Semi-recipe-like bla bla from my instagram:
Hi there~
I live in a temperate climate with house temp in the 80’s. Will this cause a problem with getting a starter started and if so what can I do to get a starter going?
This article is excellent!
It makes so much sense to consider sourdough, both the starter and the pre-baked loaf, as an independent living entity that needs its own specific care and attention in order to get the best from it. Changing to this mindset and getting to know your own particular sourdough’s character and traits just feels right!
Warm temperature won’t cause a problem. Everything will just happen faster. So if you are following some procedure and it gives you a timeframe, expect whatever that step is to happen sooner / faster.
I’m 4 loaves down and with each loaf an issue is solved, but after reading this I have a good feeling that my next loaf will be a winner. Thanks!
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I’m 5 loaves down and I still am not getting a good crust or rise, for that matter. The crust is too hard and thick and the inside too soft. I’ve been using a 450 oven and I wonder if I jump to 500 I might get a better result. I’m always afraid of the high temps since having to replace electronics in 2 ovens after using the “cleaning” function.
In my experience, going higher on the temperatures is likely to make both those issues worse, not better. For starters, try going down to 400 and baking longer and see what happens.
8/10 times when new-ish bakers aren’t getting a good rise it means they are over-proofing.
Also, can you give more description of what “too soft” means when characterizing the crumb? Maybe post a picture too.
I agree with all @homebreadbaker wrote. I’m on old-ish baker and until very recently, think I was over-proofing often and have seen results improve by paying more attention.
You did not mention convection, but if you are using convection settings, consider not using convection. Convection seems to over bake the crust and under bake the interior. Also, a baking stone or even a cookie sheet on the oven rack below your bread baking rack can help, particularly with a too brown bottom crust.
All of the above said, it is usually good to change 1 thing at a time when troubleshooting.
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Thank you for your response. I don’t have a picture but my bread knife gets quite gooey.
Thank you for the reply. I do have a stone in my oven and I’m not using the convection setting.
gooey knife is usually one of two things:
- not baking long enough
- not letting the loaf cool long enough before cutting - absolute minimum of an hour. 2-3 hours even better.
Thanks
I really appreciate this article - it comes at a good time for me and will hopefully improve the consistency of my sourdough baking. Two things I’d like to mention: I too have had a devil of a time with the dough sticking to the proofing basket. So much so that I finally just threw out the basket because so much dried dough had accumulated on it. (Based on one of the comments, I plan to order a cloth liner and an oblong proofing basket for my new cloche and I will make another attempt to dust with rice flour as suggested. Maybe the cloth liner makes all the difference?) I understand why you might need a proofing basket to shape the dough for a cloche, but what about when you’re just making a boule - is there a reason why a proofing basket is better than the bowl that you mixed and raised the dough in? Does the coir proofing basket allow more air flow or something? Another question: I have occasionally used packaged yeast to jumpstart a new sourdough starter. A professional baker that I spoke to said that that was cheating and that I wasn’t using ‘real’ starter. Why would that be? As you say in your article the starter is constantly renewing and by the time I’ve fed it with flour a few times there is nothing left of the packaged yeast, right?
I always use a cloth liner in my proofing baskets. I rarely have any dough sticking to them and I rarely take them out and clean them. But when it is time to clean them, it’s pretty easy.
I think there are probably some air-flow things going on and it’s also a lot easier to turn out the dough from the right size proofing basket (where a mixing bowl might be a bit bigger and more unwieldy). That said, you can definitely use a round mixing bowl for proofing boules. For it to work well, it should be a steep-sided bowl, and I’d put a floured kitchen or tea towel in it before the dough.
I have never used any packaged commercial yeast in any of my own baking so I really have no personal experience to draw on. I’d speculate that it’s possible that yeast from the commercial yeast, if it got established in your starter, might out-compete the wild yeast that most people are looking to foster in a sourdough starter, but that really is a total speculation.
Thanks so much! V. helpful.
Commercial yeast is a different strain of yeast than what is found in the wild. It has been commercially developed to metabolize quickly and rise dough very, very fast. Whether it would, over the long term, out compete the wild yeast in your starter is an interesting question. Initially, it certainly would. But wild yeast is more acid tolerant than commercial yeasts. It is possible that over the long term, as with any starter, the desirable wild yeast would prevail once lactic acid bacteria make the starter sufficiently acidic. I don’t know what biological advantage, faster metabolism or higher acid tolerance, would prevail.
Renewing or replicating?
Verrry interesting! I’d thought renewing was the right word because we’re discarding the spent stuff and adding new food each time but that’s wrong I guess - the same strain of yeast that you use originally is just replicating.
Well you are adding new food for the yeasts and bacteria to eat and replicate! How would a dough become aerated when only adding a relatively small amount of starter or yeast?
I am very new to sour dough baking, in fact any baking. I am in the middle of making my 4th sour dough loaf. I have been very happy with the taste. This time, same recipe but I follow Eric’s normal cup method. My dough is extremely wet & I believe more flour should be or have been added. The dough was left out overnight & I could not do the fold prior to shaping. As it is in the final proofing & VERY WET I am trying to decide if I CAN/OR SHOULD ADD MORE FLOUR AT THIS LATE STAGE??? As it will be a messy process to remove from the parchment paper & am going to go ahead & bake. I am interested to know how others would resolve this?