Second, mix the dough using a previously fed, active and bubbly sourdough starter, water and a mixture of bread and whole wheat flour. Required fields are marked *. This allows the gluten to start to develop on its own before any kneading. A dough scraper is your best friend when handling any kind of dough. BAKE YOUR SOURDOUGH Preheat your oven to 450F (230C) half an hour before the end of proving. It really is a delicate balance to ensure that the yeast have consumed enough of their food to produce those beautiful pockets of air - but not too much so they can still provide oven spring at baking time. The bread is heavy, hasn't puffed up in the oven and has a moist, dense texture inside. if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'crustylabs_com-leader-1','ezslot_6',124,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-crustylabs_com-leader-1-0');The table below is extracted from Jeffrey Hammelmans Bread Book that shows the relative mixing time between different mixers and hand mixing to develop the same dough to the same strength. Shape into batards. I wouldn't reduce temperature, but rather increase baking time. PROBLEM - Base of my sourdough bread is thick and chewy. I love adding cornmeal, both for flavor and texture, into my bread doughs: One reason why people add too much flour and mix it in is to try to get the dough more manageable. What is a Pate Fermentee? The difference between wet dough being successful and wet dough being a big sloppy mess is dough strength. We can use the mixing time below as a sanity check to determine if we have indeed under mixed or over mixed our dough; if you fall way out from the range in the table, increase or decrease mixing time to stay within these guidelines. PROBLEM - Pale crust hasn't browned. You can try to fix things like high humidity in your house or waiting until the kitchen has warmed to room temperature before getting to work. If you are doing decorative scoring, it's still advisable to have one "utility" score and then your more shallow, decorative scoring. no one but me would notice or care). The only issue with this is that the oil will mix in with the dough and alter the flavor, so dont use a type of oil you dont want to risk tasting in the end product.Some people suggest waiting for dough to rise. Place a small oven-safe cooking pot (6x6-inches) with a metal lid into the oven and preheat to 450 F. Gently place dough with parchment paper into the pot. Sourdough Bread | The Splendid Table Being slow or having any hesitation can lead to the dough adhering to something it shouldnt, which would make your life a lot more difficult. The dough will be sticky and doesn't quite form a ball. Pate Fermentee VS Poolish VS Biga VS Sourdough Starter. Basic sourdough bread | Sourdough Recipe | BakeClub Start taking internal temp at 45 min total time, and then allow 7 or 8 minutes for every degree it needs to come up. Alternatively, you'll need to adjust the amount of starter in your dough to suit the temperature of your kitchen. Maybe tomorrow but it can also be the day after tomorrow. It might be that your sourdough is too sticky because there is insufficient gluten development. If your kitchen is too warm, the dough can become a sloppy, wet mess. Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.Thanks!Jeff. Similarly, the reason we use baking parchment paper when baking is to minimize the use of additional flour in the baking process. The average total mixing time when using a spiral mixer is around 6 minutes of total mixing (includes first speed mixing time and second speed mixing time). Youll find that the dough sticks much less and youll have a better time shaping it. The recipe technically calls to bake the bread in a preheated dutch oven (I use a casserole dish because I don't own a dutch oven), but the dough is so sticky that if I preheat the dish and transfer the dough to it once it's preheated, I find that the dough deflates and I get a flat loaf. This will give the sourdough a chance to find new pockets of sugars and starches to consume. Gluten development is strengthened by adding salt to your dough, so don't forget to do this! Bread Baking Tools A Must Have For Any Baker, Learn how to make bread and pizza with this, Why Did My Quick Bread Not Rise? Mix everything together. Always ensure that youre using the right techniques for your sourdough to build the most gluten. Rest for 30 minutes @76F. This makes it easier to handle. Dont try traditional kneading techniques like punch and turn with moist sourdough. Step 1 - My starter is at 125% hydration. SOLUTION - Tunnels can have a few solutions: PROBLEM - My sourdough isn't cooked all the way through. Dough made with a young sourdough starter just won't develop. The problem here is, there's not a lot you can do with over fermented dough. Heres What To Do. Bread doesn't rise when baked. 