Yesterday my sourdough bread turned out too acidic.
I had let it prove the first rise for about 5 hours. Is this too long?
I have recently completed building a wonderful wood-fired oven and am in the very early days of learning to bake bread.
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Replies
There are many causes of an acidic dough..
The nature of the culture and the type of critters that inhabit it.
If your microbes has lots of organism that produces more acetic to lactic acid ; acetic acid ratio is more distinct with regards to acidity than lactic acid.
Too much aeration of the starter during refreshment also promotes increase acidity in the starter..
The fermentation conditions, temperature and time
The ratio of the starter to the dough flour, more starter more acidic, stronger flavor..less starter to dough ratio less acidic and milder flavor is obtained.
The consistency of the starter/ culture; how thin or how thick? fluid starter promotes acidic doughs..thick starter less acid doughs although this can be also influence by the nature of the culture you are using.
The kind of flour being used, if the flour is low in ash it does not have enough minerals to buffer the fermentative activity resulting in decreased pH?. A straight run white flour or even a patent flour can result into an acidic dough than a clear of mixed grist flour.
Too long refreshment time between fermentation of the starter, too long proofing time and higher proofing temperature , even prolonged fermentation before the dough was knocked down, divided,
Therefore you have to check it yourself and find out how it happened based on the aforementioned causes?.