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Taffy again? Proteolysis question. I got overconfident with my pizza dough today. Started it around 10 this morning and didn't shape until almost 10 pm. I had it in a container and did a few stretch and folds during BF. It's hot today, but I have air conditioning on to keep it 76 degrees. I kept looking at it, waiting ...	12h bulk I think 12 hours is too long at room temperature! Starters can take time to adjust to knew flours, but I would think 50% rye would make your starter more active, not less. I think keeping it in the oven overdid it for your starter too, and probably activated proteolytic enzymes and made your microbes grow too ...
Any thoughts about the crumb? I always strive for a lacy crumb with evenly distributed small, medium and large holes. But for many times, I failed to do so. It's very frustrating especially for a sourdough baker who is not a beginner. Can anyone kindly troubleshoot this crumb? Is it fermentation or gluten structure bui...	Drop the water a few % and Drop the water a few % and rougher final handling. Enjoy!
Dough Calculator Baker's Percentages Spreadsheet - available to download After reading the BBGA articles on Formulas and Percentages I got interested in spreadsheets. And thanks to the help of others (LeslieRuf, Hadster, The Lazy Loafer, and Phaz), I think The spreadsheet Is a valuable tool for any baker interested in ...	You have done a lot, awesome I have gone over it and will send you my edits if you like. I don't know how to insert a link here so if you PM me with your email address I will send it to you. I have got closer to Hamelman's figures and the little difference is ok I think. Leslie
Healthy culture suddenly not rising I have a healthy sourdough culture I got started in April and that I've made several very successful breads from. However, it's suddenly stopped rising! I've changed nothing, I've been feeding twice daily, so I'm not sure what happened. I have tried white flour and rye flour and it...	And then I also found And then I also found something about a scrapings method so that's even less starter per flour/water adds. I'm so confused! But mainly, still frustrated.
Old dough, pate fermentee, pasta di riporto, criscito Hello everyone--I've found myself in a bit of a quandary.I've been making what I figured was sourdough for 21 years from the same "starter." I got the idea back then watching Baking with Julia on PBS. In the episode I watched, someone made what they called a levain ...	Old dough method I'll comment on myself as this hasn't generated a lot of reply.During this recent pandemic, I decided to calculate the hydration, etc. of the process. I start with a 200g piece of fermented old dough, the criscito, or whatever you call it--what do you call it? It's about 60 percent hydration, so fairly...
Will need to save ripe starter till tomorrow - how to revive I'm sure this question has been asked to death... It took from 7am today till about 4pm for my 100% hydrated white flour starter to look good (almost 2 1/2 x rise). But I can't bake right now - I put it it the fridge and would like to start early tomorrow....	While I normally don't do it, While I normally don't do it, I have on occasion developed a starter until it is ripe and put it in the fridge and used it the next day. IIRC , Vanessa Kimbell mentions this as a potential way to address timing issues.
Overnight in the Fridge Troubleshooting I am a relative sourdough newbie. I tried doing my second proof overnight in the fridge and my loaves didn’t rise at all. Is there a way I can save them? It seems that the fridge was too cold. I had a great first proof on the counter and transferred the second proof to the fridge...	Do you mean your second proof Do you mean your second proof is after your final shaping and its in a banneton etc?I get very little rise in the fridge for my final proofing, its more to do with developing the flavour. I still get a nice oven spring though so.Best thing is try it and see what happens
Starter too runny to rise Hello everyone,I am a beginner to the baking world and decided to try making my own sourdough starter to bake with. I started with 125g flour and 125g of bottled water. The direction I was following asked to leave the mix for 2 days and then discard all but 125g of starter and add 125 g of w...	Your starter should not be Your starter should not be runny, best guess is you mis-measured somewhere along the line. Add flour gradually until the consistency of the starter is similar to a thick pancake batter. It should be a little thicker than pourable. Even if you make the starter a more dryer than 100% hydration,...
Retarding dough--is it OK during bulk (1st) fermentation--anyone know? I am teaching a sourdough class in the morning and want to mix the dough and retard it the night before. I have never done this, although I've refrigerated shaped loaves overnight and successfully baked the loaves the next morning. Should I do a b...	Retard it 1 hour after gluten development is finished - so 1 hour of bulk ferment on the counter . Just take it out of the fridge the nest day and let it sit an hour to warm up a bit and then gently shape for a final proof of about 1/1/2 to 2 hours. This is the way Peter Reinhardt does a lot of his breads. It is a p...