30g flour (in this case I'm using 15g organic rye flour and 15g organic white flour) 30g water (preferably filtered and room temperature - not straight from the tap) Weigh the flour and water, and combine them in the container. This is the sourdough baking course you need if you are just starting out in sourdough bread baking. Though my guess is, that if you are getting the internal final temp to 211 F (even 210 F is usually good enough even for a mostly whole grain loaf)and it's still gummy, then your hydration was too high to start with. Levain hand-mixed, Rubaud style, for 5 minutes. Day 1 - The Start. Loaf In a small mixing bowl, mix the flour and salt together thoroughly. Your guide to solving sourdough bread problems. Factors like temperature, humidity, air pressure and elevation play a role here. Often the bottom of your sourdough is burning. I am constantly baking hockey pucks! A tell tale sign that you haven't let your bread cool properly is having a "sticky" knife when you remove it from your bread. If baking in a pre-heated oven, turn on the oven to at least 200C/392F, once heated, add two big glasses of water to a dish on the bottom shelf 10 Pieces 5 Inch Bread Banneton Proofing Basket Round Dough Sourdough Many thanks for this. Extend your bulk fermentation time. 310-330 . We performed up to 6 sets of stretch and fold during the first two hours of fermentation before leaving it to bulk ferment for the next two hours. Bread needs gluten development in order to trap gas and rise, but this also helps the dough to become less sticky. If youre going from low hydration (60-65%) bread dough to a sourdough (65-80%) hydration, youre most probably not going to know how to handle it properly. Perhaps your sourdough is too sticky when you start working with it. Sourdough made with bread flour can take up to 6 hours to cool properly. But what if your dough is really wet and sticky and you just can't do anything with it? Thanks!! 8 oz active sourdough starter, 12 oz warm water, 5 oz rye flour, 12 oz bread flour. I've written a full guide to why sourdough deflates after scoring here. More noticeable sour taste, possibly unpleasant. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. It can be a mixture of rye and wheat or just rye. Always taste the mix to be sure that salt has been added before mixing. During shaping, we want to wet our hands to prevent the dough from sticking to it. Place the lid on and bake for 30 minutes. Then the dough cannot stick to the surface. . After toiling through many failures, I finally reached a level of consistency that I can be proud of - it is amazing the intricacy that is required to produce a great bake. 1. Plastic and metal dough scrapers are useful tools and both have their own pros and cons. Thanks @Barryval and @ifs201! It's really important to develop the gluten in your sourdough to ensure you don't end up with a wet and sticky mess. The usual choice of flour for dusting includes bread flour, rice flour, semolina; all these flour works just as well for preventing sourdough from sticking. Now it is the sourdough starter or its use that is suspect. A hollow sound indicates that it's cooked. Set aside. Third, mix in the soaker, mixing and incorporating the grains and seeds into . Bake in a preheated 425F oven for about 45 minutes, until bread tests done. Add the sugar and salt. Some doughs are sticker than others because of the type of flour. These need to be done without hesitation. Why Your Bread Dough is Stick and how to Fix it Easily Ensure that your dough is well fermented prior to shaping. However under fermented dough will not cook all the way through, so this sourdough bread problem can have a deeper cause. When the percentage of damaged starch particles in flour exceeds 10%, your dough will become wetter and stickier over time. After sourdough fermentation, the lactic acid bacteria produce acetaldehyde. The strength of your dough should build as you perform stretches and folds. It's a good thing for bread dough, but it also means that it makes the mess you're attempting to clean up extra sticky and impossible to clean up . The more gluten it contains, the better it holds together. Hi, I'm Kate! Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Its like an extension to your hand and can be used to improve your technique with the dough. This is when you let the dough rest after it is mixed but before you start to knead it. The bacteria on the other hand create a sour taste and ferment the bread. Preheat the oven to 230C fan/456F/gas mark 8 with a baking stone on the middle shelf and a deep tray on the bottom. Cranberry Orange Sourdough Bread Carefully make it round again pushing the seams underneath. The dough was definitely NOT underproofed - I'd recently been overproofing and this particular bake was, if anything, still a little over. It will give you a better understanding of what you can do when it comes to handling your dough at different stages. Avoid using cake or pastry flour for dusting as it contains a higher starch content and tends to lump up more than bread, rice or semolina flour. Place in bannetons. Cover and let the dough double in size, about 12 to 16 hours. Lets look at some of the common problems with sourdough bread and how to deal with them. So 180 grams would mean 80 grams of flour and 100 grams of water (because 80 x 1.25 = 100 grams; see above section for calculations) Step 2 - The recipe contains 600 grams flour and 360 grams water. Place a long piece of parchment paper over the bowl with the dough. 25 minute proof at room temperature. How To Make A Sourdough Starter - Sourdough Bread The only solution for this is to toss your dough and put your time into strengthening and maturing your sourdough starter. If your bread contains rye, it can take up to 24 hours! We can prevent wet sourdough from sticking by oiling our work surfaces, using wet hands to handle the dough and dusting the proofing containers. When water is excessively hard, it tightens the gluten as well as decrease fermentation rate. Remove the pot from the oven using pot holders (please be very careful ). Hi @Semolina, we waited only an hour before cutting into it, hasty on our part! This excess water is not retained inside the dough but rather coats the doughs surface causing it to be wet and sticky. On the other hand, rye sourdough is a bread that starts with sourdough starter instead of yeast but has at least some rye flour. Thanks guys!!! Jack Sturgess. Some recipes are simply wetter and stickier than others. Wet, sticky dough can be super messy - and preventing mess in the kitchen is always a good thing! Sometimes the issue is the kneading technique. You can read my five best tips for strengthening a sourdough starter, Extending your bulk fermentation time to allow your dough to rise and ferment properly. If you're not sure about some of the terms used in this article, you might find this sourdough glossary helpful. Get a piece of baking paper cut to about the size of your dough ball and plop the dough, seam side down, onto the baking paper. Make sure that you do your best to avoid this mistake by learning about sourdough fermentation timing and knowing when its ready to move onto the next step. I understand in the beginning you want to see the inside but do yourself a favor and wait at least 3 ours. Insufficient gluten development is what makes the dough so sticky, so if youre using a low protein flour (protein in flour creates gluten), it wont be able to create as much gluten in the dough and it will, therefore, be stickier. We will hold back from slicing it too early the next time!! This blog contains scientific explanation on all matters related to baking written in simple words; I hope you will find something useful here and leave as a better baker. This helps keep the dough from sticking. When water is excessively soft, the lack of minerals results in a sticky andslack dough. Send your bread making problems to breadsos@bakewithjack.co.ukInclude your name, your location, a method or recipe if possible and the temperature of your kitchen if you know it and we'll get to the bottom of your most common problems right here. sourdough after baking. Nonetheless we ended the bulk fermentation when the dough doubled in size (at the end of two hours after the last stretch and fold), and performed the pre shaping and final shaping. A large mixing bowl A round cane banneton 2 clean tea towels A Dutch oven, La Cloche or bread pan A large heatproof pan, a sharp knife or 'lame' to slash the dough with. CAUSE - This most likely caused by under fermentation, but can sometimes be a shaping issue too. #7 The bread cooled in the oven When the bread looks ready, some bakers turn the oven off and leave it inside for 20 minutes to make their bread less gummy. Autolyse vs Fermentolyse: Which One Should You Use? Work on your shaping techniques. Maybe try leaving it a bit longer? When youve kneaded the bread dough enough, stretch it while looking at a light source. We will be trying out as what you have suggested for a 75% hydration for the next one, will be back to post our results! If youre struggling with high hydration dough, then you should absolutely lower the hydration and see if you get better results. No Knead Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread | Small Batch Sourdough Just dont freeze it. Your