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/nhuman: sourdough starter smells bad My sourdough starter of 3 months went bad so I had to start a new one.I've had what I think is 3 failed batches of sourdough starters. The temperature in my kitchen is between 27 - 29 °C. The flour I use for my starter is Bob's red mill whole wheat flour.I followed two different starter recipes.The first one was based on Ken Forkish's recipe - 150-gram whole wheat flour and 150 gram of water (32 °C), throw three-quarters of the initial mix on day 2 and feed 150 grams of whole wheat and 150 grams of water. The first batch had a pale-colored layer at the top and smelled foul on day 3 so I threw it out and made a new batch. The 2nd batch had orange patches on the top and smelled off on day 2.For my 3rd batch, I tried a different recipe, I used 50 grams of whole wheat flour and 62.5 grams of water. When I checked on the starter the next day, there was fermentation activity and it expanded but there was a layer of liquid at the bottom of the jar and there was a funky smell.I've not experienced all these bad smells from my previous starter. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Should I feed my starter more often? or is the temperature in my kitchen too warm? /nai: I would increase the number I would increase the number of feedings, the ratio of flour and water to starter, or both.

/nhuman: Mould Spores on the glass container? How to remove? Hi all!I neglected my sourdough starter severely last year and by the end it was moulding in the fridge. I tried to resurrect a frozen starter, but that one caught mould really quickly as well, as I used the same glass container, that I only cleaned with dish washing liquid and a sponge. How do I make sure I clean the glass container of all mould spores? Meanwhile I started a new starter in a new container, but I would like to use my Weck jars again, so please if you have some advice how to make sure all mould spores are gone, please share them! /nai: Use bleach or boil, I think Use bleach or boil, I think that's the best options for sterilization available at home...

/nhuman: White mould growing on sourdough bread A few times during this winter in Australia I've had white mould growing on my sourdough bread (which is usually around150g wholemeal, 100-150g khorasan, 250g bakers flour with 470-515g water). The mould is usually on the cut edge and sometimes the surface but starts to penetrate the whole loaf.I have a dry bag (photo below) that the bread is stored in after a day or so once it's cooled. This usually stays out on the bench for a few days before going into the fridge. The mould has grown both in the bag on the bench, possibly due to high hydration and warm conditions but it's also happened in the fridge after maybe 7 days - perhaps it's just due to the length of time in the fridge. I just had a thought that I could try putting a cloth or something in the dry bag to absorb any excess moisture, so I'll give that a go and see if that helps.Does anyone know what kind of mould this is and how harmful it is? I recently read Maurizo's post about storing bread and I've found that leaving it out on the bench with just a tea towel or face down on a board dries out the bread and that it goes stale faster than if it's stored in the fridge, where it usually stays fresher. Thanks,Bec /nai: Is the bag clean? I'm not an expert at all, but your bread seems to be going moldy a bit faster than I'm used to. Do you wash the bag between loaves? If you don't, the mold spores will stay in it and cause growth on each new loaf.

/nhuman: Making a sourdough starter with minimal discard Hey bakers!Last week I made a sourdough starter from rye flour. This is the fourth time I have done this, and this time I wanted to try to make a successful culture while minimizing sourdough "discard" (I typically would throw away about half of the starter at each feed). The starter was a success after six days (summer weather) and I'm recording my daily feedings below.Has anyone ever made a starter from scratch without discarding anything at all? I know there are a lot of great recipes which utilize discard, but I love the idea of avoiding waste in the sourdough process. Day 1 PM: 10g water, 10g rye flourDay 2 PM: 10g water, 10g rye flourDay 3 PM: 20g water, 20g rye flourDay 4 PM: 40g water, 40g rye flourDay 5 AM: Discard all but 50g of starter, feed 50g water, 50g rye flourDay 5 PM: Repeat morning discard and feedDay 6 AM: Discard half of existing starter, feed 50g water, 50g rye flourDay 6 PM: Repeat morning discard and feed Kitchen temperature: 70dF (estimate)Water temperature: ambient temperatureFlour: Bob's Red Mill Organic Whole Grain Dark Rye Flour /nai: You could, but I'm not sure you'd want to in the early stages To maintain a healthy sourdough, the ratio of starter:new flour needs to be fairly constant (water, too, but you have some leeway in terms of the consistency of your starter). So, a nice ratio is 10 g starter:10 grams flour: 10 grams water. If you don't discard or use any, the second day you have 30 g starter:30 g flour:30 g water. The third day, 90 g starter; 90 g flour:90 g water. By the end of the week, you're feeding over a kilo of flour every day. Which is absurd. And by the end of the next week, you will be keeping your starter in a garbage can.Now, there are two ways to dramatically reduce the amount of discard.#1: Reduce the size of your starter to 10 grams (or less). Remove 10 grams of mature starter, and feed it with 10 grams of flour and 10 grams of water. Add a little milk and an egg to the rest and make yourself a couple pancakes. Then, once or twice a day, feed 10 grams of starter with 10 grams of flour and 10 grams of water. You can accumulate the rest in a jar in the fridge to have pancakes later, if you like. You can also reduce to only 5 grams if your scale is sensitive enough.#2: Make pancakes or waffles out of the discard every day. The viability of this option depends on how much you like pancakes.After about a month, you can start storing it in the refrigerator and feeding it up only when you want to bake (at least once every 2 weeks). At that point, you can easily run a no-discard operation.

/nhuman: standard proofing temperatures Hello, does anybody know if there is a standard proofing temp. and humidity that recipes assume when they give you proofing times? I am able to control temp./hum. with some precision, and wondering what they should be when recipes just say "bulk proof for x hrs."  Thanks in advance! /nai: I don’t think so. Often the say something like room temperature wich is not very exact. Best is to choose your own temp and watch the dough and not the clock. I al ways ferment on the 30° C. For two reasons one is the flavor and the other it does not get higher then in my kitchen so I am sure it is 30 al the time. That way the fermentation time time is predictble. Ater that I shape it and put it in the fridge for at least 12 ours.I must add that I don’t follow recepis but think and calculate them myself. When I make a bread type for the first time I search the net for a few recepis to see what the general idear is. Maybe try this it is much more fun ?

/nhuman: Storing SD bread for softness and flavor My usual loaves are 30-50% WW, ~75% HR and I bake them in a Lodge Combo 20m with the lid on, 20m lid off, at 235C.The bread is great, but I haven't found a great way to store them. I don't mind a nice crunchy crust, but if I store them anywhere but in plastic bags, they quickly become very tough to chew and hard. I know plastic bags are frowned upon by many, but unless the loaf will be eaten in the next 12-24 hours, I prefer plastic to the other methods I've tried.I make 3 loaves each time, use one, store one on the counter in plastic and one in plastic in the freezer.I've tried leaving them on the counter, cut side down, in beeswax wraps and paper bags. Of those, beeswax probably worked the best for a bread sitting more than a day or two, but still became tougher than I'd like.Any tips that I haven't tried yet? Could I change the way I make or bake the loaves to achieve what I'm looking for? /nai: I like using a bread box. We I like using a bread box. We have one thats is more then 60 years old and still works great. This is of a good design. https://www.amazon.com/Brabantia-Roll-Top-Bread-Box/dp/B000BPM908

/nhuman: Hydration versus Ratio - a question! Hello - I'm relatively new to sourdough and this forum has been super helpful! A big thank you to everyone here.I've got two starters going for 2 & 4 weeks respectively. The 4 week one (Marvin) started with WW and then has been being fed 50/50 WW/AP.. took a long time to get started, but I think is finally fully functional and mature. The 2 week one (Ella) is a Rye starter that was ready at Day 7. After trying Marvin on a focaccia and a boule around week 2 and failing miserably, I made a great boule with Ella. I'm trying focaccia again with Marvin today, I think it's looking solid.Here's my question!  Now Marvin is pretty active, I've had to feed 1:2:2 and even 1:3:3 to keep him from rising and falling again too quickly. If I'm feeding at 1:2:2 or 1:3:3, are those still considered 100% hydration starters? I think yes, but I'm unsure if the starter counts as 50/50 water/flour or not.TIA!Randi /nai: yes you are correct as long as your 1 is 100% hydration

/nhuman: Any Sourdough bakers from Miami, FL? I tried getting a sourdough starter started with organic whole wheat and it got to smell pretty good but after about nine days it never really produced any bubbles.  You could see bubbles in the jar but very few and it never rose at all.  I had looked into what water to use and heard that if you leave your water out the chlorine would dissipate after a day, so I did that.  Then after my starter never really got going I looked into it and the water in Miami I think has choramine which doesn't dissipate like chlorine.  So I was hoping someone here is from Miami to set me right, maybe the waters fine and I just did something wrong or should have just kept going with the feedings or what? /nai: Bottled _spring_ water. Welcome to TFL!My best results come from bottled _spring_ water (not bottled _purified_ water).I use Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water, purchased at Big Lots in Indiana.Here is the "ultimate" guide to starting a starter: www.thefreshloaf.com/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2scroll down a bit in the page, to skip the technical stuff, and go right to the "how to."(You can also send away for cheap dehydrated starter, $1 plus S.A.S.E. to www.carlsfriends.net )Good luck!

/nhuman: Seeking Advice on Recent Bake: Was This Dough Fully Fermented? Hi Everyone,I was hoping to get some feedback about what may have gone wrong with a recent bake. I have been having good luck with an all-purpose flour starter and 100% white bread flour dough, but have been having some trouble with a whole wheat starter and a primarily white bread flour dough.78% hydration 18% stiff whole wheat starter (@60% hydration)95% white bread flour 5% whole wheat flourProofed for a total of 5 hrs 30 mins @ about 76-78F.Periodic stretch and folds during the first 2 hrs 30 mins.Cold proofed in fridge for 16 hrs.Here is a video of the "poke test" for the dough right before shaping:  And here is a video of the shaping. I'm really curious for any thoughts about how the dough looks at this stage. I feel like it should be much "fluffier" and more stretchable than it is?:And here is a photo of the final product. IMG_2640.jpg IMG_1585.jpg  Thanks a million for any advice!! /nai: hi, its hard to tell but I hi, its hard to tell but I thought the poke test showed the dough being a little over proofed in the first vid. Its difficult to tell if you do a double poke. If it slowly sprung back then its ready, if it left a big indent then its over proofed.The second vid looks like you have preshaped it first as its floured, how long did you leave it to relax before final shaping?

/nhuman: Got my challenger pan today, baked a shoe loaf Got a funny shoe shaped bread from spreading. Definitely a learning curve to not able to rely on the “walls” of the combo oven as the challenger pan has a much wider surface area. Any tips on tighter shaping ? Recipe:  78% hydration with 20% whole wheat.  3hr 40 min bulk at 77 degree, 3 stretch & foldsCold proof for 20 hrsbaked at 470 covered for 20 min and uncovered for 25 min  D3DD1638-1EE3-40AE-9A44-6E8352645502.jpeg /nai: specifically I'd love to get specifically I'd love to get any resources on how to shape tighter and prevent oven spread.  I've been baking for 3 months and are finally starting to get comfortable with fermentation but shaping is a constant hit and miss, most of my loaves seems to suffer from some form of oven spread.  Combo oven has been a life saver but w/ the new challenger bread pan, I'd love for the loaf to maintain its shape instead of spreading all over.

/nhuman: Sourdough Overflow, Starter Still Safe? Hello! I recently tried my hand at making a sourdough starter. I've been at it for about a week now give or take, and last night seemed promising since the starter doubled up nicely! But when I woke up in the morning, it looked like it grew a bit too much.  Did I bung this up somehow? Please advise. /nai: yes. still good That's a strong one! Just give it a stir down. maybe do a bigger ratio on the next feed (and find a bigger jar?) are you doing 1:1:1?  if so then, 1:2:2 will give it a longer time to peak.

/nhuman: Grayish "crust" on top of starter Hey everyone, I'm pretty new to sourdough but have maintained a successful starter for about a month now, and gotten some great breads out of it too. I've been feeding it 2x/day (roughly once every 12 hrs) with the ratio given in the handbook of 1/4 c starter, 1/4 c flour, & 2 Tbs water.I got sick 2 weeks ago and fed it only 1x/day for several days. It still rises and falls normally, but about half of the starter turned a grayish-black. I've been trying to scrape some off and mix in the rest, but it will still separate once it rises.I bumped the feedings back up to 2x/day, and the gray color turned much lighter, but it doesn't show any signs of going away. It's started to smell notably different as well--not bad, but sweeter.Is the gray part alright to use for baking? Is there anything else I can do to get rid of it? /nai: If you keep up with your If you keep up with your feedings, your starter will eventually regulate itself back to normal.  A few quick questions:How long does it take to peak?How much rise are you getting when it peaks?Are you feeding it on a set 12 hour schedule, or are you feeding it once it peaks?Do you have a kitchen scale that can measure in grams?What type of flour(s) do you feed it?

/nhuman: Underproofed or overproofed After 3 years of baking sourdough, it is still an enigma. I basically follow the Tartine method. 80% hydration. 100% KAF BF. Although my loaves are delicious, with a crunchy/crisp exterior and soft crumb, I am not consistently getting the rise I want. I am still concerned about my bulk fermentation and am not good at judging whether a loaf is under- or overproofed, or just right. What do you think about the loaf below?Thanks. 20230102_083916.jpg /nai: In my experience, the symptom In my experience, the symptom of overproofed dough is that it becomes extra-gooey, soupy and almost batter-like. You can't shape it or make a dough ball with it.

/nhuman: How to increase yesat population in sourdough starter Hey everyone! Would you have thoughts on how to increase yeast population in sourdough starters? My starter is active and looks healthy, but takes too long to rise at a very warm temperature (around 30°C). Therefore, my doughs also rise very slowly. That way, because my flour options are all all-purpose flour, the dough starts degrading before it is done fermenting. But... Opposed to that, I have made test with the dough chilled, kept at 26°C the whole process, and tests adding more starter in the recipes–The same happened. I suppose my starter has an unbalanced amout of bacteria over yeast. So, I'd like to hear your opinion on  how to rebalance my levain; on how to increase yeast population and decrease bacteria's to make it rise much faster. /nai: Hi Gabic, we can help you Hi Gabic, we can help you with this.Please reply with your feed ratio and the time it takes for your starter to rise to maximum height and then just begin to recede. If you can post closeup images of your matured starter, that would help.Danny

/nhuman: Another question about Oven rise I"m new to baking sourdough, and have had mixed results with oven rise, and could use some assistance. I have a strong starter that rises and falls regularly. I feed it a few times before baking, then it goes into the fridge, but unless I bake right after the bulk fermentation, I only get about 75% of the rise I'm looking for.  I generally try to limit bulk fermentation to 30%-50% rise before putting in the fridge, for anywhere between 10-12 hours. Loaves baked in a combo dutch oven.The loaves don't seem to be over-proofed going into the oven, but I do see some fall when transferring from the bowl/basket to the dutch over. See the details below.  They taste good, so that's a plus.Tartine Country Walnut Wheat250g (25%) of your new leaven900g (90%) white bread flour100g (10%) whole wheat bread flour20g (2%) salt7650g H2O @ 80ºF 2 cups walnuts8am prep levain2pm autolyse (flour/water/levan)2:30pm (mix salt and last bit of water)3-7pm  Bulk7pm preshape/shape 8:158:15 into fridge7:30am bake Walnut Wheat 02.JPG Walnut Wheat 01.JPG /nai: page 91 and 48? Welcome to TFL.That loaf looks great.  But if you want tips to make it even better, here are my thoughts.Your loaf looks just a tad too wet and just a tad over-fermented.compared to the formula on page  48 of the Tartine book, you have an extra 50 grams of leaven, and 65 (or 50, depending on the typo) extra grams of water.  Going back to page 48, ... 700 g of water, and 200 g of leaven may get you to where you want to be.If the book's leaven and water was too little for your situation, then try splitting the difference.Hope this helps.

/nhuman: Critique on loaf please Hi guys!So I made a 3 day process sourdough loaf around 73% hydration, and wanted your opinions. The thing is is that it really lost its shape when I removed it from the banneton, so I’m guessing it’s overproofed, but the final product has good oven spring, so I’m a bit confused :( . Here are some photos: 54969E88-4533-4AD6-84DD-CF496CDB630B.jpeg 2D5B3753-98E4-493A-87D3-D1810E970FFD.jpeg /nai: It may have been over proofed It may have been over proofed, though you wouldn't know it by the results. A little over never hurt anything, as long as it's just a little. Looking good!