"No more STICKY DOUGH" Video Nicely done... I learned from this. I hope you will too.	Excellent Thanks for sharing.
Starter Keeps Developing Hooch Hello!I'm brand new to this whole bread game.I created a starter on 5/24 with 50g of unbleached bread flour and 50g of water.I'm now following a starter schedule I found on YouTube which is different from what I started with. This person started with 100g flour and 115g of water. Day 2 of...	Keep going Don't start over. There is a battle going on in your starter and eventually the bacteria that produce the acid will win. Every 12 hours is fine if the weather is warm. If you can keep it in a bit cooler area, then every 24 hours will work. Things might seem a bit funky for a few days, but keep it up and soon...
Starter - as it rises, does it gain in mass? I'm new to sourdough baking (thanks Covid-19!), but have had luck using some online resources and have baked several reasonable loaves. A question I have always had though is when the starter is fed and rises in its container, is it gaining mass or just volume? The question ...	David, my experience has David, my experience has been if I need 300 grams of starter, and I am using a 1:1:1, I would use 102 starter, 102 flour and 102 water, because i normally can not get 100% of the starter out of the container. The starter does gain volume.I am not a scientist, but I think that the mass would...
Is it safe to use an 8 month old sourdough starter? Back in March of this year, I purchased a live sourdough starter from breadtopia thru Amazon. At the time of ordering, I did not realize it was a live starter (my bad). So when it arrived and I read the package which said to feed it immediately, I did not have the tim...	Completely safe, especially Completely safe, especially if fed a few times so any potential contaminations like that are diluted out.Generally, botulism bacteria don't grow in an acidic environment, so they won't grow in a sourdough culture.
Newbie help please! Under or over-proofed? First, I want to thank everyone here - I have done a ton of reading as I start my sourdough journey and there is so much helpful information here! I am currently on my 4th sourdough loaf, and I'm trying to figure our if I've over-proofed or under-proofed it. Or perhaps over-...	At a glance I would say At a glance I would say somewhat underproofed, but after reading, I think it's more likely that you just deflated your loaf a fair amount while pulling it out of the basket :) Popping all the big bubbles, leading to a denser crumbDue to your warmer climate, I would recommend cutting the bulk sho...
LAB Fermentation - more complete understanding In another post, we drifted off to a discussion of Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB). This subject needs a post of it’s own.The question was posed, “why is it that Yeast Water (YW) doesn’t contain high amount of LAB”? YW are known to produced non-sour tasting products.Michael, ak...	I realized that yeast would I realized that yeast would reproduce in very acidic environment and also that LAB were unable to do so once the PH dropped to a certain acidic level, but never put 2 and 2 together...I have wondered for quite a while why YW wouldn’t produce sour tasting bread. Are the microflora that dwell ...
Drying your starter I just read a comment by Bettie (bwaddle) talking about drying out your starter in an oven overnight so that you can grind it into powder. Can you create comparible breads using your dry starter and your normal starter? Is this how commerial yeast is made? This seems like an interesting topic to me,...	Funny you should ask! Hi, Danny. It's funny because I just finished drying some starter to take with me on vacation. Many of the sourdough starers you can get shipped to you come as powders. They are prepared pretty much as Bettie described. Where I live, it's dry enough so you don't need to put the filmed starter in t...
Staggering Two-loaf bake by 48-72 hours... restart/reshape? (Above is version of the loaf, var. on pain au Campagne with toasted sesame added to mix. Turned out yum!)Greetingsfirst post, longtime bread baker with question...ive been baking two-loaf sourdough batches, 1-2x a week, but my house partner eats more weight w...	Try this I regularly build 3-4 loaf doughs and refrigerate for bakes later in the week. Seems like 5 days is the max retard before dough begins breaking down or losing structure. Also seems like flavors intensify over the long retard. I find the retarded dough acts pretty much the same provided I follow this process:Cu...
Bran Starter - an easier method? The main goal of making a starter from Bran is to simplify the process of creating a new starter. Judging the rise, determining the proper hydration and feed ratios, knowing when the starter has fully matured (among other things) are not easily determined for those that are new to the p...	Bravo Danny & Michael Well if pandemics don't just breed innovation. You and Michael are definitely onto something. I'm about to move across the country with my starter riding shotgun in multiple forms (wet & dry). Now I know how I'll start a new one if mine doesn't survive the journey.Thanks for putting together th...
