Sourdough fermentation problems

[drfugawe]

I am a fairly frequent baker (avg 2x a week - one can only eat so much bread!), and I'd love to be able to do a decent 100% sourdough loaf, but it's elusive - I currently have two sd cultures going, which I'll begin feeding twice daily a few days before using them, to increase their viability - so by baking day, they are quite active.

I maintain my cultures at 100% hydration, and always double the volume at each feeding - recently, I have attempted to build my sd loaves by using that same procedure, ie, doubling the total volume every 8 hours, until I finally add enough flour to bring the dough to a aprox 60% hydration, add salt, and allow it to sit for about 6-8 hours at room temp. Then I give it an overnight in the fridge.

My plan is then to bring the dough to room temp, form my loaves, and give it a final rise before baking. But twice now, over the past month, I've lost a dough batch because upon taking it out of the fridge in the morning, the dough was completely slack and had taken on a strong alcohol smell - I pitched them both.

Where am I going wrong? Is my sd culture not as strong as I think? Am I leaving the dough too long at room temp? Or is this process simply not a way to build a loaf?

Thanks for any insight.
john

[bethesdabakers]

Hi John

You say you "always double the volume at each feeding"

Could you explain exactly how you refresh your starter, i.e. if you have 100g starter what weights of flour and water would you add to it.

Mick

[drfugawe]

Hey Mick,
Thanks for responding - If I have 100 grams of starter, I'll add 100 grms of flour and 100 grms of water.
john

[bethesdabakers]

I once baked my starter in the interests of science when I was pondering the difference between a dough and a starter. It will make bread of course but it's very acid.

That's essentially what you are doing.

It's probably better to think of a starter as being a concentrate that you add to the final dough. It has a lot of fermented flour in it so it contains flavour and it makes the final dough rise.

At room temperature your final dough probably needs at most four hours fermentation and four hours prove. So if you've been giving it eight hours before it goes in the fridge it's not surprising that it's very acid and runny next morning.

If you keep your starter in the fridge you should only need to refresh it twice the day before you bake. If you keep it at room temperature I would only refresh it once a day.

Mick

[Ben]

I think you need to incorporate a smaller percentage of starter in the final sourdough/levain build. I don't think the amount of starter is that critical as long as it's much less than the amount of flour being added to. I go for an amount of starter which is 20% of the final flour weight being used in the sourdough/levain so if you are using 100g flour and 100g water you only need about 20g starter. This should stop the bread from being too acidic and possibly not rising.
Ben

[drfugawe]

Much thanks for your insight and suggestions - I won't go that route anymore. Currently, I'm trying one of Dan's formulas from the Guardian - we'll see how that goes. It's been out of its overnight fridge fermentation for about 2 hours now, and I'm a little concerned because it's not showing much activity yet - but I'll be patient with it.

I'll report back on how it went.
john

[drfugawe]

Greetings all,
Thought I'd share a few pics of my latest baking - this one using one of Dan's formulas from The Guardian:



It actually had a longer fridge fermentation than called for (about 18 hours), and when it came out, it wasn't showing any rising activity. I let it come to room temp for 2 hours, then gave it a short kneading session, while working in a little more flour into this wet dough - then more proofing (1 hour) - I tried testing to see if I could see internal bubbles forming, but the dough was so wet that all attempts to cut into the dough simply pulled the dough over the cut immediately - it was rising, but very slowly.

I formed it into loaves and put them into baskets to finish their proof - I let them rise for the better part of three hours, during which they rose minimally (certainly not double) - I baked at 450 in covered dutch ovens (I like the crust I get this way) because I thought it would provide a max oven spring, which it did!

[img][img]http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f229/drfugawe/IMG_1861ok.jpg[/img][/img]

These loaves came out very heavy and somewhat wet, although I let them go to 205 F internal temp before pulling - as you can see, there's one large whole in this loaf, and a few long "channels that opened up - strange! - still, considering how little they had risen prior to baking, it was an OK result - taste was very nice - good level of sour, and they were less wet on day two after baking.

These were certainly among my best 100% sourdough efforts, although I know enough to know they are still poor sd representations - I think my sd cultures are simply not active enough, and I'll have to work on getting them stronger.

Thanks much for your assistance to this point.