I just baked my 1st 2 loaves of basic sourdough bread, and the taste is good. I just would like it to be less dense next time. Not sure if that is related to amount of time baked or something in the pre-baking that I didn’t do correct. I am using sourdough starter and white bread flour. I baked it exactly 17 minutes covered at 500 degrees and 17 minutes uncovered at 500 degrees. Basically, how do you get it to be more ‘airy’ and less dense?
The denseness is likely not to do with bake time and temp but with how the dough was handled in the rise (bulk fermentation), shaping and after shaping rise.
Demystifying sourdough bread baking as well as maybe starting with this site’s no knead sourdough recipe … watch the video, go for look and described feel of the dough vs a set time.
But, short answer guess, without knowing what you did, is that there was not enough OR too much rise time. Not enough = under developed. Too much = not enough “gas” left in the dough to allow oven rise.
Thank you. I read the Demystifying article so I am going to try and “listen to my bread” more this time. Happy Easter and Passover!!
Another possibility is that during the kneading process you added too much flour. Dry dough tends to be more dense and less “airy.”
I know you probably added exactly what it said to as you made the dough. But, all the flour on the counter, sprinkled on the top while kneading is added to that. I reserve some of the flour the directions call for when assembling the dough to be used in the kneading process.
Watch the dough, you can tell as it goes from sticky, to moist to dry. Different breads want different levels of moisture. Different flours too. Even different batches of the same flour.
I’ve just started baking sourdough bread and so far have been more than happy with the results (except for one time when I over proofed and the bread was dense and flat).
My question relates to the crust.
My husband has rheumatoid arthritis and so has trouble with cutting through the crust (wrist pain), as well as chewing it. The bread tastes great, is chewy and light inside, but he can’t really handle the crust. I know he’d prefer a thinner more tender crust. Should I just bake a different bread recipe? I’ve been using the basic sourdough recipe with white bread flour from King Arthur and Breadtopia. Are there any techniques that could produce the moist chewy bread without the chewy crust?
You can definitely do any of the enriched pan loaves on this site and end up with a soft crust, but if you want to stick with the free-standing lean sourdough in an enclosed vessel, try dropping the oven temp earlier, keeping the lid on until the last five minutes, and bake longer to compensate for the lower temp.
You can also simply take a lean dough (flour, water, salt) and shape it for a pan loaf and bake it like you would a pan loaf.
Thanks for your very helpful reply, Melissa. I’ll try your suggestion about dropping the temp earlier and leaving the lid on until the last 5 minutes.