Morning Levain build suddenly not growing... Hi all,First post here! So i have been making loaves for a while with varied success. I recently moved from using a large amount of starter as per James Morton's recipe with a feed the night before, to making a levain build in the morning with a smaller amount of starter and...	You may or may not be doing You may or may not be doing this, but it is good practice. Always build your levain a little larger than you need for the dough. There will always be some weight lose and the excess can be used as your future starter that has been re-freshed.Your question was recently addressed here.http://w...
Somewhat over-proofed? I'd love some opinions assessing the crumb of my most recent bake, the butterfly pea flower sourdough.Total Dough Weight 900 g Butterfly pea flowers 14.5 g dried flowers, green leaves and stems plucked off. Steeped in 360 g boiling water x 10 mins and cooled, then 342.5 g added to flour during a...	Looks fantastic.What is Looks fantastic.What is butterfly pea flower?Is that wat gives it the color?
Feed sourdough starter with lime? Hey everyone ? I watch Birote bread in mexico yesterday and they feed the sourdough starter with Eggs, Suger, Beer and Lime, i looooooooooooove lime so i have my own starter and i wanna feed it with lemons can i? I hope someone help me, im sorry if my English is bad but i try my best ?...	Haven't tried with lime or lemon Hi Ashy--I have made birotes salados, but I just used beer for the starter, no lime or eggs. I imagine you could substitute lemon for lime, and you could probably add some lemon or lime to the final starter feed. You probably do not want to put anything except for flour and water in the...
adding raisins to dough Hi all,I'd like to add raisins to my bagel dough. The recipe says to soak them first but why? Can't i just add them as is? One time i soaked dry fruit and chopped it up, strained them and put it in my bread dough and i didn't like how it made my dough all slimy. Maybe i need to dry them more...	Yes you do need to dry them Yes you do need to dry them after they have been hydrated i usually soak them over night and then have them dry out on a paper towel for a while. The alternative i to allow for a wetter dough as the dried fruit will absorb some of the moisture. I've recently made a Lemon fruit bread now th...
Tartine book starter with acetone smell after neglecting for a day Hi folks,I was following the Tartine Book method, which involves a 1:2:2 feeding just once per morning. My starter was rising slowly over 8-12 hours (my house is usually around 70ºF), and then falling back, but just smelling sourer after 24h.Then, I acc...	Organic smells... ...are often an indication that your beasties are hungry and are running out of food. If you don’t want to feed it more often, try using a 1:3:3 or 1:4:4 feeding ratio. When you get your whole wheat flour you can just go back to using it. The bread flour should be just fine alone for the interim. -Bra...
Stiff Starter help - Lievito Madre disintegrating Hello! So I've been trying to make a stiff start from scratch, 1st attempt to deal with and create a Panettone starter ou Lievito Madre or Pasta Madre (previous fermentation experience was with kombucha, worked wonders!) Ive been following this recipe https://bake-stree...	You can fix it The Bake Street page is good, but there is so much info there... if you are on day 5, then you had 200g LM from the last refresh (cut from the center of your LM at the end of the last refresh), 200g flour, and 80g water (this is 40% hydration. So, the ratio is 1:1:.4With water storage, sometimes the prob...
Scientist's Notebook So today I decided to go back to AP Chem and record everything, proving that an observed phenomenon is changed by the observation, I think I have a successfully fermented, proofed, shaped loaf.It's a 73% hydrated version of the Perfect Loaf's Beginner Sourdough.I have all the numbers. House temp, h...	By George, I think I’ve got it.after cold proofafter baking 450 20 lid on, 30 lid off
Change Type of Flour in Levain Build? I have only used white bread flour in my, now mature, starter to this point. Many recipes I see suggest a mix of flour types in the levain. Is it recommended to keep using the same type of flour I've been using in my starter for my levain or can I build the levain using a different...	Go ahead and make the levain with just a small amount of your starter as per recipe. Keep feeding your starter as you do, keeping it separate. You can use mixed flours in feeding your levain build for the dough. Whole grains will speed up its normal timing as they have lots of trace minerals and it sounds like they ...
