Just to clarify: I use a sourdough starter, not yeast. And, yes, that’s bulk fermentation. As I said, I used the wrong term. The British baker has written a couple of books on sourdough and that’s her method. Way longer than anything I’ve ever seen or done until I came across her info in a Facebook group. Could be that where she is in England is way colder than anything like my climate, so it can take a long time.
I’m been trying lots of methods to find one that works well consistently. I’m a bit OC so the varying results are a little frustrating. From what I can tell, though, consistency takes a while in sourdough baking.
I don’t do a ton of bread baking, but I’ve given up on finding one that works consistently when using starter. I’m trying to find the one that works the least inconsistently.
I think there are some recipes that use both starter and active-dry yeast (the latter for a bit more consistency).
As mentioned by other posters above, finding the area in your home/kitchen w/ the most consistent temp will probably help a lot.
Thanks. I agree 100%. I’m switching to one of our ovens next time. For something that seems so simple on the surface, sourdough is dependent on things that are difficult to get right and control. Luckily all my results have tasted fine and been good toasted if not perfect.
Sorry I haven’t responded yet. Busy weekend. I will read through the thread and see if I have anything to contribute. I don’t know much about sourdough, although I love it, as my wife doesn’t like it. One of the costs of 33 years of marriage is avoiding your spouse’s dislikes when you have an opposite opinion.
Our Samsung has a proof button but it takes it all the way to 100. Too much. I settled on a seedling mat in a cooler today :).
I really enjoyed this mixing day because of the consistent 80 degrees in the cooler. Dough is beautiful and we shall see the crumb tomorrow
Reducing D Malt now. Might help make crust lighter and crispier. Skipped grains this time. Should probably share a Boule with sweet neighbors who baked for us yesterday for Halloween
Edit: Post bake: Well that’s it. I did it. Finally got that elusive ear and nice oven spring. Temp controlled starter refreshment and the bulk fermentation is the whole ballgame
Pizza dough 4 day test was a failure. Too much starter, got so acidic it tore through the gluten and stretching it was a disaster. Reduced the starter and going back to 3 days for Saturday. Pray to the gluten gods with me
Started finally rolling my boules in whatever I have around and I have to say Zahtar is my favorite for now. Going to increase it and might even laminate next time
So I need to stop stretching mine too large. I’ve been going for over 14 inches because of number of people waiting and put a hole in the first one again. But once I stopped doing that the pizzas turned out well. Used the koda to make some Spanish shrimp and garlic in terracotta and a lot of broiled veg
i’m doing this right now actually… matt, then a box for insulation, then dough in container. it’s so much colder in here today that’ it doesn’t appear to be warming up as much as usual.
So buckwheat was an interesting try… we soviets love and eat a lot of buckwheat but never use the flour…. Have a nice organic flour from Central… It made the dough and bread gray even though it was only like 5 % of dough weight… flavour wasn’t great either. Not for me . But was worth a try
I think the traditional use of a small amount of buckwheat in sourdough starter is for the natural yeasts it contains, though the toasted stuff might not.
Just following up to my own post: My latest bulk ferment was in the oven with the light on, and followed a method I started with a year ago. My infrared reader shows 100°F in the oven, which is higher than anything I’ve read for this part of the process, but I left the dough in over night and it rose to more than double the volume.
Multiple folds over the next hour then shaped and rested another hour. No extended proofing compared with other methods.
For whatever reason (now used to the inconsistency) this bake resulted in a much darker loaf than I like, but the taste was great. Initial bake was 30 minutes in a closed dutch oven at 475°F (I’ve done that dozens of times now), then uncovered. At 7 minutes uncovered the internal probe temp was 205°F and some dough adhered to the probe. That was unusual so I left it in another 1.5 minutes til 208°F.
In retrospect, a lot of this journey was made more challenging by the fact that our oven is electric, rather small, and probably 45 years old. It’s taken a while to work out a reliable process but I really think the oven isn’t as consistent as it would be if it were newer.
My impression (and I have no idea of it’s correct) is that an underproofed/-proved loaf will not darken as much. So, given that your informal proofing setting was perhaps a bit on the higher side for a long proof, perhaps it was slightly overproofed (and thus darkened more)?
I think slightly overproofed ALWAYS tastes better than slightly underproofed.
I’m trying to find the one that works the least inconsistently.