/nhuman: Thanks, and I'd like some opinions Couple of weeks ago, I joined this forum and posted a request for help with my starter, Karina. Three people, Mr Immortal, idaveindy, and phaz jumped on my problem like ducks on junebugs, and they gave me the help I needed. So I just wanted to say thanks for all your help; I'm sending a picture of Karina taken today and...well, I think the picture is self-explanatory.  I wish I had the time to read every post and every reply on this board, because every time I DO spend some time reading a post or two, I tend to say, "Hey! I've done that!" or "Hey! I had that problem!" and change my behavior appropriately. Now, I'd like the opinion of the experts that are hanging around this board. First question--What's the best time to clone Karina to make a Levain? With the choices being, 1) While she's at her peak after being fed today; 2) Some time after feeding but before peak; or 3) Before feeding, when she's likely to jump on all this new food due to hunger? (I think I know the answer to the third--but I might be surprised.Second opinion, I located some bread flour, and I'd like to ask the opinion of the pros about how well they think this would be for my baking needs. Here's the label, and although it's in Spanish, if you hold your tongue just right I think you English-speakers can figger out that proteina is protein, and so forth. So what do you think of this stuff:   BreadFlour-20200711174622136-rsz.jpg /nai: strong! The W number range is high, 350 - 450, which means it can take lots of mixing and long fermentation.  Combined with the 14% protein, it could make rather chewy bread.  So you could probably mix it 50/50 with that 10% protein flour (mix it well while dry) and come out with something real good.The big question is if this is malted or otherwise has added enzymes.  If not, you would need to add some diastatic malt powder or some "bread improver."  If there is no offical ingredients list on the package, call or email them.  (Don't use "bread improver" that has vital wheat gluten, because this is already high protein.)Buena suerte, y buen provecho, amigo.

/nhuman: Newbie problems I need some help in understanding my failures with my sourdough bread.  First I apologize for the rambling way this may seem to be laid out.  My outcomes are a light airy nice open crumb with little oven spring and with a brown crust; additionally I have noted that there have been a few batches where my slashes have healed (gone back together). The taste has been very mild with little sour taste.  My process for the last six weeks or so is as follows:  Remove the starter from the refrigerator (after 5 to 6 days) and feed it a 1 to 1 ratio of white flour to water and let it rest overnight on the counter.  Remove some starter and feed it again with a 1 to 1 ratio of flour to water and wait until it doubles in size (usually 3+ hours.).  I make small batches based on the following using 500 grams of flour:Flour (white 13.5% protein) 100% Water 70% Starter 33% Salt 2%  I start by combining the starter, most of the water and mix until thoroughly combined. Add flour and autolyze 40 minutes.  Add salt and remaining water and thoroughly mix.  Proof (ferment) 3 to 4 hours with a group of four turns each being four folds 30 minutes apart.  Pre shape and rest 30 minutes.  Shape and transfer to banneton.  Proof (1/2 to 1 hr.) until poke test slowly fills hole (this seems to happen quite quickly).  Put in Dutch oven slash and bake.  I’m looking for a more sour taste with more oven spring and ears.  Any help WILL be appreciated.  TNX,Goldie  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} /nai: Hi, Goldie! If you happen to Hi, Goldie! If you happen to have any pictures of one of your loaves (including a shot or two of the crumb structure), that would be super helpful for troubleshooting.  Without pictures, or at least more information, any advice we can offer will be only guesswork. A couple things I see in your post brings up a few points that could use a bit of clarification:When you say that you feed the starter on the second day and wait for it to double, are you letting it double, or are you letting it peak?  Those could be two different things, and may be having some effect on your finished loaf.By adding your starter in with the flour and water during your “autolyse” step, you’re actually jump-starting the bulk fermentation.  Is it possible that you’re not counting that 40 minutes into the bulk ferment, and therefore overproofing?I don’t see anywhere where you mention temperature.  The temperature of your dough, as well as the ambient temperature in your kitchen, play a vital part in the bulk fermentation process, and can affect all of the things you are looking for (oven spring, sour-ness, ears, etc).

/nhuman: sourdough Sandwich loaf Hello friends, I am new to baking sourdough breads. I tried Boule from the recipe here and it came out very well.I am bit scared of trying sandwich loaf , kindly help with the recipe please. Thank You :-) /nai: Nothing to be scared of - Nothing to be scared of - everything is basically the same - except you're using a rectangular pan instead of a banneton to give the shape. To get the crumb (more even hole distribution and size) treat the dough rough when shaping (you'll still shape, but it'll be a log shape to match up with the pan). I'll lightly (very)  oil the log to keep from drying out while proofing/fermenting. Score end to end at 90 degrees and I get a great crust by wetting the top of the dough with water - drench it till water starts to puddle inside the pan. I bake uncovered at @400F and it's ready in about 30 mins. I'm actually in the midst of a loaf right now - mixed last night, just shaped and tossed in the pan, in the fridge while I hit golf balls till dark, warm it up a little and bake - mmmmmmm good - Enjoy!

/nhuman: Weird behavior with White Flour Hello,I'm three months in my sourdough journey and this forum helped me a lot. Today I decided to join in and see if anyone can shed some light on a trouble that is keeping me from moving forward. I don’t know what to do anymore.The Problem:Long story short, my starters don't seem to accept white flour.I do a lot of experimenting with offshoots, maintaining tests for weeks, and they all follow the same dreadful path: the whiter they get, the less active they become. They get sluggish (24h to peak) and never raise any more than 30% (normally about 10%). They end up with very tiny bubbles and are a bit liquidy on the top, even with drier feedings (50% hydration). This is the best raise I could get from a white starter. 1:2 / 60% hydration / 22h peak at 26°C/78°F : With whole wheat, things are very different. I get them to peak within 9h and they usually raise to about double the volume (never more). But when they go into dough with some portion of white flour, they are not reliable.These are two different samples made with my healthiest starter, 12h after inoculation. Left is 3 parts AP to 1 part WW at 60% hydration, Right is 3 parts WW to 1 part AP at 68% hydration. Texture at the start was like mashed potatoes on both. At the end, the left one was runny:  My Starters:Right now I have two cultures going: A 3 months old “Whole” starter that I keep healthy, always fed with good doses of whole wheat (75% WW / 25% AP)A 1 month old “White” starter that I made with pineapple juice + organic WW and gradually shifted to 100% white flour within the first week of yeast activity.The starters currently live in my kitchen, inside a cabinet heated by a lamp. The temperature is somewhat consistent throughout the day at 26°C/78°F. I feed “Whole” 1:4 with 75% hydration (5g starter + 15g WW + 5g AP + 15g water) twice a day and it takes about 10h to peak.I feed “White” 1:2 with 60% hydration (10g starter + 20g White flour + 12g water) once a day and it takes 22h to peak. Things I have already tried:Changing FlourI’ve already experimented with 7 different brands of white flour. In Brazil almost everything is 10% protein Type 1 (AP). There is no strong or bread flour. However, last week I did manage to find a [very expensive btw] 14% protein Type 00 italian imported flour. I am experimenting with it right now but sadly it did not make much difference after 3 days.Changing FeedingsI tried feeding more regularly: 1:2 twice a day for some days. I tried starving a culture for 4 days and feeding it back on schedule, as I saw someone suggest here. Both did not produce better results.Changing WaterI use bottled mineral spring water. I have tried boiled tap water, filtered tap water and boiled spring water. No difference.Adding Honey (!)Something interesting happened here. Adding a drop of honey in the mixture made it much faster and bubblier. Also, for the first time I saw a white starter double in size. If I maintain the honey, this behavior continues. If I cut back on the honey, the starter goes back to where it was (not much raise) within 2 or 3 feedings.This reaction to honey made me wonder if the cultures I am starting lack some sort of sugar production to feed the yeast.  I really want to make bread with larger portions of white flour since the ones I made with whole wheat turned out to be very heavy and chewy. I am still learning the process but I feel this issue with white flour got me stuck and makes me want to quit everything :/ Hopefully someone can provide some insight on the issue.. /nai: Not Sure Hi There, Based on the temps you've provided, it does seem quite strange.  Have you considered trying a 90% white / 10% wholemeal?  This will largely be a white starter but it may give it enough 'food' to get a better level activity?  I would try getting to a 100% hydration 90%/10% and see how that works out.Do you have access to Rye flour?  If so, perhaps try making the 10% Rye instead of wholemeal, with a feeding ratio of 1:2:2  Starter:Flour:Water. You may find it easier to premix the starter flour (e.g. get 180g of white and 20g of Wholemeal / Rye) then you don't have to worry about measuring it all out in fine detail when you make the starter.Sorry if you've tried something like this already... I've only been baking 3 months myself so not sure what else to suggest. Good luck! In the brief time I've been baking i've found that the most important factor to a good loaf is a strong starter which is added to the dough right at its peak!That Italian flour... Is it made by Caputo?  Their stuff is pretty good, we get it here in Australia.

/nhuman: Sourdough Ciabatta 8430ED4E-464F-4662-A0CD-B55B793DB665.jpeg   9E3A58B2-BE67-4780-B799-806FBA2BE489.jpeg /nai: Recept https://foodgeek.dk/en/bread-calculator/?n=%26lt%3BBread%26gt%3B&a=%26lt%3BAuthor%26gt%3B&q=1&s0=Preferment&s0t=p&s0i0w=48&s0i0t=f&s0i0n=White%2520flour&s0i1w=48&s0i1t=d&s0i1n=Water&s0i2w=20&s0i2t=s&s0i2n=Starter&s0i2h=100&s1=Dough&s1t=d&s1i0w=162&s1i0t=f&s1i0n=Tarwe%2520bloem&s1i1w=70&s1i1t=f&s1i1n=Tippo%252000&s1i2w=60&s1i2t=f&s1i2n=Semolino&s1i3w=205&s1i3t=d&s1i3n=Water&s1i4w=7&s1i4t=t&s1i4n=Salt&s1i5w=10.5&s1i5t=a&s1i5n=Olive%2520oil&u=&nt=

/nhuman: Video - Dough turns soupy moments into kneading, Slack after proofing I put all the ingredients together (but for salt), autolyse for 30-60mins. At this point, the dough looks good, I measure and add the salt, and the dough still feels supple as I work the salt in, doesn't even stick to my hands.I start kneading to give it an initial few minutes knead before the stretch and folds, and moments into kneading, this happens. The video is after a good five minutes of kneading.By the end of 3 hours (6 stretch and folds) I usually have a manageable dough unlike the soup above . The other problem I have is, once I remove it from the proofing basket (colander), it is a slack blob and so very difficult to get a clean cut, the internal is super sticky and soupy and stretches with the safety razor. Even if I get a cut, it opens up quickly to a flat scar. I tried under-proofing to see if that was the reason for this bit but that didn't change a thing.Mix:70g 100% Levain (mix of AP, Whole Wheat and Rye)300g Water310g Bread Flour (King Arthur)80g Whole Wheat Flour (King Arthur)10-20g Dark Rye (Bob's)8g Diamond Crystal Kosher SaltMethod:AutolyseKnead for 5 mins or soStretch and fold every 30 mins for three hoursPreshape and rest for 30 minsShape using the Tartine structured foldPlop into colander with rice flour for a three hour rise500F Preheat - 20 min covered bake at 480 - 20 min open bake at 460I don't know what reddit did to that video, here's a linkhttps://www.dropbox.com/s/j4zgjg9z5fh3wet/VID_20200715_172116~2.mp4?dl=0 Proofed, poking before bakinghttps://www.dropbox.com/s/6h4rzruaseqfyk8/VID_20200716_002300.mp4?dl=0 Watch me butcher this bread while scoring, also see how its basically spilling out and flattening once out of the banettonhttps://www.dropbox.com/s/l7mb334dxzdzdsh/VID_20200716_005831.mp4?dl=0 /nai: Are you sure your scale is correct?

/nhuman: Estimating the Percentage of Levain in your Dough Recipe How much levain should I use in my dough based on how long I need to bulk ferment, and how long I choose to proof, and what flours I’m using, and what hydration level I have, and… and… and…?Is there a chart or something one could reference that would enable the reader to get an idea of about what percentage of levain they should use in their dough to achieve predictability in final proofing times?I know temperature is a factor, as are all of those things I mentioned above, so it would need to be something that has all of these variables expressed as fields that, when populated, would give an estimate of the percentage of levain to use. A spreadsheet, or database, or…?Or is something like this even possible, based on there being too many “live” variables? By “live” I mean living things like yeast and LAB, or variations in humidity in your baking environment. /nai: Best way to learn Is to follow recipes till you get the feel for it. Giving an exact time is difficult as one should watch the dough and not the clock but recipes do put you in the ball park. Obviously more starter and higher temperature speeds things up. Vice versa slows things down. It depends on your starter too. Some have quicker starters and other slower. When I was first starting off I stuck to 10, 20 and 30% starter. 10% got me a through the night bulk ferment. So I'd finish kneading just before bed to carry on in the morning. About 8-10 hours.20% 6-8 hours. 30% 4-6 hours. I don't go by this anymore, rather by feel, but you can always rely in doubling for the bulk ferment till you get to know the dough. Once you do then it doesn't necessarily have to double.Hope this helps.

/nhuman: Can old flour affect sourdough results? Bakers, I'm posting to ask if old flour can affect fermentation results. I started sourdough baking again after a long hiatus. The last 3 times the dough has felt weird and I've had sub-optimal results (tighter crumb, not much oven spring, weak ear). The first time I suspected my starter was weak, so I asked a friend for new starter. My starter is now healthy and active. Yet I'm still getting bad results despite doing everything the same. (Also, I have a bread proofer to maintain a stable 78º F temp.) The only thing I can think of is that my flour (King Arthur organic unbleached 11.7% AP) is over a year old. Ha ha, don't judge me -- I hate letting things go to waste. I had this flour and didn't want to buy new flour.So I'm wondering if flour deteriorates over time. (Not talking about weevils.) I plan to experiment with some new store-bought flour but curious if anyone has insights.Thank you! /nai: short answer, yes, though it short answer, yes, though it takes far longer for AP flour to go bad.I've had dull Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye that smelled fine and was still long before its 'use-by' date screw up my starter (fortunately, the switch to a fresher local brand led to a full recovery.) I've had a bag of BRM whole spelt, again well within date, develop a foul odor. And, most recently, an unopened 5-lb bag of King Arthur White Whole Wheat, again well within date, was bitter and lackluster the moment I opened the bag.That being said, more experienced voices on this site told me that whole grain flours are more apt to spoil because the bran & germ have more oils in them ... and it's the oils that tend to spoil.Still, my advice would be to buy new flour for your next bakes.Rob

/nhuman: Uneven Crumb I recently baked a loaf that was 100% bread flour, 78% hydration, and a 100% hydration whole wheat starter. It bulk fermented for 4.5 hours at room temperature. I did 3 stretch and folds every 15 minutes then 3 more stretch and folds every 30 minutes and finished bulk fermenting for 1.5 hours. The oven spring is not too bad but the crumb is uneven and a bit gummy.How do I fix this? /nai: If not doing an overnight If not doing an overnight stint in the fridge, knead the dough - 10-20 min with mixer - 30+ by hand. To even out the crumb - handle the dough roughly when shaping to distribute the holes more evenly.Enjoy!

/nhuman: Issues with banneton loaf Hi Everyone,Hoping you could help me - I've been baking sourdough since January, mostly round boules. I haven't really had any issues with these so i decided to move onto longer banneton shaped loves.The problem I am having is during the bake with banneton loaves - the loaf never seems to split properly along the score line. I have attached some pictures below so you can see what I mean.I was cooking at 230 degrees for 20 mins for the initial blast, turning down to 200 for the last 20.I thought it might be that it was cooking too quickly so have tried turning the oven down by 20 degrees at the beginning and adding more steam but it doesn't seem to help.I score down the middle about an inch deep.Anyone got any ideas? Thanks for your time. bread.JPG IMG_5605[1].JPG /nai: ? ?