bread may still be sticky after baking if it has been underbaked, has too much water in it, or has had problems with gluten development in the dough. Sourdough baking is a never ending journey of learning - and that's what makes troubleshooting it so damn interesting! Your dough might be too sticky because you added too much water when making the initial mix, too. Evenly roll out your small 2- to 4-ounce balls into small circles a scant quarter inch thick. In order to have an easier time handling the dough, you need to maximize gluten development. Oiling our proofing basket will cause the oil to be absorbed and be ineffective in preventing the dough from sticking. However, it is possible to get sticky sourdough that is hard to get out of the pan or cut into pieces. Is Cake Flour The Same As Self-Rising Flour? When you have finished Sourdough Bread Baking 101, you will have the confidence to not only bake using your own sourdough starter, you will be ready for more advanced sourdough baking techniques which will enable you to bake all sorts of sourdough artisan breads. The water and other wet ingredients are absorbed into the flour. To solve this problem, try taking the bread maker out of equation by baking in an oven. You don't want to add extra flour as this will affect the texture of the end product (which actually won't be very good at that point). CAUSE - This odd shape is caused by under fermentation. If the recipe is overly generous with the sourdough starter fermentation time, you end up adding too much-trapped air to the recipe and get a sticker dough. Modified: Sep 13, 2022 by The Pantry Mama This post may contain affiliate links. You can still bake it and eat it, but it will be a solid mass, not the light, airy sourdough you were expecting. Add dried bread to the bowl of a food processor. First, it's helpful to have a small bowl of water nearby to dip your hands into before touching your dough. If you wet or oil the work surface, the dough will just glide over the work surface and not able to be pulled taut during shaping. A Basic Sourdough Boule Recipe - The Sourdough School Bread a little moist inside - Sourdough We want to mix the dough until it develops adequate gluten network which is indicated by a dough that is stretchable without tearing but at the same time offers a degree of resistance when pulled apart. Put the lid on and place into the hot oven. This is the dry mixture. Extending bulk fermentation will help to fix this problem. Yeast and bacteria prefer warmer temperatures. Im the face behind The Pantry Mama and I want to help you bake delicious sourdough bread, no matter what your schedule. Be careful to use the right type of flour for your recipe and play around with the hydration level if you need to. This just means that you are taking the sides of the dough, stretching them up, and folding them over the dough 4-8 times, or until the dough is too tight to do any more. It should be room temperature. SOLUTIONS - These are the things you can do to try to avoid your dough splitting naturally: PROBLEM - your sourdough bread has an uneven crumb. Help! My Sourdough is Too Wet and Sticky - Crusty Labs I ran your numbers, and unless my math is wrong, your are above 90% hydration, which is extremely high. Simplified sourdough bread for beginners - ABC Everyday Add the honey or maple syrup, pumpkin pure, pumpkin spice and salt. Score the top of your loaf using a sharp knife, razor or lame. Most loaves are soggy at the bottom because they've not had the heat but you can simulate that at home by using a hot stone. If your kitchen is too warm, the dough can become a sloppy, wet mess. 4 Key reasons why your sourdough bread is flat I think it's quite common to get some stickiness if you are slicing fairly soon after the end of bake. Making good sourdough bread is something that takes plenty of practice, but you can learn how to handle it fairly quickly. Making sure you get bulk fermentation correct - you'll find my best tips, You could also make sure that you spray plenty of water onto the outside of the dough before placing it in your Dutch Oven. If you've found this article on handling wet, sticky sourdough helpful, you might also enjoy these: What a great resource you've created here. But if you leave the flour, water, starter and salt to autolyse, the flour absorbs all the water and becomes fully hydrated. The good news is, there's always a way to fix your sourdough bread problems for your next bake! Just know that it will be sticky early in this process. Make the dough. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. At first, the dough will be very sticky, but the gluten will develop more and more after each stretch and fold. Thank you so much for the guidance!