Am I doing the finger poke test wrong? Quick question to clarify. I understand the finger poke test in principle that you poke the dough and if it springs back slowly and not quite all the way, then it is finished proofing. But I don't understand how one does this if the dough is sticky and wet? My finger just sticks t...	Wet finger? wet finger, short nails? Wet sticky dough will still tear sometimes, but this works for me. if you like even softer wetter doughs than that, I think you have to get used to jiggling it and judging how soft it is.
Home milled 100% WW starter and levain Hello,I've been baking sourdough the last 3 yrs following the Tartine country loaf method to look after my starter and make my levain - 50% white, 50% wholewheat and 100% water.I have recently purchased a home mill and would like to transition to a 100% WW starter, and am wonderin...	100 WW levain I keep my sourdough starter with a mix of 100% wholemeal rye and whole wheat (mostly rye but sometimes I'm too lazy to grind it.)I do my levain builds with 100% fresh-milled whole wheat hard red.The only thing to look out for is that the fermentation rate and the enzyme activity are really quick. A few ti...
Dough spreading a lot So I tried Tartine's Country Bread which is a sourdough. I've made 4 different recipes now (some used slap and fold before the bulk fermentation) and it always seems like the dough is very viscous. I try to follow each recipe to the letter to see what works and what doesn't. This time, after the b...	Not a beginner recipe A 75% hydration dough is (as you have discovered) very difficult to work with! This is a highly technical bread developed by a highly skilled baker who is pushing the limits of what bread can do by going for a very extreme style: very very dark crust, very moist 'custardy' crumb. It's great bread...
100% rye vs 50/50 AP I’ve been keeping my starter 100% rye and have started feeding 1:2:2. After doing more reading, I see people doing 50% rye and 50% AP for the feed. What are the advantages of this? I’m about to put Sisyphus to nap in the fridge today after the next feeding, just trying to decide whether to switch o...	cost and consistency. 1. AP flour (even bread flour) is cheaper.2. whole grains fed to a starter introduce more and new natural/wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria (comes in on the bran), and will, over time, likely change the strains/species of the little critters. This can change both the flavor and performance of ...
Open crumb but mostly around the edges Hey! I was wondering if anyone could help! For the most part I'm happy with my bread as It's a more open crumb than I've managed to achieve before but the larger areas seem to gather mostly around the edge, although not entirely is this correct or something I should aim to avoi...	All the "good" bubbles being All the "good" bubbles being concentrated at the upper edge, and the rest being too dense, can mean that this loaf was somewhat under-proofed. That's not the only possibility, but it's a reasonable guess.HOWEVER, ... Are you really convinced that there's a problem? I'm not in your kitchen, ...
I've tried to dry my starter twice now and it ends up just getting moldy before it actually dries. What's wrong? I'm really lost on what to do. I tried making it thinner the second time and it still molded. I put it in my oven with the oven light on. It also made my oven stink. Thanks for any info on what to do!	Try this Hi! I've never tried drying it out in the oven so can't help you with that one but I read this article recently that mentioned drying out some starter by rubbing into flour and then storing in a sealed jar in the fridge. I've only just done it with some of my starter a few days ago so can't verify how well it ...
Latest loaf and final proof questions Hi again. This is a 70% hydration loaf. Is that closed crumb typical for 70% hydration? I'm pleased with it because there aren't dense gummy patches like in previous loaves. But is there room for improvement? i did 4 sets of S and Fs. Does it look under or over fermented? Is ...	Looks good to me. Looks good to me.
14 days old starters Hello, my name is Elena, I'm from Whitby, Ontario. I have two sourdough starters, which are 2 weeks old. One is fed with stoneground rye flour, the other one is fed with 50% rye flour and 50% all purpose unbleached wheat flour. I feed them every day with 1:1:1 proportions.Starters sit in 78-80 F. T...	It looks like you're not feeding your starter enough. My starter developed mold and I had to start from scratch. This is the approach I used:Actually I didn't follow this exactly as I didn't have rye flour handy. It was starting to fail and then I gave it a whole feeding of rye flour ground fresh from berries and it sp...
Starter vs Pre-Ferment Hi Folks,I am going to make some whole wheat dinner rolls for the upcoming holiday, and the recipe I'm using calls for a pre-ferment to be made from 170g bread flour, 170g water, and 1.5g instant yeast. This step needs to be done the day before assembling all the other ingredients which will then...	Ought to work… …but I would expect the starter to have a different taste profile than the poolish. Starter has more sour, dairy notes to me than poolish which is lighter and yeastier to my nose. In a whole wheat dough not sure it would stand out. Honestly I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I’m guessing the final dough i...