/nhuman: Dough texture question I'd like to understand more about dough texture during gluten development and bulk fermentation. Should the dough get firmer over time or stickier and floppier?I have attempted full proof baking's method of gluten development of one stretch and fold, lamination and 3 coil folds. For the lamination and first 2 coil folds my dough holds together well.However for the last coil fold and later the pre shape and shape, my dough loses its firmness and spreads right out in the container after the rest period. It is then very sticky to handle and floppy,  stretching right out when performing the coil fold.I may have it wrong but I thought the dough is supposed to start off sticky and floppy and become firmer after the folds, not the other way around.My temperature here is around 27 Celsius which is 80 Fahrenheit. To account for the temperature I shorten the rest periods between folds and don't go past 4.5 hours for the total bulk fermentation (from when I mix in the levain).The dough is around 80% hydration with 20% inoculation and 100% wholewheat.Does my dough sound over fermented or is it supposed to get stickier and looser during the coil folds and after the bulk fermentation? Thank you to anyone who has any thoughts. /nai: what formula? whole wheat flour is not a substitute for white (AP or bread) flour.Are you using a formula that calls for 100% whole wheat?  Can you give a link to it please?

/nhuman: Starter Flour / Dough Flour Interaction Hi Everyone - I'm just starting out with sourdough bread. My first few loafs were made with an all whole wheat starter (about two weeks old), combined with dough composed of 1 part whole wheat, 9 parts white bread flour @75%-85% hydration. While delicious, they were somewhat dense / "gummy," with very poor oven spring and no ear. I then created an "offspring" starter, fed with 100% all-purpose flour (now about a week old), and a dough composed of 100% white bread flour @75% hydration, which rose beautifully in the oven and has a nice ear! My question is... does a whole wheat starter interact poorly with a primarily white dough, as it is not used to this for its feeding? Might that be my issue, or do you all have any suggestions in this regard?Thanks! /nai: whole wheat starter is going to be more powerful than a white/refined flour starter.The bran has enzymes that convert starch to sugar. Sugar supercharges fermentation.your dough made with WW starter, and some WW in the main dough, was likely over-fermented.  Over-fermented leads to lack of oven spring.I used to use my home-milled Ww flour in my starter, but fermentation kept getting out of hand. so now that my starter is many months mature, i always feed it only white/refined flour now, either AP or bread flour.

/nhuman: Feeding when Falling vs. On a Schedule Hi Everyone!Are there ill effects to feeding a room-temperature starter every 12 hours, even if this means that the starter has begun to fall for 1-3 hours (depending on temperature) before a scheduled feeding? I've found that if I carefully watch for the peak, and feed then regardless of time, that feedings can be needed at very inconvenient hours! But if the starter has begun to fall, it sometimes has begun to develop a less-than-fresh smell by the time of the scheduled every-12-hours feeding. Thanks for any help with this! /nai: It is preferred to feed soon It is preferred to feed soon after receding. But starters are resilient and it should fare well.Reply with your feed ratio and estimated Room Temp. We can make adjustments to stretch the feed cycle to 12 hr, is you wish. My starter used to peak in 8 or 9 hr.. Didn’t want to feed 3 times a day. A little tweaking and it run cycles in 12.

/nhuman: Why does baking straight from the refrigerator not seem to work for me? Every time I have tried it I end up with a very dense bread with inadequate size (oven spring is fine, it just always seems much smaller than it should be for the amount of dough). I think it would be much easier if I could bake straight from the fridge but it never seems to work for me. I use this recipe most of the time. Thanks for any help! /nai: Try not preheating the oven. Try not preheating the oven. The dough will warm up as the oven is warming and should be better. Just add more bake time, like 20 minutes.

/nhuman: 80% hydration loaf advice Hi guys. I hope you’re well! So I just tried my hand at a high hydration (80%) batard, and would love some feedback in my loaf , and some guidance on how to improve it. Thank you guys for all your help and support! 05424EB6-CA32-4809-8620-46362E54662E.jpeg 4236E7F2-4378-4FD5-92AA-2C4D5163AD19.jpeg /nai: Whatever you did, keep doing it. That is a gorgeous loaf!My only suggestion, based on my personal preference for a less-open crumb, would be to degas more while shaping.  But, hey, that’s just one person’s point of view.  Well done. Paul

/nhuman: Crumb Improvement Help? Hi everyone,I've been baking for about a year and a half now, and I've finally stumbled upon Kristen's "Fullproof" basic sourdough recipe. As you can see, it's producing a loaf with some serious spring! But now I'd like to work on the crumb. I'm not displeased with this crumb in any major way, but I'm now at the point where I'd like greater control over the outcome of my breads, and it would be great to be able to open this crumb up and even it out just a little bit. I'm not sure how to go about doing this. I'm super gentle when I shape the dough (I'm shaping into boules) and so I am thinking, maybe, that the difference lies in my starter. I don't do Kristen's whole big feeding routine. I keep about 40g of 50/50 WW/KA Bread flour starter (100% hydration) in my fridge of which I pull out about 15g and feed 1:2:2 or so the morning I want to make the dough. I let it rise warm (84 degrees or so) until more than doubled, about four hours. Then I follow Kristen's recipe more or less to a T:255g KA bread flour, 70g whole wheat flour 65g levain253g water8g saltAll the following done at about 75F:Mix flours and water, let sit for four hoursAdd levain, mix, let sit half an hourAdd salt, mix, let sit half an hourFour way stretch and fold, let sit 45 minLaminate, let sit an hourCoil folds on the hour until six hours from addition of levain (usually 3 coil folds total)Tip out, shape, directly into basket, let sit for about a half hour, then into fridge overnight (my fridge is a little warmer than 38 degrees so it does rise a touch in the fridge)Baked the next day straight from fridge; 450F for 20 min covered in cast iron pot then 12-13 min uncovered. Any insights on how I might get a more even distribution of slightly larger holes would be appreciated in the extreme. Many thanks!!~Kim /nai: so good. It looks so good that I'm almost ashamed to suggest anything.  But, since you asked so nicely.... Maybe try: pre-shape - rest 10 to 20 minutes - final shape.

/nhuman: For the life of me, I can't figure out why my dough is losing shape when I remove it from the banneton. It's driving me NUTS! I never used to have this problem. I've been following this recipe to the letter. It used to work just fine. Now, when I take out the dough from the banneton, it starts to lose its shape and splays outwards. I have to rush super fast to slash it and toss it in the oven. It rises really well, but not as good as it could if it kept its shape. I have no idea what it could be. Typically I take the dough out of the fridge and wait 1:30 before putting it in the dutch oven. I use high gluten high quality flour. My starter more than triples. Please help me. :( Thank you so much! /nai: When was the last time you When was the last time you followed the recipe and it came out okay,  and how long has it been showing a problem?  If it came out okay before, than the problem is likely either the flour or the temperature, since it is likely everything else  ( meaning the process, the water, and the salt ) has stayed the same.If you last had it come out well much earlier in the year, it could be that the final proof is at a warmer temp in your house, which would cause it to overproof if you followed the same timing.  As you increase the temperature, the yeast activity speeds up as well.If temperatures are the same for both, it is possible there is a difference between the flour you were using and the flour you are using now.  Even if it is from the same manufacturer, the properties may be different ,  since they can vary from batch to batch, and especially lately, there have been some stresses on supply chains. I

/nhuman: 9 day old starter not deflating Hello,I am new to sourdough and was following a guide I saw online.  I finally started marking my jar with tape every hour or two as my starter was rising to track it's progress.  At around 5PM last night it had risen to it's highest point however when I just checked it this morning (7AM) the starter is still at the 5PM line.I was under the impression that the starter should pulse during it's normal life cycle.  What am I doing wrong?Thanks,Brad /nai: Sometimes they need a little Sometimes they need a little help to collapse. if you tab the jar hard, it probably will. depending on hydration and type of flour, the structure of some holds up better than others.  but once it's stopped growing, the foods nearly exhausted. some folks like to give it a stir and it will grow again for a little bit because the food is redistributed or some covered food is exposed.  it's all normal.  have a smell and a taste to see if you've got that alcohol and acidity of a good starter. if you leave it longer you'll probably start getting a good hooch in there. the sour liquid byproduct of the process. some people like that in their dough for extra flavor.

/nhuman: Community Bake - Hamelman's Five-Grain Levain This Community Bake will feature Jeffry Hamelman's Five-Grain Levain. The formula and instructions are taken from his very popular book, "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes". Many bakers consider this bread a favorite of theirs and I am in that group. The portion of whole grain along with the seeds makes this bread stand out among the best. The book can be Seen HERE.For those not familiar with our Community Bakes see THIS LINK. The idea of a Community Bake is for those interested in baking and learning to bake with us and post the results. This way we can all learn together. This is not a bread baking competition, everyone wins!I chose to post the bake today in order to give everyone time to gather the ingredients since there are 4 grains and/or seed add ins. It is not necessary to go out of your way to get the specified seeds or grains. I substitute all of the time and the bread is always great. Hopefully the bake will get into full swing by next weekend, but feel free to start right away.I've included an additional image of the spreadsheet for those that want to bake a smaller batch. The formula is for 1000 grams, but you could easily divide each ingredient by 2 in order to make a 500 gram loaf.Here are the instructions from Hamelman's book. If you don't already own the book, I suggest you give it some consideration.Five-Grain Levain by Jeffrey Hamelman Resource --- Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes    Pages 182 - 1831.    Liquid Levain   --- Make the final build 12 to 16 hours before the final mix and let stand in a covered container at about 70°F. Mix Levain and Soaker at the same time.2.    Soaker   --- Pour the boiling water over the grain blend and salt, mix thoroughly, and cover with plastic to prevent evaporation. Make the soaker at the same time as the final build of the levain and let stand at room temperature. If grains that don't require a hot soaker are used (such as rye chops in lieu of the cracked rye listed here), a cold soaker will absorb less water, and therefore it's likely that slightly less water will be needed in the final dough.3.    Mixing   --- Add all ingredients to the mixing bowl. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes, adjusting the hydration as necessary. Mix on second speed for 3 to 3 1/2 minutes. The dough should have a moderate gluten development. Desire dough temperature 76°F.4.    Bulk Fermentation   --- 1 to 1 1/2 hours (if yeast (.008%) is used). Otherwise see Step 7 for clarification.5.    Folding   --- the bulk fermentation should be 2 hours with 1 fold6.    Dividing and Shaping   --- Divide the dough into 1.5 pound pieces; shape round or oblong. Large loaves of several pounds are also a beautiful sight. And good rolls can be made from this dough. NOTE – I like to make 3 pound boules and place them into the Dutch Ovens and then refrigerate. After they are shaped I place the ball upside down on a water soaked towel and then put the wet side on a towel that is floured and filled with pumpkin seeds. This gives the bread an excellent flavor and also makes it more attractive.7.    Final Fermentation   --- The dough can be retarded for several hours or overnight, in which case the bulk fermentation should be 2 hours with 1 fold and the yeast should be left out of the mix. 8.    Baking   --- With normal steam, 460°F for 40 to 45 minutes. There is a great deal of water retention in this bread, so be sure to bake it thoroughly.Danny /nai: Been looking forward to this! Thanks Dan. A wonderful recipe and looking forward to seeing everyones take on it. I'm certainly in.

/nhuman: Recieved a super active bread flour starter over Christmas! So my Mom went to a White Elephant gift party and got a homemade sourdough starter. (A white elephant party is where everyone brings a gift, you draw numbers and pick one from under the tree. It's completely anonymous, lots of laughing and trading ensues.) The starter came with organic KA bread flour and directions. Well, she let it sit in the fridge for a month before reading the directions. I went up for Christmas and fed it once, bubbled really well. I fed it again the next day and it doubled in cold temperatures (for FL anyways). so I stirred it down and put it outside on the freezer, The over night temp was 20-30F degrees, it doubled by noon (never got past 50F). So I mixed it up and baked it in a 68F degree house and this sucker acted like commercial yeast in 80F weather.Holy-moly, this sucker is active. I hate to kill it. So I wonder if it's because my parents have well water with a softener and not city water. Maybe it's the minerals? I'll use my bottled water, but just curious if anyone else thinks it may be because of the water they use up there or is a bread flour starter normally this active?I don't have pictures. I also couldn't keep my parents hands off it, so 5 minutes after it came out of the oven they dug in. I did have a piece, no sourness. She gave me the starter and the bag of flour since she doesn't bake. So at the very least, I'm going to bake some more bread then dry some out for storage in case I botch it up. And now I'm out of excuses for not starting sourdough again. ;) /nai: Different starters behave Different starters behave differently, depending on the species of the microbes in it. Sounds like this one might have particularly active yeast that produce lots of CO2!

/nhuman: Faint yellow spot on top of sourdough starter Hi! I'm new here so apologies if I am posting improperly. I fed my 2 month old sourdough starter about 6 hours ago. Upon checking just now, I noticed there is a yellow spot on top of my starter. Is this mold? Has it gone bad? I also fed (1:3:3) it with AP flour because I ran out of my usual whole wheat flour. Any help is appreciated! /nai: Probably not Likely just a dried up bit of old starter or some dry flour. Just scoop it out. if you're concerned, just do a few more days worth of feeding before using it. But I wouldn't worry about it.  Mold would likely take more than 6 hours to get like that. when you feed next, just scoop off the whole top layer and use what's on the bottom for the next one.

/nhuman: I revived a moldy starter - is it safe though? I've had this starter going for 4-5 years or so, made lots of good loaves with it. For some reason, I just neglected it for a few weeks in the fridge, and finally went to go feed it today. It smelled really funky, and there was some mold growing near the top of the jar. I've been working with it long enough to know this smell wasn't good, but I decided to try to revive it anyways.So I removed the top layer and took a few spoonfuls of starter to a new container, and fed it as usual. Then fed it two more times over the next 24 hours. It seems to be bubbling away again, although I do smell a little bit of that bad smell still, but very little.I'm wondering, if the starter looks active and healthy again, does that mean it's safe to use? Or is it possible that I'm growing some other sort of bacteria in there that's taken over?I can easily get another starter, but I'm interested in this from a science-project perspective.Thanks!H /nai: It'll be good, and the smell It'll be good, and the smell will dilute away in a few days. I just did this exact thing last week (not the first time golf took priority over starter) and no problems. Keep going! PS - I forgot to ask - what color was the mold? The usual green/grey mold is no problem - reddish may be a problem and should be tossed.

/nhuman: Beginner sourdough recipe...HELP! I jumped on the quarantine sourdough bread wagon and  now have an active, predictable starter. I’ve searched for information, read blog after blog and now my head spins. It appears, most bread bloggers are in need of a good editor. They tend to yammer on and on and on. I’ve tried a few of their recipes with varying levels of success. I’m looking for a good and dependable sourdough bread recipe for beginners, that doesn’t use “fancy” flours...King Arthur all-purpose and bread flour is about as fancy as I get. A recipe that’s not 10 pages long with a lot of explanation. Help! Or, I’m going to pick a new hobby...pies! /nai: Hi, MGoodwin! I know what you Hi, MGoodwin! I know what you mean!  Food bloggers take up more space yakking about how much their friends and family love their recipe than they do with the actual recipe!  Of course, I think you may be searching in vain if you’re looking for just a flat-out list of ingredients, with no amount of explainification.  In sourdough baking, the processes are every bit as important to the final product as the ingredients. With that being said, I did find this All AP Sourdough Bread recipe over at The Perfect Loaf.  Make sure to let us know how it turns out!

/nhuman: Can't tell if starter is ready for baking/fridge - everything seems right except it doesn't double So my starter is (almost) exactly 2 weeks old. I started it with 100% WW flour and have since been feeding it with 50% WW + 50% AP in a 1:1:1 ratio (100g each of starter, flour, water) twice daily. It went through the expected surge of activity on day 2, then seemed rather dormant on days 3-6 but it did have small bubbles and a sour smell and taste. From day 8 to now its daily cycle and look have been very consistent - it has bubbles visible on the sides and top, the top is very bubbly, kind of frothy even when it's time to feed it, it smells like apples and tastes pleasantly sour (the bubbles and taste/smell are at peak intensity at feeding time; they're a bit more faint when the starter is at its max height). It reaches its maximum at 7h after feeding and then falls. Thing is, I've been measuring the rise (in addition to using a rubber band around the jar) and it only ever goes from 35mm to 58-60mm, so only about a 70% increase, not fully doubling. Everything else seems spot on and has been happening like clockwork twice daily for almost a week now. I also did the float test a couple of days ago and it did float at first and then sank after a little while. It's being kept at room temperature which is around 24C right now. I've researched this a bit and some people have said that starters don't absolutely have to double, some do more than double and some never quite reach that point, also the width of the jar might have something to do with it (while I wouldn't describe mine as wide or anything the ones on the KAF and TPL starter guides do seem narrower). Basically, I don't really know where to go from here. How do I know when my starter's ready to be maintained in the fridge on a once-weekly feeding schedule? Should I keep doing what I've been doing, add in some rye flour, change the jar/feeding ratios/something else? As far as baking goes, I guess I can just try and see what happens, the first loaf is unlikely to be anything good anyway, but I'm more confused about how to go on with the maintenance part. /nai: You are doing fine, and your You are doing fine, and your starter sounds to me like it’s right on track.  Keep up with what you are doing, and it will get there. One thing that I would suggest is that after it peaks, give it a stir.  This redistributes the yeasts and any uneaten foodstuffs.  It’s almost like doing a feeding, but without diluting the colonies of yeasts and bacteria, which allows them to create a larger overall population.  After giving it a stir, you should notice a second rise.  If you don’t get a second rise, then your yeasts are consuming all the available food, in which case you should either add an additional feeding to your daily routine or increase the feeding ratio (go for 1:2:2). As for when will it be ready to bake with, you may be able to go for it now, just keep in mind that an under active starter will take longer to bulk ferment your dough, so recipe times will need to be adjusted.  Personally, I would wait, especially if your starter still has a somewhat liquid-y consistency.  At some point, as if by magic, your starter will become thicker (it’s consistency reminds me of whipped pudding).  When it reaches this consistency, it should be ready, for sure.

