Another step on a long journey towards open crumb mastery. A bit on the wild side!
In this experimental loaf, I once again followed the classic open crumb sourdough recipe from @fullproofbaking, but with three key modifications. (1) Ingredients — instead I used 350g King Arthur bread flour, 265g warm water, 70g ripe levain (100% hydration 5% dark rye). (2) Dough handling — I autolysed for 3 hours, mixed in the levain and the salt, and then bulked for 5.5 hours during which I applied 5 early coil folds every 30-60 minutes. I skipped both the counter stretch+fold and lamination steps in favor of more coil folding. (3) Temperature — I maintained an internal dough temperature of 77-78 degrees, which was much easier thanks my @brodandtaylor dough proofer. Page 2 has the timestamps and pH measurements.
I think the nice warm internal temperature of the bulk fermentation (78F) really helped the fermentation this time. But to my surprise, skipping lamination altogether resulted in an even more open crumb structure. In comparison, the control loaf which received the usual counter folds and lamination (page 3) looks a lot more closed. Possibly have been over stressing the dough, when it just wanted to relax! Any others experienced downsides of lamination especially around 78% hydration all white dough?
Wishing everyone a relaxing holiday and new year!
by protozoicmeme
6 Comments
Beautiful results! How are you tracking pH and such precise temps? I know the dough proofer is controllable but that graph is so nice to visualize!
Laminating can degas your dough especially since it looks like you’re still handling your dough close to when you’re pulling it from ferment. I usually only handle my dough the first 90-120 minutes after mixing and get in my 3-4 folds in during this time then I leave it alone until it’s pulled for shaping.
How do you track this? And whare is on left ax?
Obsessed with this, great job OP
This is very helpful, thank you for sharing.
Loaf looks perfect!
Looks amazing!