Hi bakers! I started baking sourdough a couple months ago and although I am relatively pleased with my current results, I'm having a lot of trouble shaping my dough because it is too sticky or slack. My starter is happy and healthy, the air temperature doesn't go above 72, and is typically a bit cooler (my bulk fermentation usually lasts between 8-12 hours at around 60-65 degrees), I'm using the Tartine sourdough recipe (weighing my ingredients and checking water temps) and my dough consistently rises nicely. The bread is also coming out nicely with lots of holes, a light crumb, nice crust, and mild sour flavor. But when I go to shape the loaves, it's a total failure. I've tried adding a bit of flour or oil, but neither has worked. When I finally manage to get my blob into the Dutch oven it just falls flat. Scoring is practically useless because the dough just collapses into itself. So I must be doing something wrong, I just don't know what! Please help!
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i would suggest that you come back on the hydration level so that you are comfortable handling the dough , higher hydration doughs can be very challenging cut back as much as 5% see how you find that and then increase it gradually each successive bake. This works well if you are doing the same dough over and over again when the only thing you are changing is the water amount.you should be able to see what difference it makes both to the handling and the finished loaf. regards Derek