/nhuman: Start of day 3 pineapple juice starter seems to develop mold? HELP please Hello Everybody,I'm new to bread and starter. My 1st sourdough starter using water and all purpose flour develop a pink mold spot on day 2.I happened to find Debra Wink's method (via yumarama.com) replacing water with Pineapple Juice. And I used organic all purpose flour instead of Rye or Whole Wheat. It's start of day 3 and when I'm about to do the day 3 feeding, I saw a dry patch  that seems to be mouldy? I've circled in black in the attached image that I used an LED white light to capture the shot. The smell is much better then my previous water + AP flour starter. This pineapple juice starter smells acidic pineapple juice, pleasant smell.I'm a bit lost now if I should continue the feeding or I should throw it out ? Please help if it's mouldy and how I can prevent in future.P/s: I've sterilised the jar and the equipment but not the cover.RegardsKelly /nai: Keep going and see what Keep going and see what happens. If it really bothers you, scoop off the affected part and continue as normal.

/nhuman: When does the dough rise during baking? This is not a matter that I face, but I'll try and describe it for you.I always thought that dough rises during baking in the first few minutes (15 to 20 minutes?). The experience that was described to me was that the dough begins to rise in the oven in the latter half of baking. This apparently happens irrespective of whether the dough is baked in a covered container or not and in either case a temperature resistant glass container is used for the baking of the dough.The dough is a mixture of plain and wholemeal flour.Have you had a similar experience of delayed oven rise? /nai: Miller, seeing is believing Miller, seeing is believing!The dough will rise only is the very beginning of the bake. The main reason being that once the dough rises to a certain heat, the yeast die. Use THINK LINK for best viewing.If you have time and are inclined, you can browse through a long list of videos and find Time Lapse videos of in-oven bakes. Danny

/nhuman: Crumb and holes are too big! IMG_1263.jpg We bake our bread for the cafe we use them for Toasts and melts, as you can see its not to good for toasts,how can i get the crumb better suited for sandwich bread?its 70% hydration 90 grams starter per loaf baked in a domed pizza oven about 13 loafs at a time, mix in a hoabart for 5 minutes and proof for 3-4 hours then shape and retard over night.Any help will be appreciated it.ThanksAkiva /nai: It looks fabulous to me, but It looks fabulous to me, but I can see how the big holes would kinda wreck it’s usefulness for making toast.  They look like a butter/jam stain on a shirt just waiting to happen! When you are doing your shaping, are you making sure to remove any air pockets left behind from the mixing process?

/nhuman: Need advice - My starter doubled on day 2! I too am a quarantine baker and this is only the second time I started my sourdough starter. And to my surprise, after 24 hours my Miss Bubbles was actually all bubbled up and when I put her to a float test, she was floating! Pinched myself and found I actually wasn't dreaming? Now I need advice on the below points; 1) can I use this starter, right on day 2 to fold in my sourdough?2) will it taste as good as it should? The first time it took me about 11 days to see my starter rise and I almost gave up but tried it and got a decent sourdough bread. This encouraged me to try it again and here I land! Please guide me to my ultimate sourdough bread?? /nai: It is almost certainly not ready Most likely this is the stage where where al kind of wrong bacteria are developing. Wrong for baking but good for getting the ph right for the next step. Just go on feeding it. It wil proberly stop doubling tomorrow first and then start rising again after a fee days. iI would not try baking with until at least a week.

/nhuman: Oven Spring h e l p please Hello Fresh Loaf Community -Like a zillion others here I have been bitten by the sourdough bug after years of successful no knead bread baking using commercial yeast.No matter what I do, with the exception of one bake, my loaves all turn out on the flat side.  I am certain that my starter, which I made myself back in March is strong.  I keep it in the fridge, and I feed for at least 2 days, 3x a day at around 81deg.  It easily expands to peak regularly at 2.5x or sometimes even 3x.I keep wondering if I am over proofing......but maybe I am under proofing.  I do know that even after I stretch and fold, coil fold, etc., the dough frequently has a tough time keeping shape.  It starts tight, but then goes slack.  I will admit, that I am probably mixing up too many variables each bake in search of an answer by cycling through the recipes below, adjusting hydration to less or more, etc. etc.  Hard to be patient.I have tried these recipes -No knead - this does not seem to work well with sourdough.Regular Chef ( a variation on Tartine Country Loaf)Lake Champlain Sourdough - Trevor WilsonFull Proof Baking - this is the one the worked one time.....Any help would be appreciated.  Photos below of all the flat loaves.  and the one good one.FAILS  GOOD BAKE, though crumb not large.  Good spring. /nai: Your flatter loaves have the Your flatter loaves have the look of being slightly over fermented, this results in a lack of oven spring.  The over fermented ones show overall good crumb, not the dense gummy crumb you see in under fermented loaves.  Then just under the top crust, you will see larger holes and the crust almost disconnected from the crumb beneath.  When dough gets over fermented, the proteolytic enzymes start to break down the gluten network weakening it.  If the gluten becomes too weak, it can no longer hold the expanding gases in it so as they break multiple smaller bubbles coalesce into larger ones.  This is most visible in your fifth and sixth photos.You’ll want to cut bulk fermentation shorter, or bulk ferment at a lower temperature, use cooler water at mix or use less levain (compensating for the total flour and water difference so the final dough still have the same total flour and water).A little tool I’ve been using because I recently have been having problems with fermentation is an aliquot jar.  Read this post about using an aliquot jar to help determine when to end bulk fermentation.  I wish I knew about his tool over a year ago when I first started to bake sourdough.Your last couple of photos show really nice loaves you’ve baked, you’ll reproduce those again in your next bake I’m sure.Benny

/nhuman: Can I use this convection oven to make sourdough bread and how 63C7C75D-F164-409D-9210-5D61B27AB809.jpeg /nai: The only way to know for sure The only way to know for sure is to try.  Just don’t forget to remember to take notes, and report back with pictures of how your experimental loaves turn out.

/nhuman: Did my levain breakdown my gluten? Hey everyone. I just ran into something that I've never encountered. I was mixing a sourdough loaf today and I let it autolyse for 2 hours, and then added my starter and salt in two stages. However after mixing via the rubaud method, I noticed my bread not developing any strength. In fact it was weaker than it was before the autolyse! I wish I had taken pictures but I'm sure all of you have experienced gluten degradation and that soup, goopy stringy consistency that it has. But I'm baffled as to what caused this. At first I thought I added too much salt and that somehow broke it down but I used the normal 2%. So im left with thinking it was my sourdough levain, perhaps it was too acidic and immediately broke down the gluten? That doesn't seem possible though since it was a 1:5:5 ratio that I let rise for 14 hours. 2 hours longer than I normally let it go so that might be why, but it also didn't fall yet so I thought it was fine It also didn't smell abnormally sour but I didn't really pay attention to that.. Any ideas what caused this? Thanks /nai: goopy dough Without seeing the recipe - especially hydration percentage and percent of levain compared to total dough weight -  it’s hard to make an educated guess at what went wrong. But the salt if anything would have added structure by absorbing water, so probably not to blame.

/nhuman: Dough Wet and Collapsing after Bulk Fermentation I've been baking with sourdough for about a year now. I've mostly used Chad Roberton's Tartine recipe and no-knead method, and have produced acceptable results. Because of the whole Covid situation, I've moved back home (different country) and started a new starter a few weeks ago.It shows good activity, and passes the float test. But I've recently encountered some problems with the bulk fermentation. The dough (75% hydration) remains way too sticky, wet and doesn't hold its shape, even after 3-4 hours in a temperature controlled proofing box at 79F and after folds at 30-minute intervals. It's therefore completely unusable, as it cannot be shaped. It resembles more of a cake batter than bread dough. The dough starts off being more cohesive at the start of mixing, but once the flour hydrates and starts fermenting, it just turns into a sloppy mess. I decided to try a yeasted bread dough today, using Bon Appetit's Best Bread Recipe (https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-best-bread), just to test out a relativity easier dough, though still with a high hydration. The recipe involved lots of kneading in a mixer, and the dough did develop substantial gluten, and it definitely passed the window-pane test. Yet, after a 3-4 hour bulk fermentation with folds at 30-minute intervals, the dough still collapsed and was unable to be shaped. This resulted in it being thrown into the bin. Anyone know why this might be happening? Low quality flour? Inactive starter? I don't store the starter in my proofing box, but in a somewhat cool area. And yet it shows activity. I know high hydration dough is more difficult to shape, but surely it should maintain some sort of cohesive form? /nai: Could be any number of Could be any number of possibilities. Assuming your starter is bubbly and working, it must be your flour combined with the hydration. Perhaps your flour is not absorbing the water well. So, if continuing with that flour, lower the hydration. Just not worth working with dough that cannot hold structure.

/nhuman: Top half of loaf is coming out white I’m not sure what’s going on. I recently switched over from king author bread flour to honeyville Alta artisan bread flour. The loaf is cooking through and taste fine, but after switching flours the top half of the loaf comes out like someone took a white paint brush and paired the top half. anyone know why or how I can correct this? /nai: My loaves would come out like My loaves would come out like that if i don't bake them in a DO and don't use steam in the oven. Otherwise, they normally come out of the DO with beautiful colors and shine. i'm not sure why switching flour would cause this if you have an identical process. are you dusting more than normal?

/nhuman: I feel like I'm not getting enough gluten development with just stretching and folding/coil folding. I'm using high gluten flour. My starter more than triples. I can't figure it out. No matter how much I stretch and fold or coil fold it just feels like my dough is a sticky mess that either doesn't or barely can manage the windowpane test. What can I be doing wrong? Thank you! /nai: what's your formula? and what what's your formula? and what brand of flour is it? how do you build your starter?  share timing, etc.might be just too much hydration or starter/levain is over ripe and too acidic.

/nhuman: Whatcha think? - Feedback Hi.  I've finally had a bit of success with higher hydration sourdough, basing my recipe and process off the Tartine No. 3 cookbook.  I've been trying to get the basic recipes down for over a year now with really infrequent success.  I think I had two big problems, 1 too high hydration and 2. a lack of understanding in getting the right kind of rise during the final ferment.  i'm pretty sure my dough starts to pass the poke test well before its properly risen.  I feel like I finally nailed it by dropping the hydration (from 80% to 75%) and doing an overnight final ferment along with a couple hours on the counter in the morning.  I don't mean "nailed it" as perfected it... but it's finally not a frisbee.My recipe:250g KA bread flour150g Carolina Ground 85% high extraction whole wheat50g   Carolina Ground Rye Flour50g   KA White Whole Wheat35g   Wheat Germ75g   50/50 levain14g   salt400g waterI'm still not sure how to properly judge when the dough is done bulk fermenting and final fermenting so I'm wondering if anyone can tell from the image whether this is under/over fermented or if it needed more or better folding during the bulk. Really any feedback would be super appreciated.  If nothing else, I can show off a pretty good loaf of bread. /nai: For the ingredients used, it For the ingredients used, it looks great. Nothing to complain about there!

/nhuman: Second loaf and feedback Hello, I just wanted to share my second attempt at making a sourdough bread. This is a whole wheat loaf. My process was a little haphazard as my timing was not particularly controllable. There should have been sufficient fermentation time and it was proofed overnight in the fridge. 80% hydration. 50% whole wheat bread flour, 25% bread flour, 25% AP flour. Due to time, I could only do one stretch and fold in the evening so I put it in the fridge overnight. I then resumed the next day. Finally, it was proofed again overnight in the banneton. I know... that’s a lot of fridge proofing... but I just made bad decisions on when I started! LOL! A few of questions:When I removed the cold dough from the banneton, it seem to go quite flat. Based in the flours used, I was surprised. What aspect in my messed up procedure might have caused this? Any idea how to get more upward volume?I hoped for better ears. Did I not score deep enough? Was it a consequence of the flat dough?When I cut it open, there were large holes towards the top of the bread. Lower density wasn’t actually that bad in how do you achieve a more even distribution of holes?Any and all thoughts would be appreciated. 988334BE-7716-4068-9369-1259D7EC0338.jpeg /nai: Crumb 13B1ADCE-5F79-43FA-8797-042C9BAF7A92.jpeg

/nhuman: Starter rise time proportional to bulk fermentation time? I am struggling with FWSY overnight country brown but determined to get it right! Due to very high humidity (and my skill level) I have reduced the hydration to 70% but the proportion of levain to flour is still ~108g to 440g flour. I was concerned that I might have a proteolytic starter so have been feeding it 1:5:5 every 12 hours and it reliably doubles in 12h. Since that ratio is very roughly what the proportion of levain to flour (Actually I guess my dough ratio is 1:4 levain to flour) in my recipe would I be able to expect a doubling in ~12h or less at the same ambient conditions? Or is the hydration and size of the ferment too different from the starter to use it to predict? this is my dough at 7.5h fermentation. Yawn...off to set an alarm clock for every hour until I figure this out image.jpg /nai: Not necesarily I tend not to compare the rise time of the Starter with the fermentation time of the bread, just because there are too many variables to control for (e.g. Salt qty, hydration of the dough, flour makeup of the dough, proportion of starter, ambient temperature, whether or not i've Autolysed).Where you say your starter was proteoytic, have you tasted it when it was at it's peak, was it quite acidic?  If you're getting at least double the rise of the starter and you're using the starter at peak, then that's a good thing.What is the outcome of the recent loaves you've baked that makes you think you're not getting them right?  It might be helpful for us to diagnose if you have crumb pictures, methodology details and dough temps (at each stage).

/nhuman: SOS - Gluten structure failing in my breads Good morning everyone, hope you are all doing well!I have no idea what has been happening to my breads. To start, I've been baking bread for a couple of years without experiencing this, I even bought my first dutch a few months ago to up my bread game -- with great success. My last two loaves -- during the final shaping phase, the "skin" would stretch and break apart (please refer to picture). I'm not sure what is going on, I haven't changed my recipe, and my sourdough starter is healthy.What are your thoughts?I admit its been incredibly hot and humid lately...so it could have overproofed to the point of destroying the gluten structure. But I'm not sure, even earlier when I would fold my dough in its early stages...something did not seem right. /nai: Dutchy, these looks like an Dutchy, these looks like an extreme case of dough degradation. I suspect gross over-fermentation, causing over acidification.Please post your formula, room temperature, and process timings. We need this information to know for sure.Danny

/nhuman: Sourdough feeding I started some sourdough starter two weeks ago, and have been feeding it twice a day without putting it in the refrigerator.  It has been working good, and smelling great.  I just made a loaf of sourdough bread, and the recipe required 2 cups of starter to make.  The bread turned out great, but now I am wanting to make multiple loafs, so here is my question....... Do I keep dumping some of the starter when I am feeding, or do I just keep adding flour and water?  I am adding 1/2 cup of flour to 1/4 cup of water.  Thanks in advance for the help. /nai: A link that goes into what you're asking I've found that this is a rather reasonable explanation to what you're asking. http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2010/03/05/use-it-or-lose-it/   At feeding time, increasing the feed is how you would increase the amount of starter.  THere are a couple of threads that discuss increasing the size of your starter, so look around/search around =.)

