Starters gone wrong. Or something.

Hi davo,

[quote=davo]Just having a guess here, but your recipe as described uses about 50 g starter in about 500 g bread dough, in a one-stage dough. That's about 10%, which I would have thought was low. By comparison, when I expand a starter volume into a levain, and then a levain into a bread dough, each time I am using active femented stuff at about 25-30% of the "dough" weight. Then the other thing is you have given it one hour only before fridging - I would notmally "bulk ferment" for say 2 or so hours THEN shape loaves, and  THEN pout them in the fridge. Also once out of the fridge, I would leave them for say 1 hour or so to come back close to room temp before baking. The way your recipe/method reads, I think:

There weren't enough active bugs to make your bread dough even with normal ferment/prove times, and then your ferment/prove times before and after the fridge step seemed low. SO it was always going to struggle on two fronts.[/quote]

Good catch here. I have been reading through all the recipes of Ed Wood's book "Classic Sourdoughs" and would confirm what you say: in my two last breads I've probably been using too little culture and letting them proof for too little time. In fact, my first attempt, though bricky, looked much better (though I still don't understand why it didn't work, maybe my flour had too little gluten, as has been said on the thread).

In his recipes, he uses always almost 1/3 of liquid culture, and lets it proof longer times than I did.

[quote=davo]Also, don't go shaping it when it's about to go in the oven![/quote]

I had not really formed the loaf before taking it into the oven, I just took it out of the plastic container I had put it in a wooden peel with great care — I had to stretch just a bit, though — and slashed it.

[quote=davo]Once you are making bread dough either from starter in a one-stage dough, or from levain in a two-stage dough, you mix/autolyse/knead, then "bulk ferment" with folding, then shape the loaf/loaves, then prove. The loaves are already shaped before they are proved, and are not at all shaped after proving - they are simply turned onto an oven stone, or onto baking paper on a tray, or whatever - I basically never touch the dough with my hands once it's bedded down to prove, other than poking  a finger in a tiny bit to see whether it's proved enough.[/quote]

OK, this is more or less what I have been doing.

Hey this thread is getting pretty familiar :D

OK, I've been finally able to test the new flour and the tips on timing that davo gave me.

This new flour is a lot different from the one I was using until now. It absorbs water like crazy,  I need to increase water percentages between a 5% and a 10% to get a similar dough consistency. I also made a starter with this flour, and at 100% hydration it is like a paste (i.e. not liquid), and it stretches like a bubble gum, as if it was kneaded (maybe I'll upload some photos).

This time I followed a recipe for plain bread from the ...Au levain! blog: Recette de base. The output it's been pretty good compared with my previous attempts.

I've encountered two problems:

1. The damn toaster, er, oven: this time I didn't use the stone, I decided to use a baking sheet (it was a home-politics decision :P). I sprayed the crust before putting it into the oven, and then again at 5/10/15 min. After 35 min. the bottom started burning and the top was still pale, so I had to turn on the broiler, this gave the top the correct color, but a sense of wrongness in me.
   
2. Chewiness: the crust is incredibly thin and the crumb is too chewy (I don't know if it is the right word, I mean it is gummy). I don't have any idea why this might be, any clues? The crust is incredibly thin, so I can press the top of the bread and will act like a sponge (I like thin crusts though).
   

Now to the visuals. This time take with a digicam, so they're not that crappy.

Here's the loaf:



Here's the crumb detail:



Apart from the chewiness, I can say that I'm am pretty happy with the result.

[quote=lamp]Well done Oscar, that bread looks pretty good and has quite a nice looking crumb. I think the new flour and Davo's tips have made quite a difference.  :-)[/quote]

Yes, I knew this time it was different because the loaf had risen a lot before taking it into the oven.

[quote=lamp]I'm not sure about the chewy texture but most sourdough has a body and texture to it that soft white bread does not. It may be due to a number of factors though like the recipe you are using, the temperature the bread was baked at, the time in the oven.....maybe your toaster/oven is cooking your crust before the bread is properly cooked. Try your next loaf at a slightly lower temperature for a longer time, but the crust color looks good and the bread looks cooked so I don't really know. [/quote]

Thanks lamp, will try cooking at lower temperature next time.

I know sourdough is different than "straight" bread, but I have bought sourdough organic bread at a bakery and it wasn't this chewy...

[quote=davo]Oscar, that bread looks great to me. I'd do it hot at the start and then turn down and bake longer for a thicker crust. The crumb might seem a little "gummy" when the bread is warm or barely cooled. Try waiting til next day and it will have firmed but not at all gone stale. It's best 1 to 2 days after baking.[/quote]

OK davo, I will do this 2 steps on my next loaf. I think this time I took out the loaf too soon because the bottom was getting too dark (almost black) and cut the first slice right away (hard to wait on your first breads :)), the crumb was still a bit humid.

[quote=davo]I have found you can even the heat  out a little by varying the height of the shelf that you put the bread on, and by inserting an empty baking tray on a shelf below (which can reduce the effect of the bottom cooking too fast...)[/quote]

I don't think I will be able to put the tray higher on the oven because the oven is really small, but I can put a tray below, and hope it helps dampening the temperature of the tray where the bread is sitting.