Window between under vs. over proofed? I'm trying to understand how much flexibility I have to make sure the loaf is proofed enough. Approximately how long is the window between the moment the bread is bare minimum proofed to when it becomes overproofed?For example, let's say I'm bulk fermenting sourdough after doing ...	I’m afraid there isn’t an I’m afraid there isn’t an easy answer here.. but here’s a guiding principle:The more quickly fermentation is happening (there are many factors but imo the most important are temperature and inoculation percentage, assuming an active healthy starter), the narrower the window is. The specifics y...
Too sleepy I’ve been bulk fermenting for 9 hrs and it’s still not done. I’m too sleepy to wait any longer. I stuck it in the fridge. How do I proceed after I wake up?	if you havent got to the if you havent got to the shaping stage yet then take it out of the fridge when you wake up and let it come up to room temperature which will take a few hours depending on kitchen temperature then carry on as before. It also depends on how much starter you used and how cold the fridge is on how ...
Dough is very wet & shapeless at 70%. What am I doing wrong? Hello, I've been reading these forums and they've been an invaluable resource. I'm hoping someone can help me out with my sourdough problem:I'm looking to make a loaf with 70% hydration. My problem is that every time I put this dough together, it is incredibl...	Why don’t you just try it Why don’t you just try it with a lower hydration.There can be different reasons why this does not work for you. Maybe the flower is not strong enough for such a high hydration. Maybe the humidity in your kitchen and your flour is to high. If I was you a would keep 50 gram water back and only a...
bubbles on top mandatory? Are bubbles on the top surface of dough a mandatory sign that BF is complete for sourdough? it's so jiggly and domed but no bubbles on surface like i used to see with my yeast dough. i have a translucent bowl and i can see tiny bubbles throughout the bottom and sides of dough. i'm scared of...	Nope. Bubbles on top are not mandatory.I never even heard they were mandatory for IDY/ADY yeasted dough.--And it's good that you ask.I've only been on TFL since about Sept 2019. But one of the most common hurdles or challenges I've seen for forum users who are experienced bakers, but who are new to sourdough, is that t...
My starter has become very watery and it wont rise well, and seems to develop a skin quickly. Why? The starter doesn't seem to rise well at all anymore, quickly turns frothy, turns water, and seems to develop a skin which is kind of weird for me. Prior to this it was rising double or triple and keeping that peak for a ...	Forgive me in advance, as I Forgive me in advance, as I have also just begun to bake with a starter and this is my first post. From what I've gleaned from websites like this one, hydration and gluten both impact the ability of a starter to increase in volume. So perhaps it is both?If you change flour, you'll need to ad...
First sourdough loaf Hi baked my first loaf on a stone and it has stuck!!! What Have I done wrong???	Next time try some parchment Next time try some parchment or some semolina or cornmeal on the stone. Bummer about the loaf, but I’m sure there will be many many more! (And if your first sourdough loaf was anything like mine, no great loss :D)
How long to bulk ferment and proof Hello all!I currently have a loaf that I started this morning with my very active starter. The recipe is as follows:520 G AP385 G WATERAutolyse about 30 m2 teaspoons salt10g water90 g starterThis is said to be a no kneading recipe. Mixed the autolysed flour and water with the remainin...	I would estimate between 6-8 I would estimate between 6-8 h, depending on ambient temperature. But your window is anyways quite large since a smaller amount of starter means slower fermentation and it takes quite long until overproofed. Look for bubbles, noticeable bounciness, lightness and increase in size (not double...
Preheated starter You'd think I would have learned this lesson. I preheated the oven to bake the bread and left the starter in there. The kitchen started smelling nice and I grabbed it when the oven was 320. I threw it in the freezer to hopefully cool it down fast. Besides discarding and feeding it as soon as it's a de...	Sorry but I would be suprised Sorry but I would be suprised if you can save this. The best change you have is take small bit from the center.