/nhuman: Starter runny and no longer doubling Hi everyone,I have a sourdough starter, which I brought to life in April using the King Arthur recipe. She has been making delicious loaves. I’ve been keeping her on the counter and feeding her pretty much daily at a 1:1:1 ratio with AP flour. Occasionally I’ll feed her twice a day if I’m doing more baking and, every once in a blue moon, I will skip a day.Within the last week or two, I’ve noticed that the consistency is very runny. Instead of a thick, cake batter consistency, it’s more like thin pancake batter. My last loaf also didn’t rise as it should. My starter is also starting to collapse well before doubling in size. She is bubbly and smells wonderful, though. The only thing that’s changed really is the weather. I live in the South where it’s hot and humid, but our home is air conditioned at 75 degrees. I keep her covered with a washcloth fastened by a rubber band. Any thoughts on what I’m doing wrong or what I could be doing differently? I worked so hard on establishing her and keeping her alive and I don’t want to lose all of my hard work! Thank you. /nai: It could simply be that your It could simply be that your starter has become active enough that it requires either higher ratio feedings or more frequent feedings. Try a day or three feeding at a 1:2:2 or even 1:3:3 ratio.

/nhuman: holes too big? I have finally started achieving high-hydration doughs that I'm happy with. I'm using @fullproofbaking's approach. I'm wondering what you all think about these big holes -- while I do want some bigger holes, these seem like they're probably too big. I've been reading about the possibilities of why this is happening, and these strike me as possibilities:1. Only using bread flour, no whole wheat or rye/other whole grain. The flour is Central Milling organic ABC+.2. Dough temp perhaps too high (low 80s) throughout the process.Other factors: autolyse, then add levain, then salt. Total time after levain added to shaping is about 6 hours. I perform about 5 rounds of coil folds during that process after Kristen's first fold then lamination.Dough does its final proofing in a very cold (37F) fridge for about 14 hours.Baking in French oven at 500 covered, then 450 uncovered.By looking at this, can you tell at what point those big pockets are being created, i.e., which stage I should be paying more attention to?Thanks! /nai: I would try to degas a little bit more when pre-shaping. Try getting rid of just a few more of the largest bubbles in your dough.  It looks like you’re getting plenty of activity during proofing to still raise a good loaf, and leaving big gas bubbles in the finally shaped loaf will give you some of those big holes.   It doesn’t look, to me at least, like a flour or temperature issue, but you will probably get better flavor by cooling it all down into the mid 70’s and slowing things down some.Very nice looking loaf.  Not sure I’d be all that unhappy with it myself.OldWoodenSpoon

/nhuman: The Resilience of a Starter Don’t know much about Facebook. I hope you can see THIS LINK.A starter was left untouched in the fridge for 2 years. It was fed 4 times and produced this bread. /nai: Dan, I just refreshed my NMNF rye Starter after way more than a year untouched in the fridge.  It sat there on the heating pad at 76 F overnight after being refreshed once and did absolutely nothing.  Then I stirred it and 12 hours later it was ready to be divided and fed again.  After the 2nd feeding I had a new NMNF rye starter back in the fridge and the other half I converted half of it to a Whole Wheat starter for a 20% whole wheat white bread and the other half to a rye starter for a 50% whole rye/ 20% whole wheat rye bread that I made in Yippee's Oriental Pullman she sent me.  The rye bread was made in remembrance of Lucy who passed away and crossed over the rainbow bridge on 11/11/2021. She was 17 years and 7 months old.   She loved rye bread, especially pumpernickel.  I still miss her every day.  I will post the breads sometime today.Glad to see you are still hanging around.  Yippee sent me the best rye bread I have ever had last year.  It was magnificent.  She made it in a Bundt pan.  Here is a picture or two of her bread.  I have to post this and then add the pictures from my phone.Sorry all my pictures on my iPhone are all larger than 2 MB so I can't upload them.  I have to figure out how to upload them. pCe_OC5NStCTdsFZolqGEA.jpg I can't even describe how great this bread is....it is out of this world oz691JBIQFyYhfa-Vw4zpQ.jpg

/nhuman: My Sourdough Starter Disaster Hi Guys, First off I am completely new to baking, I would like to share my sourdough starter experience with you all and ask for help regarding where I may have gone wrong. I love sourdough so much, I love the texture, the light airy feel, the holes, the crust, the unique flavor profile. The whole idea of fermentation and how the bacteria lactobacilli and yeast create magic. I am big into whole foods, as I suffer from IBS I like to keep things as simple as possible.Upon researching sourdough I hear people talking about einkorn and how its the most easily digested flour and it tastes amazing. I google it and see it's golden interior looking like some 24-carat gold slice of bread and I'm sold. So  I'm on youtube watching tutorials on how to make an einkorn sourdough starter. I bought some flour from Amazon, then I start the process I mix 48 grams of flour and 30 grams of water. I do 10g starter, 30 grams water, 48g flour, for a few days seeing some activity not a lot of rising. Start googling why my starter isn't rising start getting worried. I start increasing ratios then feeds and I'm seeing more activity its doubling at the 1:3:5 but its got a dough-like consistency. It sinks, so I change it to 1:3:3, and then it floats which is great, but the rise isn't there. Okay lets up the ratio of flour im feeding, so i do a 1:5:5 lots of activity, a bit of rising, and floats. So I come to the 3-week mark, I feed it the night before I'm about to make the levan for my bread, check the morning after and it's just flat with no activity. I try and make a levan with it regardless and it was a disaster haha. Okay so moral of the story, things arent as easy as they look. Sourdough starter is a living being and needs consistent temperature and feedings for days. How do I come back from this start completely from fresh? I'm not going to make an einkorn starter anymore, just going to go with a combination of wholegrain rye & bread flour like the majority. How does that sound? My whole family makes fun of me for wanting to make bread, they don't understand I'm determined to do itI'll include a few pics of my old starter. Thanks, Guys /nai: Ratios in the images Far left is 1:3:5 10g starter, 30g water, 48g flour (The doughy looking one)The middle is 1:5:5 10g starter, 50g water, 50g flour didn't get a huge rise for that one Far-right is 1:3:3 10g starter, 30g water, 30g flour passed the float test with 2x rise

/nhuman: Wonky Loaf - Update Hi All,Thank you for your support the last week with the wonky loaves I've had.  I've made some adjustments to the shaping and scoring and came up with this. It didn't quite have the ovenspring I wanted but i think that's because it ended up being a longer loaf than what i normally make.  It was my first go and pre-rounding with a bench rest of about 45 mins.  I then did a tuck and roll.Thanks again. /nai: Great loaf I don’t know if I would expect much more oven spring from that one. The crumb looks quite open already. Good job!

/nhuman: the end part of the bread - for fun I call it the nobby, my wife calls it the crust.What do you call it? /nai: Croutons ....is what I call it. :)

/nhuman: Tartine Approach - No Oven Spring Oven Spring Help!!Hi All! I’ve been working with the Tartine method and following the ratio of ingredients exactly. With that said, I’m not getting much, if any oven spring. Any help would be greatly appreciated! My process was, as follows:Leaven 7:55 pm —> 6:45 (67 degrees in house) —> passed float test First mix 7 am (water 80.4 deg)Autolyse 7:08 —> 7:48 (71 deg)Water (80.1) and saltBF 7:57 am (78 deg) —> 11:45Initial shape/bench rest 11:50 —> 12:1012:15 final proof      - 1 room temp (78 deg)           - 2:30 final proof            - oven at 460 (20/40) /nai: Bake method I should mention I did 6 S&F during bulk ferment and it was baked in a lodge cast iron Dutch oven

/nhuman: Starter is very active but dough will simply NOT rise I've been struggling to make a 20% WW/80% AP flour sourdough with 20% levain for the past couple weeks. My starter is very active, very strong in consistency. This pic is old, right now it almost triples in volume and it's fed thrice a day with organic all-purpose flour+organic whole wheat flour (10%). Here is the thing: I live in a place that reaches 32°C EASILY through the day. It's hot as hell in here. Also very humid. I have tried dough hydrations from 70% up to 80%, the results stay the same: Dough takes more than 8 hours to double in size. 8 FREAKING HOURS... The flour I've got is not the best in quality so it starts to weaken and break down at about 6,5!! What is happening??? How can that be?? Super hot climate, very active starter, but no rise at all?? I know, I know, I should just increase the seed amout, but I want to know how it is possible to happen what is happening. I SHOULD NOT need to to do that. You guys, does anyone have a clue about what is going on? I can't accept that I just need to put more starter in my recipes. At this temperature, with a thriving starter, that shouldn't be necessary. I've seen bakers from milder climates take less starter in order to control a too fast speed of fermentation... Just a note: I've also tried other flour combinations in recipes but they all go down the same road. /nai: Do you have any pictures of the resulting bake?IMHOYou don't want to double in size for a successful SD bake. 8 hours at 32 C is probably grossly overproofed, hence the decline. Try a 30-50% increase in size. That might only take 4 hours.More details of your process would be useful.

/nhuman: starter vs leaven Hi everyone - just joined this site. HI!I have been reading lots of sourdough recipes (I follow a combo recipe from Chad Robertson of Tartine fame, and Erin Turcke). This is my blog post: http://richlerrecipes.blogspot.com/2015/07/my-journey-to-sourdough-part-2.htmlMy question is about starter vs leaven. Both Chad and Erin recommend making a leaven out of the starter, so I do this. But I have been reading recipes lately that say you can make bread directly with starter, and you can skip the leaven step.Questions:1) What is the advantage to skipping the leaven step, aside from saving time?2) I read here on this site that the Chad method (with leaven) produces a less acidic loaf - true?3) If my current recipe calls for 1000 g liquid (800 water, 200 leaven) - how do I adjust the proportions if I am using starter instead?Here is info on how I keep my starter:If I don't plan to bake for a while, I keep it in the fridge. When I know I want to bake, I take it out of the fridge about 5 days before and start feeding it again. I make the leaven the night before I want to bake, then I put the starter back in the fridge for a few more weeks until I bake again (I bake 4-6 loaves at a time).I would appreciate any thoughts or guidance. I have been on this sourdough journey since summer of 2015. Dvorah /nai: Welcome to TFL There are probably many explanations on starter vs levain... The one for me is that you dont want to feed a whole lot of starter and maintain a big amount of it in the fridge.  so you keep a small starter and you use it to build a levain to bake with. Also, when you build your levain, you can use the type of flour that matches your final recipe (whole wheat, rye, bread flour, AP flour...) instead of having to maintain multiple versions of starters (some people do that, e.g. have a rye starter and a separate whole wheat starter).  Since you have to feed your starter before a bake anyways, i think using smaller starter to build a levain makes sense.for maintaining your recipe hydration.  a common practice is that all starters are kept at 100% hydration.  that is, equal parts flour and water.so if you take 20 grams of starter, you feed it 50 grams flour and 50 grams water, it's at a 100% hydration level. (hydration level means the ratio of water to the amount of flour)if you have a 70% hydration recipe.  you may have 800g flour, 400g levain (100% hydration), and 500g water. that way, 200g of flour and 200g of water comes from the levain for 1000g flour and 700g water which is 70%so to answer your questions:1) yes saves time (instead of feeding starter, then building levain with fed starter, you just feed start to user as levain), but at the cost of maintaining a bigger starter2) the longer the starter culture gets to feed, the more acidic it gets. so if you have a big portion of starter that has aged, it will be more acidic than a levain that is just built from a small amount of starter.3) see above on my hydration explanation.  But a good systems is to have both starters and levains at 100% hydration so it's easy to calculate.  there are reasons to not have 100% hydration in those, but more advanced topics there (to control acidity, change timing of maturity, etc...)Happy baking!James

/nhuman: San Joaquin Sourdough Batards: advice requested I started baking dmsnyder's san joaquin batards this week. I'm not sure my results are up to par. The flours are central milling's ABC (90%), red hard whole wheat (5%), and CM's dark rye (5%). The levain is proofed on the kitchen counter overnight at 69-70 degrees, tripling in less than 10 hours and doubling in 7. Dough is mixed, stretch-folded and first ferment is done in the 70-73 degree kitchen. Cold overnight ferment is done at 56 degrees (wine fridge), and the final proofing is done in my cool kitchen which runs 70-74 degrees, increasing in temp as the day and proofing progress.  I certainly struggle with the preshape and shaping due to the stickiness of the dough.I bake on a preheated 500 degree steel under an inverted hotel pan with an injection of steam through a hole in the hotel pan at the start of bake, via this steam cleaner: https://amzn.to/2CpkaQL . The bake time is around 25 minutes. During the latter half the bread is uncovered and elevated off the steel to keep the bottom from scorching, the convection fan is turned on and the temp dropped to 440.The crumb is a bit wet (possibly gummy?) and the crust is a bit leathery after the 2 hour cool. While the resulting bread is very edible especially toasted, I am not sure I'm getting the right rise out of it and would greatly appreciate advice. Does this look underproofed? Poorly shaped? I thank you all for any and all advice. /nai: Oversteamed The crust looks like it's over steamed. There's no need to inject steam if you're already using a inverted pan over the loaf. it will self steam.  I can tell from your crust when I first looked at the photo before reading about it.  I recently experimented with steaming on stove top and then baking a loaf in toaster oven. the crust/skin looks the same.is the steel very close to the heating elements? if not too close, i would recommend 475F and just leave the loaf on there the whole time.   if the steel is close to the heating element, it's likely that it gets above 500F.  Steel gets hotter than stone and heats up quicker when the elements turn on.The large bubbles in the crumb looks like it's just from shaping. pop big bubbles during reshape and make sure you dont trap extra gas during folds.Otherwise, the crumb looks great.  You may get more rise with out the added steam, but it's actually not bad at all.

/nhuman: Dense and flat sourdough bread Hi! I am very frustrated! I baked my second loaf today and got terrible results, it turned out very very dense, i'd even say gummy, and flat. I followed Tartine basic country bread recipe and here are the details for my starter (which is 3 weeks old): I used to feed it once a day in a 1:2:2 ratio (50g starter, 50g/50g rye and AP flour, 100g of slightly warm water) until I saw that it was capable of doubling in size. Then I switched to a 1:4:4 ratio (with 25g starter) and, since I bake once a week at most, after 2 hours after each feeding I put it in the fridge for a week until I feed it again. I think it's important to say that while it is capable of doubling in size and shows plenty of activity it takes a long time for that to happen, I would say 12-14 hours, though I've always thought that it's because I live in a very cold country/house, correct me if I'm wrong! please. Is that necessarily true? or does it mean that my starter is too weak still? Anyways, I took my starter out of the fridge the day before baking and fed it, 12 hrs after its feeding it had doubled in size as usual, so I took out 50g of it and built my levain with 40g of rye flour, 40g of AP flour and 80g warm water. I gave it 12 hrs to rise while I slept.In the morning I saw that it had doubled and that the top was dome like, so it was still rising. Don't know if this is important but it just smelled like flour and water, and didn't have the tangy smell my starter usually has. I did the float test and it passed it without any problem.After this I just followed the recipe and was very careful. (750g water, 900g bread flour, 100g rye flour, 20g salt) Also, between each set of stretch and folds I put the dough in a warm environment (26°C).Everything seemed ok but I had very few bubbles on the surface of the dough. Then, when I put it in the DO for the first 20 min (lid on) I had no oven spring :( and for the rest of the time (25 min) the bread rose very little, although it browned really nicely and the crust was nice too. Sorry for making this so long but I wanted to give as much detail as possible. What do you think I should do? it makes me very sad lol. How can I strenghten my starter? I don't know what to do haha /nai: When you say "very cold When you say "very cold country/house"  how cold is your kitchen? after your stretch and folds, the dough passed the window pane test and feels like good gluten development? any volume increase after your last fold and before shaping/baking?  What was the DO/oven temperature for the bake?  post a photo of the crumb if you have it.12 hours rise for the levain seems like a long time. mine usually doubles in about 3 hours or less on the counter.after last fold, we usually rest and look for something like 20% rise before preshape and final shape.-James

/nhuman: Gummy crumb, no rise Just like the title says. I've had multiple loaves come out now with a gummy/tacky type crumb and with no oven rise. Coincidentally they don't seem to rise hardly at all when proofing as well. Here is the recipe for my latest attempt:Flour- 450g (KA bread flour)Water- 333 gSalt- 9gStarter- 100gTotal hydration: 76.6%I'm just going to copy/paste my notes into this to give you an idea of what I did:Mixed starter around 4pm and by 6:45pm the float test worked, it was over double in size (77*F inside), Mixed water and starter, then with dough at 7pm. 3rd stretch and fold by 7:50pm. Cover with plastic wrap and will put in fridge (45*F) at 8pm until tomorrow afternoon. Checked at 6am and barely any air bubbles and hadn't really risen, same thing at 3pm, did stretch and fold at 3pm and left on counter. Shaped with dough scraper on bench at 3:15pm and then put into banneton. Floured finger poke yields a small dent but bounces back quickly. Preheated oven for 60min and put the dough in at 500* for 22min, lid off and down to 450* for 29min. Could have gone a little longer still as the crust got soft as it cooled. Inside is almost like it's not completely cooked, super doughy, doesn't smell like sourdough, crust is ok but the rest is bland. Total proofing time= 19hrs in fridge, 1hr on counterThe first time I attempted this recipe I had the same results and the proofing time was 10.5hrs. Both loaves didn't rise while proofing. The "breadmaking 101" seems to point to it being overproofed. Any suggestions on what to do? *Edit*- My starter passed the "float" test on both occasions and looks/smells great at the time of use. /nai: That is an unusual process Several thoughts:1) A 50-minute bulk ferment is very short.  I would stretch this out to at least 2-3 hours.  By popping the dough in the fridge so quickly and for so long (see below) without giving the dough and starter much chance to do their thing would not help generate any growth or lift in your dough.2) The time the dough spent in the fridge seems rather extended at this phase of your dough build.  The cold proof usually happens after a bulk ferment and final shaping.  If my math is correct, your dough only got about 2 hours of room temp time, but not consecutively, so it never had a chance to 'take off'.3) The 4th S&F completed after the cold retard and immediately before shaping seems counter-productive and too late in the game to build much gluten or serve any purpose.  It likely deflated any gasses that had built up.4) The finger poke test won't work for this kind of recipe where the dough did not have enough time to rise and has spent approximately 19 hours in the fridge.  Cold dough won't respond reliably to the poke test, especially one that hasn't had a chance to ferment adequately.5) The high hydration of your dough could be part of the problem.  You might consider switching to a lower hydration recipe, more like 65-70%.I would recommend you search this site for a basic, more conventional sourdough recipe.  If you complete an autolyse, adequate bulk ferment, shape and THEN do an extended period in the fridge, you will likely have better luck, since it sounds like your starter is not part of the problem.  Keep trying and you will find a recipe that works for you!

