I just started about a month ago, and I thought this loaf was completely ruined bc I left it to counter proof all night long….
I’ve been feeding my starter (only a month old) 1:1:1 ratio. I 1.5x my usual recipe and it was 750g flour, 562 g water, 150g starter, 15g salt. I always use bread flour for everything btw. I only do one stretch and fold after 30 mins, let it counter proof for 4-6 hours, and then shaping and place it in the fridge overnight. But I totally forgot to shape and put it in the fridge and the next morning I was freaking out bc by that point it had proofed for abt 12 hrs. I asked ChatGPT what I should do and it told me to shape and put it in the fridge for at least 4 hours and not to score too deep. So that’s what I did. Taking it out of the bowl it was definitely sticky and superrrr bubbly I was weary of flattening it too much during shaping so I think that’s why I didn’t get a good score along with a shallow score..(I’m an amateur so idk) and I baked it at 500F 20 min lid on 425F 15 min lid off using the oblong baker from Breadtopia (https://breadtopia.com/store/breadtopia-cloche-bread-baker-oblong/
It came out surprisingly good and it had the best crumb out of say 15 breads I’ve ever made. The flavor was also much better compared to other breads, despite my starter being young it had developed that sour taste I’ve been looking for. I’m just a bit confused on how it didn’t come out overproofed after such a long counter ferment.
by iamcatrina
3 Comments
It looks like it may be technically overproofed — your alveoli are collapsing, *but* over is almost always better than under… and strong, hi protein flours can often handle some overproofing.
if you fermented for fully double the time you usually do, and this is the result, it is extremely likely that you are habitually underproofing. depending on your temperature, 4 to 6 hours is not very ling, especially with a young starter… which also sort of points to potentially underproofing in general. Now you know your dough can handle this (at the extreme) so it may be worth purposely pushing your normal fermentation longer.
Looks great! How do you like the oblong baker?
She cute! Well done! Consider feeding starter at a 1:10:10 or 1:2.5:20. The 1:1:1 can kill it