Hello,
My name is Kostas and I'm from Greece. I study electrologist engineer at the university in Patras. My grandma used to make sourdough bread and from an early age I loved that bread more than anything. I now make mine every second day, and everyday I experiment with sourdough.
I love the idea that people with knowledge that love sourdough bread are here to share their knowledge.
I've been having some problems with wet doughs. Not with baker's yeast, just with wet sourdoughs. I think it has something to do with the protein of the flour, and maybe lactobacilli eat or deconstruct it somehow(or something else...). I hope with reading the posts will learn more.
The classic dough I make with baker's yeast, for bread and pizza, is
1kg strong flour
700gr water
20-30gr salt
~10gr yeast + optional cultivated yeast in flour and water and left overnight.
I use a cheap, troublesome handheld mixer(the good ones cost lots lots of money) for 10-15 min in low speed and then in the fridge overnight or left to rise for 2 hours, shape and rise for another two.
I bake at 250C for 15 min, then lower at 220 and bake total 30-45min in a big closed pot(so there is steam...etc).
It gives me quite light breads which I love and which are more difficult to make. Amazing for pizza dough too. Can't do the same with sourdough though. The gluten in the dough after fermenting is like it's deconstructed or something. Sometimes when the fridge is good I have good results, but generally I can't have a good result if I use a wet dough.
I have a crappy student oven, I try to get the best flour in the best price(I buy 25Kg to get about 1 euro/kg) and I try to get my culture as healthy as possible.
After reading a few guides I think you have an amazing forum here, and I'm glad I joined. Hope to learn more about this amazing "art"!
Kostas
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Replies
Hello Soizos,
I'm not really sure what you are describing with your wet dough problems.
Can you say what percentage starter culture you use in the converted dough mix, whether the fermenting dough seems to have a peak of activity before collapsing and when, and what the baked bread looks like?
I wonder if the timing is so different for sourdough fermentation compared with the yeast-risen dough that it is under or over fermented/proofed?
Well maybe we can sort this out, have fun browsing through.
I didn't mean to describe my problem, rather than just to meantion it. I have learned quite some things, the little time I'm in this forum.
Let me describe it better.
I have a sourdough that I usually feed every night before going to be, at about 50-50 water to flour ratio. So it is a 100% starter if I say it correctly.
For the dough I usually have a 60-70% water and I used to knead it by a small electric mixer for 10-15 min. Then I usued to ferment bulk overnight and the other day, shape-prove for 1-2 hours and bake.
From what I have learned for now on:
I will autolyse for 10-20 min while doing the knead every 10 min. method which works amazing. Kneading by hand for 60% dough and by the mixer for 70% or more.
After the 30 minutes I bulk ferment for as long as it takes for nice bubbles to appear in the dough. Max 3-4 hours and folding every 45 min(which works amazing for baker's yeast doughs)
Then I will refrigarate overnight(or miss the step for faster bread) then shape nicely, so a good smooth surface appears. Prof for 1-3 hours and bake.
As for the acidity, I will use a starter with 60% or less for greater acidity and temperatures close to 30C for the lactobacilli to work better.
I would love to know the science behind kneading and why this 10 min rest works so nice though...
The problem with my sourdoughs was that I didn't make the gluten(by nice kneading and folding)
strong or elastic enough and while proofing, my dough fell apart. I though it was the bacteria that consumed the protein but now I think it was my problem.
I accidentally killed my bacteria when my girl threw some baker's yeast dough into my sourdough and had to de-freeze and older sourdough. Thank god I had some in the freezer. That is the reason why I didn't test and evaluate the things I learned so far. I tried with some baker's yeast and the dough when handling was even better! Tomorrow will be making my first sourdough with the new technique and will post pictures.
Your "from now on" method looks good to me, but I personally would shape the loaves after the bulk ferment immediately BEFORE you put them (as sep shaped loaves) in the fridge. They will rise a little in the fridge, then do a little bit more when warmed up out of the fridge. If you bulk ferment, then fridge, THEN shape after the fridge step, you will degass the dough with there being little rising capacity left in the dough, I reckon.
Suspect that your "no-gluten" bread was way overproved, or bulk fermented/proved too warm. I get this if my dough goes much above 24/25 degree Celcius. If it is say 30 degrees cel in my house, I cycle the big bowl of dough in and out of the fridge during the bulk ferment...
After posting yesterday, I was in the folding trough "mode" and the dough started having little holes as I streched and folded, something that never happened with baker's yeast my 3-4 former tests...
The problem with the over-fermentation happens because of the expansion of the dough with air, and the gluten strains braking, or something else?
Let's come to the present, the dough from bulk fridge fermenting(which should be shaped) feels like it's ready to collapse, I will try to shape one big round bread, but I'm quite sure I will fail.
Should I try to "catch" other bacteria? Could these eat my protein-gluten? It smells amazing though.
I forgot to mention that when folding I use a bit of oil, if that's ok...
Great work, Kostas! Your last method works well, and when you want to, you can try retarding in the fridge again, probably as Davo says, as shaped loaves.
I use the coolroom for a long bulk ferment over night when the starter is so active that when fermented at room temp (in warm weather) all the sugars are consumed in the dough by morning and my resulting loaves are too pale. The cooler temp results in a more golden crust.
Retarding loaves overnight in the coolroom is proving to be tricky for me, like you found, as the loaves collapse, become sticky and shapeless. I'm trying reduced starter%, different temperatures, different lengths of time, tighter shaping. All to get another hour or two of sleep!! Shorter bulk ferment, longer proof time..can it be done?
It'd be good to see a crumb shot..?
Lily, I tried to retard overnight with the same results, but it might be the fridge, because mine is at around 10C, maybe at 5 or less I could do it...but again it might be the starter, because with baker's yeast you are ok...d@mn, too many variables!!
I have to ask a question about baking. I bake with non-stick paper, because I used to have cr@ppy gluten and I couldn't shape at all with sourdough. It helps a lot though, because it's non stick properties have saved me some times.
I have a question about how non healthy it can be. I eat everyday bread that I bake and I used non stick paper at baking, where above 210C it becames brownish and I'm afraid it might "pollute" the bread with any kind of chemicals. Is there a chance that could be true? Have any of you tried it?