/nhuman: Acidity in sourdough How do you know if your sourdough is too acidic? How does too much acidity affect the crumb of the Bread? /nai: Dough stays sticky, lack of Dough stays sticky, lack of gluten are signs. Without gluten, the "crumb" would be dense and appear not/under baked.

/nhuman: why can a starter not be "developed" en masse? As I understand it (and as I have been doing it for the last few years) a Starter should be fed and developed in small steps.take (for rexample) 5g of starter and add say 25g flour + 25g water.then once that is active, rebuild it. i.e. discard some, then add another 25g+25Grepeat, repeat......why though would a batch of starter behave differently if I started with say just 5g of starter  and then added.... I don't know 100g flour + 100g water immediately?why would the 5g of starter not just slowly work it's way through the 200g of added "fuel" to become super active?or would 200g of extra fuel just suffocate the little old 5g starter engine? /nai: acidification i think one reason not to do a single large feed of the type you describe is in order to maintain the acidity of the system. the acid produced by the bacteria in a sourdough culture is protective: it makes the environment hostile to bacteria (e.g., e coli) and fungi (e.g., molds) that you don’t want to have growing in the system. every time you feed your starter with fresh flour and water you dilute the acids and bring the pH way up. over time, as the bacteria metabolize and grow in number after the feeding, they produce acids and the pH falls.a huge feed of the type you describe would create a longer stretch of time when the system would be “unprotected”, compared to a series of smaller feedings at shorter time intervals resulting in the same final amount of starter.there was a great thread on here recently where folks were measuring the pH of their starters over time after a feed and posting their results. might be able to find that with a search?hope this helps!-c

/nhuman: No Oven Spring in Sourdough Boule I've been struggling to get good oven spring from my boules as the bread isnt rising to its fullest height. Can't figure out whats causing the lack of oven spring- under proofed maybe?I've been following Ken Forkish's FWSY recipes, and get great taste from that. I start with building my levain from my starter (starter usually fed 12hrs earlier) let sit for 6-8 hrs, autolyse of the flour/water then add salt/yeast, then bulk fermentation for ~4hrs with 4 folds each, 3x in size, and then shape and into the fridge for 12 hrs. I'm baking around 445 in a dutch oven (start the oven at 480 and then drop the temp). Any ideas as to where I'm going wrong? Wondering if it's my shaping- still getting the hang of getting tension. Recipe: Starter: currently feeding every 12 hrs- 25g starter, 100g water at 80, 100g white flour, 50g whole wheat. Pain de Campagne, page 140 from FWSYLevain build: 100g starter, 350g White Flour (Ive been using Sir Gallahad Artisan, 11.7%), 100g Whole Wheat, 25g Rye, 400g Water at 88Final Dough: 560g White Flour, 160 WW, 80g Rye, 620g Water at 90, 21g salt, 2g instant yeast, 360g Levain. /nai: Coincidentally, I am having Coincidentally, I am having the same issue. I am baking from FWSY with King Arthur "Sir Lancelot" flour and getting no oven spring at all. Your bread there at least looks edible - I'm churning out hockey pucks over here. I don't want to hijack this thread but I am interested in whatever suggestions arise.I have noticed that the last couple of batches seemed tremendously over-hydrated. The recipe indicates it should have been @ 78%, but the final dough seemed even more wet & slack than I would have expected at that hydration. In fact, both proofing baskets were soaked when I turned the dough out to bake; the linen lining on the one is probably ruined.

/nhuman: Diagnosis please - Wonky Ovenspring II Hi Again,It's the next day and a new loaf.The details for this one was almost the same as yesterday except that i changed the white flour to some unbleached white flour (previously it was bleached; i ran out of that stuff).  It's still at 13% protein though.White Flour (13%) 235gWholemeal Spelt: 55gFine Semolin/nai:  35gH2O:  253gSalt: 7.5gLevain:  65g ratio of 9:1 White to RyeMethod (note aside from Autolyse the timings I provide are based on when fermentation started, so Inoculation is T:0Autolyse (this was 1 hour)Inoculation with Rubaud approx 4 mins(T:0)Salt with slap and fold approx 4 mins (T: 00:30)Turn out and bench twist (T: 01:00)Lamination (T: 01:30)Coil Fold (T: 02:00)Coil Fold (T: 02:30)Coil Fold (T: 03:15)Coil Fold (T: 04:00)Pre-shape (T: 05:40)Shape & Bench Rest (T: 06:00)Refrigerate (T:  06:20)Total fermentation time was 6 hours 20 mins.  The dough had risen a good 30%-40%  The starter had risen about 2.5x and was within 30 mins of peak.  The dough temperature during the fermentation was on average 24 deg C / 75 deg F. I pre-shape by turning the dough out on the surface and twisting into a round.  I shaped by flipping that round onto a floured surface, stretching it into almost a square shape, folding the left and right sides into the center and then rolling up into a batard shape.  I dust it with rice flour and pop it into the Banneton.When scoring I do a quick score like this Trevor Wilson Scoring.  I guess one thing might be that i don't score in a pan, I score the loaf whilst it's sitting on baking paper on my work surface.  Once I've scored i lift the loaf up by the sides of the baking paper which may cause the score to seal a bit as it will compress the sides of the loaf..The ovenspring isn't as good as i've had it and the ear is still wonky.  Suggestions would be much appreciated. /nai: Did you undercut both sides of your scoring line?  Looks that way...resulting in 2 ears.BTW the crumb looks good.

/nhuman: Weird holes, help Hi! This is my friend’s sourdough bread, she told me she sliced it when it is still hot. Does any one know what happened?Thanks ! /nai: Perhaps a bit underproofed? Hi! I think this crumb shows signs of being underproofed as it has a really  dense crumb at the bottom and large openings on top. Also slicing while hot tends to lead to a gummy texture as steam is released too quickly from the bread. After baking there is still a lot of changes in the crumb being made as the bread cools. It’s generally recommended to wait at least 4-5 hours until the bread has completely cooled or longer if you have the patience. Hope I gave some good tips for the next try!

/nhuman: San Jose Bakers Hey everyone, I used to be Yogi on here—the monk baker. I'm now in San Jose and having levain issues. I'm continuing to iron those out, but wondering if any local to San Jose can help out and share some active starter? I'm ready to bake and getting impatient with my lazy levain.  Edit: My 3 levain trial actually worked out fairly well, and I settled on the Musashi–what I'm calling my winning and vibrant AP starter.  I trialed with all rye, rye/AP, and AP. While I thought the 100% rye would work out the best, it didn't. AP for the win, and the quickest to get going. I have a lovely dough with it now and will post somewhere if up to standard. /nai: Welcome back to TFL Rajan, i Welcome back to TFL Rajan, i thought i had lost contact with you for good,  but so pleased to have you back and look forward to seeing you posting again soon. Many long time TFL folk will remember your posts and the giant steps that you made on your baking journey in the monastery on Hawaii. If anyone cares to look up some old posts and brilliant photographs  they all come up under  Ragan Shankara so you don't need to search for "yogi" or "the foolish baker".

/nhuman: Help needed with starter Hi folksI need some help with my sourdough starter.  Everything had been progressing nicely in the first few days, bubbling away well, growing within 4hrs of feeding.  Then, all of a sudden, it seems to have died off.  There are still some bubbles on the top, but there is no growing at all.  I've tried reducing the amount of starter, and feeding, but still nothing happening.Is it time to start over again?  I guess nothing lost but some flour and water! /nai: You’re actually progressing You’re actually progressing along a perfectly normal path.  Don’t give up, your starter is doing exactly what it supposed to be doing. For a more in-depth explanation of how a starter evolves from just wet flour to a thriving ecosystem of useful microorganisms, check out Debra Wink’s amazing articles, “The Pineapple Juice Solution (parts 1&2)”http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1 http://www.thefreshloaf.com/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2

/nhuman: Diagnosis please - Wonky Ovenspring Hi All,I'm struggling to get a consistent Ovenspring across my loaves and when I seem to get it right, it's more fortune than design.I've attached a picture of my most recent loaf.  Good spring on the right side but not the left.  Any thoughts from the Brainstrust?  What should i be looking to improve?  Scoring, Shaping, Bulk?  What might I try? /nai: My Guess i'm guessing it has more to do with shaping or scoring.  what does the crumb look like? consistent? large holes anywhere?the spring and ear look fine.the part that of the ear that is not opening up looks more attached to whats underneath for whatever reason.

/nhuman: Yeast from ginger? I've started brewing kombucha (another sheltering-in-place activity). When it's ready for bottling, I add flavoring, sometimes a little sugar syrup, then leave the sealed bottles at room temp for a couple of days so it gets fizzy.Whenever ginger is one of the flavorings, it makes a lot more fizz. Any idea why this would happen? Is there any wild yeast on ginger skin? /nai: I assume there is more wild I assume there is more wild yeast trapped in the wrinkly skin of ginger than let's say a grape. I know that when I add any citrus (lemon, lime, orange) to my kombucha, I get a lot more fizz too...maybe there are same or similar compounds. Maybe it has something to do with the fibers (essentially sugars).More important is that your bottles don't explode and you know which ingredient has which effect.

/nhuman: Tip - Extensible Dough via Nutritional Yeast and Fava Beans Lance, aka Albacore sent me THIS LINK after a discussion about increasing extensibility of bread dough. My mantra, "I'll try most things once" kicked in.The baker in the Instagram video used 4% Nutritional Yeast and 4% Fava Beans. I wasn't that brave so opted for 2% of each. What a phenomenal difference! I used the formula recommended by Alfanso for the Baguette Community Bake. It calls for 68% hydration and that is what was used. The short video below shows an extremely extensible dough that hopefully will enhance the shaping of baguettes. Keep in mind, in no way was this dough stretched to it’s limits. I am new to this ingredient and didn’t want to push it.Later handling of doughs with Nutritional Yeast reveals the following.it flavors the dough (you may or may not like that, I do)the dough doesn’t shrink back like normally expected during the shaping processthe length of the baguette does not shorten during the bakeamounts probably should be adjusted downward (needs more testing). Ditto for the Fava Bean.The short video is best viewed using THIS LINK.Ta-daaaah! Nutritional Yeast on left, Fava Beans on right. Danny /nai: This is such a coincidence, I This is such a coincidence, I just picked up nutritional yeast yesterday and was reading about its effect on gluten.  I didn’t buy it for that, but instead to season vegetarian meals with cheesey nutty flavour.

/nhuman: What went Wrong Hi! This is my first leaven sourdough, I made 2 using commercial yeast. I followed Chef Billy Parisi on YouTube. 5 folds, and kept overnight in the fridge. Baked for  30 mins coved, five mins without a lid ( gas oven super hot).  So what went wrong?  Screen Shot 2020-07-06 at 10.36.26 AM.png /nai: Most likely underproofed Most likely underproofed

/nhuman: How do you know when your dough is properly fermented during the bulk ferment? I'm super confused about how to know when a bread is properly fermented during the bulk ferment phase, before you put it in the fridge or shape it for baking. Thanks! /nai: There are many different There are many different variables that will shape the answer to your question, and without further information there’s not going to be a very good answer.  Some of these variables include (but are not limited to):The maturity and strength of your starterthe ambient temperature in your kitchenthe type and amount of flour you’re usingthe hydration level of the dough...The list goes on and on. However, there are a number of ways to make educated guesses based on technique and observation.  Some of these include (but are not limited to):Follow the chosen recipe and its included instructions precisely.  This includes monitoring temperatures, not making any additions/subtractions/substitutions, not adding or skipping steps, and sticking as closely as possible to the timing schedule set forth in the recipe.  If your starter is mature and strong, and you follow the directions in a recipe without making substitutions, your bulk ferment  should happen right on schedule.  Benito posted an excellent tip about using an aliquot jar.  Put a small amount of your dough into a small narrow container (think juice glass or empty prescription bottle).  Press it down, mark its level, then leave near your bulk fermenting dough.  When the dough in the jar has reached whatever percent rise your recipe asks for, so has your bulk ferment. I’m sure that many others will have more (and probably better) answers for you.  In the meantime, keep reading (knowledge is power).  Keep baking (practice makes perfect).  And keep on keepin’ on!

/nhuman: Making a dosa starter I've been reading about making Dosa batter and it sounds a lot like making sourdough, but lot of the instructions seem to be nonsense, similar to myths around sourdough (i.e. you have to mix the batter with your hands or it won't ferment etc). Does anyone have a methodical way of making these, and what's the recipe that you use? Is it possible to make a dosa "starter" that can be added to the next batch to speed up fermentation? /nai: dosa leavening What we do (my wife is South Indian FWIW) is pretty close to this recipe: https://www.feedyourtemptations.com/dosa-recipe-using-rice-flour/    It's left overnight in a warm place.The leavening microorganisms seem to ride along with the dal and rice (though that does not rule out the possibility more may come from other sources).  Best scientific paper I can find isS.K. Soni, D.K. Sandhu, K.S. Vilkhu, N. Kamra, "Microbiological studies on Dosa fermentation" Food Microbiology, Volume 3, Issue 1, 1986, Pages 45-53, ISSN 0740-0020,  https://doi.org/10.1016/S0740-0020(86)80025-9. It reports (48, 52) that "Rice contributed bacteria belonging to five genera similar to Leuconostoc, Streptococcus, Lactobacillus, Micrococcus and Bacillus and yeasts belonging to three genera, i.e., Saccharomyces, Debaryomyces and Trichosporon. Black gram [urad dal] yielded bacteria ... belonging to Leuconostoc, Enterobacter, Flavobacter, Bacillus, Lactobacillus, Streptococcus and yeasts Debaryomyces, Torulopsis, Kluyveromyces and Candida. These results support ...findings ...that the bacteria and yeasts needed for fermentation of idli are introduced by the two ingredients (rice and black gram). ...""... yeasts Saccharomyces, Debaryomyces, Trichosporon and Hansenula help in the degradation of starch into maltose and glucose by producing extracellular amylolytic enzymes which are utilized by developing microbial load. Bacteria along with some yeasts are mainly responsible for the production of acid and gas from simple sugars like glucose and maltose and thus account for its fall in pH and rise in volume with the progress in fermentation. ...  Leuconostoc mesenteroides and other acid producing bacteria mainly caused the acidification and leavening of the dosa batter while the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Debaryomyces hansenii improved the nutritional quality of the batter in terms of flavour, total proteins, amino acids, vitamins and enzymes (unpublished data). According to Mukherjee et al. (1965), Steinkraus et al. (1967), the acid and gas required for souring and the leavening action in the idli batter are produced exclusively by the activity of heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria Leuconostoc mesenteroides although there is a sequential change in the bacterial flora."More accessible, in both senses of the word, is this account:  http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sci-tech-and-agri/Idli-batter-fermentation/article15951210.ece  which also says bacteria are doing most of the work.  It sounds a lot like sourdough in that you are making a little habitat in which a bunch of microorganisms interact.  Family lore favors dal as the key source of leavening microorganisms and cautions against over-washing it before use.On ways to speed/regularize fermentation I found a couple of articles reporting good results from adding Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or brewer's yeast.

