I was having success with my initial attempts to bake sourdough bread. The recipe that was my “go to” is the Almost No-Knead Sourdough Bread (which is from splendidtable.org) and it used to make a beautiful golden brown, crispy crust, delicious bread. However, now the bread turns out with a pale, almost white, crust and it doesn’t have many holes in it. It has also lost its’ great taste.
Is it my starter? I activated my Breadtopia starter late September. I bake about 2x week and keep it in the refrigerator. I refresh it by adding a cup of bread flour & 2/3 cup of water about once a week, maybe less. Yesterday it made a beautiful dough, rose nicely and had my hopes up. But it wasn’t up to snuff. Should I get a new starter? What am I doing wrong?
I checked my oven temperature and it is fine so it’s not my oven. I use King Arthur’s bread flour or All Purpose if the recipe calls for it.
I’m just befuddled. Can anyone help? I would so appreciate it!
Venturing a guess here. Difficult to diagnose without a recipe nor photo however a dense crumb and the lack of caramelization can point to over fermented. A browning crust is the sugars being caramelised. If over fermented there will be less available sugar. That will also be a cause of less air pockets.
Hi, I didn’t know how to attach a photo but I just dragged it in here. By over fermenting, you mean I left it out too long? The recipe called for 12 - 18 hours on a kitchen counter. I went with 12 hours and the dough was nicely doubled. [IMG_1557|375x500] (upload://sGA0J10AkL6S3kqsfJSnhD6ZiLb.jpeg) Not sure if you’ll be able to open this pic. But I can try to ferrment it for less time. Thank you.
I’m wondering if when you were having the browned crusty breads, you were transitioning the dough from one step to the next at basically the same degree of dough expansion as you have now with the super pale bread? It does sound like you were paying attention to the dough.
So then maybe the same question for your starter: Do you mix it into the dough when it has expanded in the jar by about the same amount as always? e.g. doubled since the last feeding?
But if your starter is a little anemic with a low population of microbes for whatever reason (overfeeding, underfeeding), and you’re using a fair amount of it (3 ounces/85g according to the recipe) maybe it is really lowering the pH on your dough by a lot…also meaning limited caramelization.
Maybe before your next bake, discard down to 40g, feed 40g flour and 40g water. Let it double and use 80g of it. Feed that remaining 40g again 40 and 40, and after an hour or two refrigerate it.
Just found the recipe and not sure if I like it. It’s asking for 16.3% starter and 12 hours bulk ferment. That in my book is over fermented. In that time frame I’m thinking 4% starter is more sound.
I think you can do the bulk ferment at 4-6 hours for that amount of starter. I’m in favour of finding a better recipe.
It’s not your fault nor the starter but a questionable recipe.
Sorry to everyone who’s sick of my posting this, but:
Although they tend to be written as though they are, sourdough bread recipes are not like other recipes where you follow an exact procedure using exact measurements with exact temperatures and exact timings. You can treat them like that (and most people do), but if you do, you will not get consistently good results. Sometimes your bread will come out great and other times it will come out not so great. Sometimes a nice rise and “oven spring”, sometimes a dense flat brick or “frisbee”. And if you are conceiving of a ‘recipe’ as a fixed procedure you can use to get a specific result, when things go wrong you will be mystified .