I’m in the process of making some dough using this recipe:
74.82% dough hydration.
Starter Hydration: 80%
Starter Amount: 90g
which means
Flour Amount: 50g
Water Amount: 40g
recipe:
427 grams of flour
317 grams of water
10 grams of salt
90 grams of starter
I mixed everything at 12:30. Since then I’ve done 3 stretches and folds and 4 coil folds, 30 minutes apart but my dough is still pretty teary and sticky. It’s been almost 5h since fermentation started. The dough is about 26-27C deg. Now I put it in a container for fermentation but I’m pretty desperate. Did I overwork it? 🧐
by mndhsvn
10 Comments
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I’m following this because my dough always looks like this!! I just thought that is how it was supposed to be…
Remember, the water in your starter counts. So you actually have 407 grams of water, which equals a 95% hydration.
you didn’t kneed long enough, high hydration sourdough needs 20-30 mins of kneeding on high in a stand mixer. By hand it’ll take 30 mins if you have perfect technique and are extremely quick. Also “over working it” is borderline not possible. The only instance in which you have too much gluten is if you’re making a pastry or your dough is less than 60% hydration. It is most likely you did not even scratch the surface of “working it”.
Layers/folds=gluten,
gluten=structure,
lack of structure=soupy dough,
higher-hydration=needs more structure,
also make sure you’re using a high protein bread flour, atleast 13.8%. Or mix AP flour with wheat.
If you have doubts about over working being impossible, i suggest you watch this video and other videos from this channel for your questions
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LQPCXMpxO4c&t=814s&pp=ygUWb3ZlcmtuZWVkaW5nIHNvdXJkb3VnaA%3D%3D
Starter it’s always equal parts flour and water. I do 1:5:5 sometimes 1:3:3 depends on when I need it.
Hydration Depends on the flour, most flours can’t hold more than 72%
It looks like you chose the wrong flour for this hydration. I see there’s a debate about what the actual hydration is. It certainly looks very high. Assuming the math is correct. Still at 74-76 hydration many flours fail. Which sounds crazy since so many people make bread at 76. But the flour you are using just may not be able to hold it.
Are you using AP flour? Or a strong bread flour?
It looks like you have worked the dough enough to me, but just have too high hydration for that flour. You can try dropping the hydration down a bit next time, I like starting with 65%, it’ll be much more forgiving. And starters can have a wide range of hydration, yours is absolutely fine. Whatever happens I’m sure if you ferment it well you’ll get a nice if slightly flat loaf, or a great focaccia if you feel like it’s too weak to hold itself up in the oven.
Same thing happened to me, either I added too much flower or too much water to my dough.
Stuck right to the proofing basket.
Saw the pics and immediately recognized the overhydrated dough — i spent so long thinking i was somehow overproofing, when i was just overhydrating — and for those bemoaning the tossed dough, when the gluten is destroyed like this, the focaccia you try to turn it into to is just a dense brick — there is literally no structure to give you anything, bubble-wise. Trust me.
Even different batches of same flour have different water holding capacity. Temperature also affects how well the dough handles.
You must reduce the hydration or change flours in your case. Cooler temp may help a little bit but change one variable at a time.
Adding vital gluten is another option