/nhuman: Looking for help Hello, there, I'm a new wannabe sourdough baker and a new member as of today. I've looked through several of the posts here, and so far I haven't found any references to the problems I'm having.First a little history. I started my starter (is that redundant yet?) in April, and it was slow starting. I didn't see any results for about three weeks. Finally, though, she (her name is Karina V. if you want to call her by name) began to look more lively, and is now very active. But--Now the problems. First off, I live in Mexico, and in searching for bread flour--even at China mart--has turned up more hen's teeth than what I was looking for. Likewise rye flour--visit a bread shop, and they always tell me that that other place probably has it, but that other place sends me to another place, with the same result. I've finally discovered an AP brand name that promises a whole 11% protein level, so I'm sticking with that for now.Now Karina is very consistent at doubling between feedings--usually about 8-10 hours in, but she has the consistency of a thin pancake batter when I feed at 1:1:1. So I'll feed a bit more flour (like 10:10:11 or 12), getting a thicker consistency, but once she's eaten all the goodness, she returns to the pancake batter stage. I do give her about 25% whole wheat from time to time as a little treatFloat test? Need a life preserver.What prompted me to search for this site is my umpteenth attempt yesterday. Karina had been resting in the fridge since her last feeding, so I pulled her out a few days ago to fatten her up with a few feedings, and yesterday seemed to be a good day to test her out on yet another "Even if you're a complete idiot, you can be successful with this recipe" video. Followed it to the letter, gram for gram and minute for minute, and was really optimistic even though putting the levain into the water would have required me to call the fire and rescue team to bring her up from the bottom. Then, after the second or third stretch and fold, things began to go south--like all the way to Antarctica. It lost its definition, began to be very sticky and loose, and wouldn't pass a windowpane test, so I gave it one more coil fold. Now, after spending the night in the fridge, that dough is resting in a loaf pan and hopefully rising for a normal boring loaf today.Sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to give as much information as possible. I'm sure a lot of experienced bakers out there are rolling their eyes and saying "paaaaah!" but I don't want to give up. Thanks for any help anybody can give me!edit: been reading other threads, and discovered everyone wants to know the ingredient list, so I thought I'd add this: Recipe called "Easy Sourdough Bread Recipe/Tartine Basic Country Bread" from The Regular Chef (here--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNzJLP61nnQ)Proof once again that "easy to do" is easy to say. /nai: Hi, Justin! One of the things Hi, Justin! One of the things that I have noticed about the plethora of videos about how “easy” sourdough is, is that almost all of them fail to mention that every kitchen, every starter,  even every bag of flour, is different.  It’s very common for two bakers, following the exact same schedule with the exact same ingredients to wind up with wildly different results, because in sourdough baking it’s the wild yeast cultures that set the schedule, and yeasts are notoriously bad at reading clocks.A few questions in regards to Karin/nai:what kind of ambient temperatures are you working with?What’s the water quality looking like?  Do you use tap or bottled water?  Is it treated in any way?how often do you feed her?how often do you feed her whole wheat, and how does she react when you do?

/nhuman: When has a starter peaked if doubling is not a telling sign? Dear all,after some recent misadventures with my starter and the following conversations on the forum, I came to question this idea of doubling in size as the ultimate sign of peaking. I use dark organic rye for my starter and indeed the mixture even at 100% hydration is very solid. In a small/tall jar, it makes sense that the starter would be firm enough to stay up even past its peak time. Similarly, on the opposite side of the spectrum, when I tried AP to make a starter it was very liquid and never doubled, even tho it had lots of bubbles throughout, but with nothing to trap them that shouldn't have been a surprise.So, if doubling is not a sign of peaking, how do I tell when my starter is ready? I often do the float test and even what I think may have been past-peak starter still passed it. Also saying that it'll be peaked at X time seems weird, how do you know that time to start with?thank you in advance for any insight, /nai: Hi Spikes, your observations Hi Spikes, your observations are correct. Different flour or grain, hydrations, protein, and even kneading the dough at lower hydrations will greatly affect the percentage of rise.Doubling is not a goal. It is the minimum amount of rise generally considered ample for the strength of a starter to be able to raise a dough.Generally, and there are some exceptions, a starter has matured (for that feed cycle) once it has reached it’s highest height and has just begun to fall.If you are willing to try this, it will be informative, both for you and also any troubleshooters.Take 10 grams of your matured starter (keep the original one going) and mix it thoroughly with 30 grams of water. Once the starter is fully incorporated into the water add 50 grams of white flour. Knead the dough by hand until the gluten is developed. Put it in a relatively narrow and tall clear container and push the dough down until it is reasonably level. Mark the time and the level. Be sure to measure the temperature in the room. If possible, every few hours mark the time and the level of the starter. A warm temperature of ~78-82F will speed things up. Do this until the starter begins to fall below the highest mark. Once this is complete take a closeup image of the starter and the markings. Post it and we’ll have enough details to make suggestion, comment on the starter’s strength, etc..Danny

/nhuman: understanding feeding ratios and timings - what are the principles of a starter's growth? Dear all,I've been reading up to try and understand the behavior of my starter, but I'm still largely confused, especially given the large number of different feeding routines and ratios.So if you can, please indulge me in this story for a second and point out what I'm missing/got wrong.When flour and water are mixed they will collect bacteria along the way from the environment (or things added to the mix like pineapple juice of fruit skins) and start to build yeasts and lactobacillus. In the process CO2 will be produced, a tangy taste will be developed and another bunch of chemical processes will happen, but the CO2 and the taste are what I am, maybe ignorantly, most concerned about.Most schedules to create a starter I've seen involve the same 3 steps:- add flour + water, stir- some time later, often 24hrs, take some out and add more flour/waterI really disliked all the throwing away and I couldn't bear to also work out baking discards, so I didn't do anything until I found someone who simply added 20g/20g FW every day for 7 days or so and, surprise surprise, in a week I got a starter going that would double in ~6hrs.Already there I was pretty confused: why is the entire world throwing away all that flour when just adding a little bit a a time works just fine?One thought is that maybe that starter wasn't so great and that was partly the reason of a my not so great raising, but that's for another post.And what's up with this magical 24hrs?Then it comes to maintenance/feeding schedule: in principle the idea is very simple I know, those bacterias become hungry once they're done eating all the flour and need more or they'll starve. But why are we sometimes feeding it 1:1:1 ratio rather than 1:5:5? or 1:2:2? what's the point of different proportions?Is more flour going to last longer slowing the raise period? This makes no sense if doubling is the point, because if the yeast ate even half of it, or its equal in weight, it would cause probably enough raise to look doubled. Or is it that since there's more flour more bacteria are attracted into the mix because of the surplus, making the starter stronger?To make matter more complicated there's also the idea of mixing an already raised starter for a second raise. Yeast being stationary it may not be able to reach all the flour that was added, especially if the ratio was some crazy 1:10:10, and indeed I got an incredible 2nd raise when I did this myself. Is this indeed making my culture stronger since I don't dilute the mix with more flour/water and if so why isn't it a basic step in all those feeding schedules or even levain build-up processes? And when it comes to strength, why isn't a crazy ration such as 1:10:10 just gonna dilute the starter and make it weak?thank you so much if you got all the way here I look forward to your insights and be a little less ignorant about sourdough starter. /nai: When you don't know how to do When you don't know how to do something these days, you get on YouTube and look for instruction. Most of those instructions are based on 1 theory that everyone jumps on and repeats, over and over again. A basic marketing tactic is you repeat something often enough and folks will start to believe it. Not that it won't work, but it may not be the most efficient way to go about something. Nothing magical in the first 24 hrs, just the start of a process. Bugs are populating, not the bugs we want, but things are happening - an environment is beginning to form that will benefit the good bugs (labs) and good fungus (yeast). Just go with it, it'll figure itself out in time.More food lasts longer - ie you don't have to feed as often. Bugs can come from both environment and flour. Once a starter is active it has to eat, just like us, so we add more flour. This can add more bugs, but is more about having and keeping healthy bugs, which will be strong and will reproduce.Why isn't stirring considered a necessary step - no-one thought of it - and no-one took the time to experiment - except me of course. And you don't really need to, it doesn't hurt, and can give some interesting data.High feed ratios will dilute the starter - and here's the rub - for a period of time. How long depends on how healthy and active a starter is. Yes, you can feed a 111 ratio - if you want to feed 2-3 times a day. Now I'm all about efficiency, I'm also a lazy sot who spends 8+ hrs a day at the golf course and like most busy people don't have or want to spend that much time adding flour to a jar, so we add a lot every few days. The bugs will eat, grow, and populate however much food is added - just a matter of when it'll use up all that food - which brings us to the fridge where cool temps slow everything down allowing a feed to last much much longer (hint hint).Don't take this the wrong way, but I read this and just see a lack of understanding about a starter - what it is and does. Here's the skinny - a starter is a medium which contain bugs (lab) and fungus (yeast). Our friends are live and need food to live and reproduce. We add food (flour - and other things in some cases) to keep them happy ie alive and uh ready to reproduce. Last - this process tends to only be as complicated as you make it and as I like to say - there's never a need to make things any more complicated than they already are. The KISS principle goes a long way in bread making. And I gotta go hit a few hundred golf balls! Enjoy!Ps - I'm sure you'll have a lot more questions so keep them here. The replies may become good references.

/nhuman: Tartine Boule - Overfermented or Shaping? Sourdough has been my lockdown saviour!I’m striving for the perfect loaf and recently fashioned a homemade proof box so I can regulate temperature. Since commissioning the proof box, my loaves have been over fermented, I think.Here is my latest loaf, your opinions are welcome. My diagnosis is either over fermentation or shaping issues or both.Recipe900g Bread Flour100g Fine ground whole wheat750g Water20g Salt200g LevainJuly 4th12 midnight Prepped levain  - 150g bread flour, 150 water, 15g starter, 65F July 5th7.15am Levain 20% increase. Failed float test. Increased temp of proof box7.45am passed float test. 8am Prepped fermentalyse 8.45am Added salt and water 74.5F9.20am First S+F 76F9.50am Second S+F 78F10.15am Third S+F10.50am Fourth S+F Good windowpane test 79.2F11.15am Fifth S+F12.30 Dough approx 15 - 20% increase - preshape1pm Final shapeCold retard in fridge  July 6th8.30am Bake12.30am Eat for lunch. Bread is v tasty, no dense ness. /nai: Possibly a shaping issue Hey Mags16,Thanks for sharing your Tartine boule! Looks pretty great. I'm going to guess based on your description that those larger holes are a shaping issue and not over-fermentation. I'm not an expert on over/under fermentation, but based on the look of your crumb (it doesn't look tight or gummy), I would bet that it is not over-fermented. So shaping would be the likely cause of the larger holes in my opinion. Again, I'm not an expert, just my thoughts! Thanks for sharing.Also, I'll include two links down below. The first is how I typically shape sourdough boules, and the second is my tutorial for the standard Tartine recipe. I think you've already got that part nailed down, but just thought I might share it.Best,GrantHow I shape sourdough boulesMy Tartine Bread tutorial

/nhuman: Why would you build a levain differently from your starter? The most obvious answer is to build up a different taste profile. But...1. The levain is only a small portion of the total dough formula. Can you really tase the difference if you build it up from different flours?2. My understanding is that feeding a starter a different flour mix than what it's "used to" can hinder its strength. This can adversely affect the bread, right? /nai: Same questions Hope this thread gets revived because I've been wondering these same things for forever.

/nhuman: Seed Culture Troubleshooting Hi Everyone,I'm Jessica and I'm new here on the forum. I was hoping some of you could help me figure out if my starter just needs more time or if I scrap it and start all over. I've looked through some of the other sourdough forum discussions, but I could still use a little help to figure this out.I started a seed culture 6 days ago using Ken Forkish's instructions. I've also consulted Peter Reinhart's books too to troubleshoot. I used King Arthurs whole wheat flour and filtered water around 90 degrees F, according to Forkish's book. The temps in my house are around 78-81 F degrees. I've used whole wheat each day for feeding. I started the culture and have fed it in the mornings. In Forkish's book you are supposed to leave the starter uncovered for the first two hours and then cover it until the next morning. So, that is what I've done each day.Day 1: Doubled in size by the late evening, lots of bubbles (very gassy) smells the way Forkish described (leathery). Day 2: Doubled in size by the end of the day (which Forkish said would happen), bubbly and gassy, leathery smell again (Forkish said it would be more of a sour smell at this point, which did not happen)Day 3: When I woke up in the morning the culture that had doubled in size on Day 2 actually fell and turned into more of a pancake batter consistency, not too many bubbles, but still a leathery smell. I used a portion of the starter and added the same amount of whole wheat and water as before. Day 4: Starter did not rise and still had the consistency of pancake batter. So I added the whole wheat flour and less water. Day 5: I didn't do anything. Let the starter breathe a few times and then kept it covered.Day 6: (Today): Still jas not risen and there are no bubbles. I opened up the container, left it air for a while and then decided to keep 1 cup of starter and add 1 cup King Arthur Bread Flour and water according to Reinhart. What happened after Day 3? Why did the starter fall and lose its gassiness and become more of a pancake batter consistency? Should I have just started over or was it ok to use this starter and continue to feed according to the schedule?Any help is much appreciated. Thanks! /nai: Pretty normal so far. Right Pretty normal so far. Right now it's in the process of turning acidic, which helps the yeast. Initial activity most likely due to bacteria we don't want, but that's how it all starts. I would cut back on feeding - we feed when there's activity, no activity, no real need for food. At this stage too much food or too often can dilute things slowing down the process. Just a note - if using volume (you mentioned cups), water is about twice as heavy as flour by volume, so you'd probably want to use 1/2 cup water to 1 cup flour. Things will thicken up and make it easier to see a rise and bubbles. Many start to question the process at this point (mostly cuz things aren't happening exactly the same as it said in the book/recipe/video) and call it quits and start another - only to reach this same point again. If I don't see anything good in 3 weeks, I start over. A week is just to get things started, the best is yet to come. Enjoy!

/nhuman: Requesting further diagnosis... Hello again!First of all I would like to thank the community for the input on my last post here - lots of very helpful information for me to go away and experiment with. I wanted to revisit as I've made significant progress since that bake but I still find the loaf lacking.I can now get decent rise / oven spring, a decent ear, and pretty good colour and flavour. But the crumb is still very far from where I want it to be. Large, inconsistent holes with dense crumb everywhere else (but at least no fool's crumb now). Is this still a bulk fermentation problem? I feel like I'm better at spotting when it's significantly increased in size, but maybe I'm still ending this stage too early. I'm using Maurizio's "Beginner's Sourdough Bread" recipe & method.Thank you all, again!Dan 20200705_113559.jpg 20200705_113604.jpg /nai: Looks underfermented... to me...I have not seen your previous post but the loaf needs more fermentation I think.Could be the starter or bulk...hard to tell without knowing your process...Kat

/nhuman: More sour. Sour-er. I have been experimenting with larger preferments to increase the sour in my baked loaves. I am making dough this morning using a 1/3 preferment by weight, from starter (no yeast).All other things being equal, what is the trade-off in the finished loaf when using such a large preferment? Gluten deterioration?Just wondering. It definitely increased the sour, which I like.Thanks and best wishes. Dave /nai: mutliple cat skinning methods. Ah,... the ol' more-sour less-sour discussion.Here's my favorite summary of the topic: https://truesourdough.com/18-ways-to-make-sourdough-bread-more-or-less-sour/Bookmark-able.Bon appétit.

