Ru007's blog

Hello and happy easter to all!

Thanks to every one who commented last week on how to make my scoring better, this weeks bake has a much smoother look to it, which is what I wanted.

And the crumb shot...

This is the first time I used a liquid levain, I only used 6g of starter and built up to 150g, I hadn't been confident enough to use so little before (in my mind I thought I needed to use lots to get my loaf to rise). But I decided to go for it turned out pretty well.

This is my 5th sourdough loaf using this formula (and ever!) and i'd like to try something different (although I will keep making this loaf until its as good as it can get! LOL!), but i'm not sure what the next step is for a newbie SD baker. This loaf has 17% whole grain flour, so maybe increasing that % or maybe a higher hydration (this loaf is 75%)?

Hi Freshloafers!!

A big thank you to every one who has give me advice on how to improve my sourdough loaves. This is now loaf number four (using more or less the same formula), a vast improvement from loaf 1...

This weekend's bake was a basic sourdough loaf. Its got a bit of everything in there, I used my 100% rye starter and white flour to build my levain, and then a 1:4 whole wheat to white flour ratio for the rest of the dough.

I took dabrownman's advice and left the dough to have a good bulk ferment before preshaping, resting, and then final shaping before retarding, the difference I got in the crumb is amazing...

compared to my previous bake, which had an inconsistent crumb through out the loaf....

I'm still struggling with my scoring though ( I think the appearance of my loaf is telling on me!). I've read the scoring tutorial on this site (its awesome by the way!!) but I still have a question.  

I score the loaf as soon as I take the dough out of the fridge, but I think the surface of the dough is too moist and so my blade kind of drags though the dough. I'm using a sharp razor blame as I don't have a lame. I read an article that promotes basically leaving the dough exposed to air so that it forms a skin before scoring, has anyone ever tried this?

Any other critiques on my loaf are welcome!

Happy baking!

This week’s bake was my second attempt at sourdough and I’m pretty pleased with the result!

It certainly looks better that last week’s attempt and it tastes better too! Sourdough is really yummy! 

(Last weeks try: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/45059/first-sourdough-loaf-need-help)

This time I gave the dough a 4.5 bulk fermentation at room temp, I did four S&F at half hour intervals during the first 2.5 hours before shaping and then I left it for another 2 hours.

 I put it in the fridge overnight and baked it straight from the fridge today based on some of the advice I got last week.

 I must say, I got much better oven spring than I did last time, and I think I did better with the scoring because the loaf didn’t explode like it did last time.  

However, I’m still getting an uneven crumb. It not as tight as last time, but I’m wandering if maybe I should have left it out a bit longer before refrigerating. I was worried about it going too far before I put it in the fridge, but now I’m thinking it didn’t go far enough. Should the loaf be ready for baking when I retard it or should it be almost, but not quite there?

Here's a shot of the crumb:

Some sections of the crumb are a bit tight, some are open in a good way, then there's a portion with huge funny looking holes (at the back).

Instead of baking on a sheet pan (like i usually do) I put the loaf on a heavy oven tray that had been heating with the oven. Might that have affected the rise and/or the crumb?

I also added a bit of whole wheat flour too, it’s 20% of the total flour (including the flour in the levain). Would that proportion of wholewheat flour make the loaf significantly denser?

All critiques are welcome! I’m always trying to get better! :)

The last week has been interesting, I made my first sourdough starter and then this weekend, I made my first loaf with it!

 A big thank you to Dabrownman, who gave me a great (and easy) way to get a starter going).

I didn’t used pineapple juice in the starter, just bottled water. I did have a bit of a battle with leuconostic bacteria during the first few days, but I just waited it out and the problem resolved itself.

 So here’s loaf number one:

I used the basic sourdough bread formula from the BBA.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, the taste is great! Not too sour but you can tell its sourdough. 

I do have a question about my crumb structure. As you can see from the photo, I ended up with a fairly nicely open crumb nearer the edges of the loaf, but it’s quite tight and dense in the centre. I shaped the final loaf in the evening and retarded it in fridge overnight. In morning it had flattened out a lot, so being a newbie, I decided to reshape it and tighten up the dough.(I let it ferment at room temp for about 4 hours before baking.)Was this my mistake? Should I have just left it and baked it as it was? 

i'm not sure why my loaf kind of exploded though, did i shape it too tightly? 

Today was my first attempt at a rye loaf! I decided to start cautiously so I went with Peter Reinhart’s “Transitional rye sandwich loaf”. It definitely didn’t disappoint.

I wasn't sure what i was supposed to expect in terms of the crumb, i know that rye tends to yield fairly dense loaves, but this is a lot lighter than i thought, probably due to the fact that there is only about 41% rye flour.

I used whole rye flour as per the recipe, and wholegrain flour instead of the white flour called for in the recipe. I was surprised by the texture of the dough, I expected it to be almost like clay but it was much stretchier than I expected and became quite smooth after a few sets of stretch and fold. It didn’t feel like dough made with only wheat four but it was much easier to handle than I thought it would be.

 The flavour of this bread is great, I think even people who are not rye lovers will like it!

Here is the formula:

Wholegrain bread flour 49%

Whole rye flour 41%

White bread flour 10%

Buttermilk 35.3%

Water 35.3%

Honey 5%

Oil 3%

Salt 1.7%

Yeast 1.7%

I did have to increase the water slightly, so the hydration in the formula is a bit higher than the original recipe i found the biga to be quite dry (probably due to the use of whole grain flour instead of white) so i added an extra 28g (the original recipe called for 142g so i used 170g).

The loaf is fairly flat partially because the loaf pan I used was too big (my bad) but I didn’t really get any oven spring. Is that normal for rye bread?