller it has no bearing on flavour or shape. If I wanna chase big holes and a ”perfect” loaf I go for 100% tipo 00
What’s wrong with it ? What don’t you like about it ? The crumb looks fine but if it’s not what you’re after ?
It’s the missing salt that makes your bread feel denser. Salt helps with retaining water and strengthen the gluten.
And sourdough doesn’t like to come in contact with salt, so it’s best to mix in the salt last.
Use 2% salt to flour weight. So if you are using 1000g flour you need 20g salt. And depending on the amount of sourdough you might need to ad another gram of salt. But if you use less the 200g sourdough the extra amount of salt is negligible.
The actual ratio is 1.8-2.2% but it’s usually so small amount difference so aim at 2%
That bread looks decent. How does it taste?