/nhuman: What did I do wrong? Hi - I tried to make a no knead sourdough and it didn't turn out right.  I could tell it was going to go wrong because it was hard to shape, but wasn't sure whether it was under or over proofed.Day 1: I'm confident with my starter, it is made from Medium Atta/chappatti flour which is a blend of wholemeal flour and soft white flour.  It is 100% hydration, it bubbled up nicely, I used it just past its peak and it floated.I used 150g starter, 350g room temp water and 500g strong white bread flour, so 74% hydration.  I mixed this and left it for an hour, covered, room temp (I'm in London, it's quite hot at the moment).  Then I added 11g salt and mixed that in, covered with a tea towel and put it in the fridge for 18 hours.  Day 2: Bulk fermentation - I folded it 3 times, resting it for 30 mins each time, at room temperature, pictures are attached, it stayed sticky each time.  The dough did get a bit smoother each time, but not completely smooth / domed.  It did rise a bit and I could see small holes through the side of my bowl.   20200622_140634.jpg I tried to shape it, gave it a 10 minute bench rest, but it was very sticky and couldn't be shaped (I ended up using a fair amount of flour, but it stayed sticky).  So I thought it needed more bulk fermentation, I folded it a few more times, as above.  After 3 hours, it was still sticky but I was worried about over proving so I put it in to my banneton (essentially scraping it into my banneton, it still couldn't be shaped but was slightly firmer than before).I put it in the fridge, covered, for 8 hours and it did rise, picture attached where it is spilling out of the top (my banneton is 27cm x 13cm x 6cm, I'm not sure what weight dough it is meant to hold), but it was quite flat, it did not dome, it had quite big holes towards the top, and seemed quite unstable.  It didn't dome nicely and then begin to flatten, it just rose quite flatly in the first place, I guess because I hadn't shaped it and created any tension.  I tried to do the finger test and the indentation seemed to stay permanently.  (I dusted it with cornmeal to stop it sticking, that's what is on the top.) 20200623_000543.jpg I turned the dough out and it completely flattened so I thought it might need longer to prove and build the gluten so I gathered it back together (it was a bit firmer) and put it back in the banneton and fridge for 5 hours.Day 3: It had risen, picture attached, but not spilling over the top.  It was still not domed and seemed quite flat, and I could see little holes towards the top. 20200623_025346.jpg I turned it out, it spread quite quickly, I couldn't really slash it (but that might be because I don't have a lame, I used a pizza cutter - but the slash was better than the first time I turned it out and tried to slash it).  I baked it in a dutch oven (and I have baked yeasted bread in a dutch oven before so I don't think that was the issue).   20200623_101446.jpg The final product is obviously quite flat and not very holey, the bread was a bit gummy (I did let it mostly cool down but got a bit impatient after 50 mins and cut one end, not down the middle, so I don't know if it would have been gummy anyway - I feel like it would).  The flavour is nice, has a tang, and the crust is good, but the issue is the texture / size. 20200623_112902.jpg Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!Thanks. /nai: Time & Temps Your dough was substantially over-fermented.  Its spilling over the side of your banneton is the giveaway.  It should have risen just short of the top by baking time. Typical causes of over-fermentation are, (1) using too much starter, (2) fermenting dough at too high a temperature or, (3) fermenting dough for too long. Typical amounts of prefermented flour are 10-20% for sourdough loaves and your using 75 g starter flour for 500 g of flour is in line with that. You do not mention specific temperatures at any point in your narrative aside from a brief London weather report.  I suspect your "room temperature" was pretty warm.  Pay close attention to temperature.  78˚F (25˚C) is a typical dough fermentation temperature.You don't describe how you mixed your dough.  White flour dough at 74% hydration can be challenging for beginners to handle.  Warm London weather is humid weather, which can make 74% hydration feel and act like 84%.  You could give yourself a break and lower that hydration to, say, 70%.  I highly recommend french folding at mixing time to develop early dough strength.Your timings are long for hot London day.  Three hours of bulk fermentation, assuming above temperatures, is long if a fridge retard is to follow.  And high ambient humidity exacerbates the effects of a hot kitchen. When you shape and settle your dough into the banneton, its surface should be a 1-3 cm below the rim (lay a straightedge across the top to measure).  After a cold retard, it should barely have risen --  driven only by the dissipating warmth the dough carried with it into the refrigerator, which should be little for a 500 g loaf but can be substantial if the "room temperature" it came from was high.  When it finally equilibrates to refrigerator temperature, yeast become inactive and rising stops.It would help readers to know whose/what published formula and process you are working from.So try to "under-ferment" your dough next time.Tom

/nhuman: My Starter seems to have crashed! I've had great success with my starter that's a few months old. I've been using a small amount of starter in a jar and would mix 1:5:5 into it the night before to create a levain (50/50 wh. Wheat/White flour) of ~200 ml for use the morning after.But last night, I used 50/50 rye/white flour, and got no appreciable rise or volume increase overnight. It looks like a batter, as if I were creating a new starter from scratch again. Very disappointing and I'm not sure what happened or what to do. I may just let it rest overnight a second night. I may also take a small amount off and feed it 1:3:3, creating an offshoot.Thoughts on what happened? Thanks. /nai: Temp? What is the complete feeding schedule?  :)

/nhuman: Help with lievito madre/pasta madre not tripling Hello - I've recently been having trouble with my pasta madre for making panettone. I initially converted it from a very active 100% hydration starter to a 40% stiff starter and it was great, easily tripling in volume in 4 hours but more recently it just hasn't been growing as much. It probably doubles but then stops. I do the refreshment by mixing 50g starter, 50g flour and 20g water and kneading until smooth and bouncy, then roll into a ball and cut a cross. The cross used to fully open out but now it doesn't - it expands a bit but doesn't fully rise up, even though I'm keeping it at 28°CI've tried both vacuum sealing it overnight to simulate the "binding" that you sometimes see, or putting it in a cold water bath overnight. And also tried the bagnetto sweet water bath in the morning. However none of these seem to make a difference at all. Does anyone have any advice on how I can diagnose what's going wrong? There seems to be so much different advice out there that it's hard to tell what exactly is wrong. Probably worth saying I did manage to make a panettone with this madre recently, but the first dough took much longer than expected to rise and the final product I didn't get much oven spring (the top is almost completely flat). /nai: I am in exactly the same I am in exactly the same position and it is Christmas the day after tomorrow.. Sucks

/nhuman: hole HI thereCan anyone tell me what i can do about this hole in my loaf which is now final proofing?  I tried to pinch it close but it's still there.  Just leave it?? /nai: LOL. this didnt get back to LOL. this didnt get back to you in time for the bake.. but that's either from an air bubble or from some dry flour. either pinching or leaving it is perfectly fine.  that's going to be the bottom of your loaf anyways. gravity and expansion will take care of it.you can always use slightly wet hands to take out/fix imperfections in sticky dough. or use lightly floured hands to fix the top side after you flip it if you must.

/nhuman: Non homogenous sourdough crumb IMG_20200703_072310.jpg So this was a 80% hydration loaf with 20%ww/80% bread flour, and at 20% inoculation and 2% salt. Bulk fermented at about 76F for around 5.5h, doing 1 s&f, 1 lamination, and 3 coils. Preshaped and shaped and retarded 20h at around 40F. Baked at 425F covered 25 min, and at 400F convection uncovered. What I'm curious about is the present of these dense bands amongst the more open crumb. I see decent oven spring and a nicely browned crust. However crumb is also a little gummy. Anyonehas any insights into what the issue I'd withhe uneven crumb? Thanks! /nai: Well, I believe many wouldn't Well, I believe many wouldn't see an issue here. Uneven distribution of different sized holes is supposed to be a good thing - and you have a very good example of that. What exactly were you looking for in the crumb?

/nhuman: My Starter Smells Like Acetone My starter is 7 weeks old. I've had this issue for a few weeks. I know this is because it's underfed but I can't seem to fix it. it's very active. It rises and fall, and has lots of bubbles. I had another post on here and someone said to 1:1.5:2 (starter:water:flour) once a day. I have been doing that by the next morning the smell is back. it does seem to be a bit better but still noticeable. It's never passed a float test and doing this method the starter is very very sticky and thick. What do I need to do to get ready for baking? I assume I shouldn't bake with it smelling like that. Once I fix the smell how long until I can move it to the refrigerator and feed it weekly? any information about that part of the process would also be awesome. Thanks in advance /nai: i'm not sure i know the smell i'm not sure i know the smell of acetone. but it's probably alcohol that you smell. a byproduct of the fermentation. it means that your starter is ripe.  if you taste it, it should be acidic too.i usually do a 2:5:5 feed with rye flour and it takes about 16 hours to smell really strong.  i'll bake with it anywhere between 10 - 16 hours.    1:1.5:2 you may need to feed every 12 hours if its warm.  (and the 1.5 : 2 throws off your ratio.  it's not 100% hydration that most recipes look for.)if your starter doubles in volume but does not float, you should be ok. just dont let it get too acidic.

/nhuman: Sourdough Jewish Rye After a couple of weeks of struggling with bakes, this one came together really nicely :-)- 267g King Arthur 'Sir Lancelot' bread flour (66.6%)- 133g Castle Valley Mill Whole rye flour (33.3%)- 260g + 40g water (75%)- 8g salt (2%)- 8g caraway seeds (2%)- 80g active rye starter4 hour bulk ferment with a lamination and four stretch & folds, 12 hour fridge proof in the banneton, baked @550F for 15 mins (cover on), reduced heat to 475F for another 15 (lid on), and finished at 475F for another 15 (lid off).Turned it into a corned beef sandwich :-) /nai: This looks lovely. I keep This looks lovely. I keep meaning to make a rye bread as it's my favorite and a big order of berries arrived, so I should just go to it!

/nhuman: Changes in Fermentation Times Hello Everyone,I'm writing to see if anyone has found changes in flour brands have affected fermentation times.  Over the past week I've noticed my fermentation times have increased by 3 - 4 hours.  I recently bought a new brand of whole wheat flour that I suspect may be the reason.  It's the only change to the process I can think of.I ferment at a constant 78^f - 80^f.  Usually I can set my watch by my levain's "float test" at 4 hours.  If not the flour change, does anyone have any idea why my fermentation time would suddenly nearly double? /nai: I have experienced changes I have experienced changes based on different flours types, but not by 3-4 hours.  Maybe try letting your levain go for longer? I've noticed that not all levains that past the float test are equally as active.  Letting yours go for longer might make it more active.  Just a thought.

/nhuman: Beginners: Video on Bulk Fermentation (Awesome!) I wish this video had been around when I was a clueless beginner! I won’t be a bit surprised if others have mentioned it—or if it was created by a well known member here. Forgive me if so, it’s been a long time since I posted here. It’s everything you always wanted to do know about bulk fermentation and then some. https://youtu.be/nYCS5BFA_sMThis video answers so many questions I had that people here tried so hard to answer and I just didn’t quite get. Not just what bulk fermentation is and how to know when your dough is under/over proofed (or just right), but also why sourdough recipes vary wildly in how long the fermentation is, or how much the bread should rise, and why you can’t play around with the recipe until you know what you’re doing. Hope it helps all the newbies out there. It’s long, but pretty much a “master class” on the subject. /nai: This guy is great!  He's got This guy is great!  He's got a series of videos as you probably know already.

/nhuman: Sourdough starter no longer raising Dear all,first time poster here so let me take the opportunity to thank you all for the incredible help I've received from this forum already.A month and 2 days ago I began my sourdough journey. I got a starter going and to my surprise it worked really well on a first try (Rye flour, 100% hydration). Back then kitchen temp was 21-25C / 68-77F , I'd retain 10g starter and feed it 30/30 for a 60g starter to use in a 300g mix (I try to bake daily for my parents and one small loaf is enough for them). I feed it once a day in the morning 8am and start mixing in the afternoon at ~2pm, done baking by night so that bread has properly cooled and is ready for the next day. At some point I started baking larger loaves for two days at a time and changed the feeding to 20/50/50, but same schedule and same results.This worked really well, almost too well at times, with starter tripling within 6hrs and passing the float test no problem. Loaves came out ok every time, altho I think I could have gotten more oven spring, but that's a problem for another time.The issue I'd like some help with is that a week and a half ago I went two days without feeding the starter (it stayed on the kitchen counter) and things went sour from there :P. I assumed that I'd need maybe two days to bring it back up, but no matter what I tried, it raised, even with quite a few bubbles, but never in the same amount of time. Coincidentally the temperature also changed and shoot up to 30C/86F, however if anything I'd expected this to make it raise faster, but what I'm observing is the exact opposite. In desperation, thinking maybe it was a lost cause, I just used it all into a tasty but very flat loaf and took out some of the initial one from the fridge.I took it out yesterday morning, took 10g, fed it 30/30 (tap water, didn't warm it up at 35g as usual given high kitchen temp) and within 12hrs it had doubled nicely. Since it seemed so promising last night I fed 20/50/50 to see if I could bake this morning, however it's only now, at the 12hrs mark, that it's finally doubling.Based on everything I've read this isn't right and the doubling should occur within 5hrs, especially at this temperature. The starter looks great to me, tho, see picture. What am I doing wrong? does this simply mean that the starter isn't strong enough? should I just take 10g out and repeat the 50/50 feed?My big doubt is that I did that with the one I had forgotten out, did that for an entire week, and it never came back. In contrast in a week I had a perfectly working starter when I began from scratch, it doesn't seem right that it takes longer to revive a sleepy starter than making a new one.what am I missing?thanks again for all your help, /nai: first off is your rye flour first off is your rye flour dark rye and organic? dark rye uses the full grain and has lots more nutrients so more food for the yeast.Next feed it a higher ratio when its at its highest point or just dropping for a few days regardless if using, wait for it to be at its peak then just remove most, leaving 10/20g or so then add 50g of flour and 50ml of water again, repeat this for a few days, this should help it keep really active and pack it full of yeast and bacteria.Water can also play a part, are you using tap water and is it chlorinated? try boiling a kettle and pouring off the water and leaving it for a day or 2 so it can evaporate the chlorine then use that to feed.

/nhuman: New Bake in Progress! So, armed with the things I learned from my first loaf last week, I have started my next loaf this morning. I am using the Beginner’s Sourdough Bread recipe from The Perfect Loaf.  I am trying to stick closer to the recipe, and so far everything is going smoothly.  On my trip to our local Walmart yesterday, I was thrilled when I found whole wheat flour, so now no need to try to substitute something that the recipe wasn’t designed for ?I just mixed my flour/water to autolyse.  Last time, as I started mixing, I thought “there’s no way this is wet enough.  Look at all of that dry crumbly stuff in the bottom!”, and then I added the water that the recipe had told me to reserve.  This time, when I saw the dry crumbly stuff in the bottom, I decided to just keep mixing.  Lo and behold, it all came together!  So now I have a glob of dough that is firm yet soft, sticky but not gloopy.  I think I can safely say that I have officially learned a lesson, and I’m only just getting started on round 2! I’m going to document my moves here as I go.  It’s time to go mix my autolyse and my levain.  Wish me luck! /nai: The “Mix” portion of the The “Mix” portion of the recipe went well.  I did add the reserved water, just a splash at a time, in order to help incorporate the salt.  Even with the added water, the dough remained quite easy to handle, although it is a good bit stickier.  I expect that to not be an issue, as I’m sure the flour will continue to absorb moisture as it waits for the first set of stretch&folds. This recipe calls for 3 sets of stretch&folds, 4 folds per set, spaced at half hour intervals.  Last time, I did extra folds with each set, and I did extra sets, since the dough was so slack.  It just felt like it was going to be a puddle, and not come together.  This time, I intend to do the stretch&folds exactly as the recipe states.

/nhuman: One base starter vs. many Hello, I have one starter that I turn into various leavens by adding different flours according to recipes, but I also know of bakers who maintain multiple starters (1 whole wheat, 1 bread flour, 1 rye, etc.). Most home bakers have limited room in the fridge, and I'm guessing 1 base starter is most common, but I'm wondering what the trade-offs are here. I love my mother... do I need more than one? Thanks! /nai: Several starters I maintain a couple starters: one with a mix of AP/WW/Rye and one all AP.  I find it is quicker and easier to use the AP one for pizza dough and focaccia without having to 'convert' a single WW starter, over several days, to a recipe that is mostly if not all AP/bread flour.  The WW starter I use for my everyday sourdough and for other recipes that call for levains that aren't 100% AP.  I usually only keep small maintenance starters for each in the fridge, so I don't have a problem with storage space--the difference between one and two small jars isn't significant for me.