Maybe its the hand kneading? I'm trying to make The Perfect Loaf Beginner sourdough. I've baked bread before. But I can't believe this is a beginner loaf. It's so hard. https://www.theperfectloaf.com/beginners-sourdough-bread/I don't think it's the starter. I made a 180g starter overnight, split off 40g to make pizza, ...	May be it's the recipe? 78% hydration is not a beginner's loaf, it's not even in the general vicinity of what a beginner should be baking. It just boggles my mind that someone would purposely throw someone who can't swim in the deep water like that. Why don't you try something like this instead? This is a bread that,...
What makes a starter a great starter? I'm a sourdough novice and I'm curious if the experts on this forum can tell me about what makes a fantastic starter. I'm learning that at the bare minimum, you want a starter to be able to double in size and float in water.But tell me more.... Does higher frequency of feeding make...	Many questions all hard to Many questions all hard to answer at once. The perfect starter is the one the yields the results you are looking for (I know, I sound like an engineer, maybe because I am an engineer ... ). Sourdough provides with CO2 (as you mentioned), but also flavor from the lactic acids and complexity fr...
Did I just drown my starter? Yesterday I prepared a loaf by taking the majority of the mature starter for making bread and left a bit of it to maintain as my future regular starter. I put the piece I was going to use for future regular starter in a jar and added some water then I stirred it in to dissolve the starter. ...	Give it time it should come around. No need to feed more flour until it is active again. You can't drown it but it takes a little more time for the numbers to come back. Not to worry.
temperature during bulk fermentation Hi there,When we are talking temperature of bulk fermentation , should we really be talking about the temperature of the dough itself rather than the surrounding temperature? Right now my dough is about 25c but the surrounding area is about 21.5. Maybe it's because my water was wa...	Yes - the dough temperature Yes - the dough temperature is what matters. That is why we adjust the water to temp get the Desired Dough Temperature. It is one control we have in the process.
First Loaf! Advice Please! I am looking for answers to a few specific questions (at bottom of post) but also, and maybe more importantly, any additional comments on those things I don't even know to ask yet.Finished Loaf:Crumb Shots (different parts of same loaf):The story (aka the method, and what went wrong):This wa...	Observations I can't help you with all of these, but I'm sure it's a bit underbaked. Everything else about the bread looks pretty good for your first one! The dutch oven is a solid technique, 20min lid on, 20-30min lid off, or to your liking. Cast iron DO results in better color than just a big stainless steel pot w...
Kneading vs. SAF/SLAF/CAF/ETC. Second post on this subject, but I've come to believe that my excessive spreading, even post-shaping and proofing, plus the lack of oven spring, are due to poor gluten development in my dough. Normally, I mix flour, water, starter, and honey. Let rest for 45-60 min, then fold in salt. The...	The way I see it, you can The way I see it, you can coilaminate the living daylights out of your dough, but if there is more water in it than it can physically hold it's going to spread.
Sigh ?bulk fermentation, again Hi all! If you know what a properly fermented dough looks like ( you know, bubbly, jiggly, not dense, I've experienced it before with yeast no knead breads and sourdough spiked with a bit of yeast ) and it hasn't reached that point yet, do you just trust that it will eventually reach th...	As with everything, it depends. My bulk ferment usually takes 3-4 hours longer than what tables say for my percentage of starter and the ambient temperature.Sourdough typically takes longer than commercial yeast. To be able to answer your question, more information is needed.How healthy is your starter? How have you be...
1:10:10 vs. 1:1:1. What's the difference? If I feed my levain 1:10:10 vs. 1:1:1, is the only difference (besides the final amount of levain) the time the yeast will take to peak in activity?Does the amount I feed it affect the amount of yeast? Does the amount I feed it affect the flavor?How do other people build their ...	Feeding your starter regular Feeding your starter regular 1:5:5 wil make it stronger read it got more yeast.From that you build your levain. I usally do that 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 depending how long I can wait for it to be ready.
No Oven Spring with 100% Spelt Sourdough Hi folks,I’ve been embarking on the journey of making pure spelt sourdough bread. I started making the starter exactly one month ago, fed it with spelt bread flour daily for two weeks, then started baking.The results so far taste good, but there is no oven spring. Sometimes the ...	Spelt's gluten development is Spelt's gluten development is not as strong so you will never get the same rise of a white flour bread.You can tell when you mix and kneed, you just dont get the same stretch. Everything is tighter.You also dont need as much water with spelt. Id drop the hydration even down to 65%, as the ...
Second loaf This is my second loaf and it looks okay but I feel the crumb could be improved, any tips?	This is the crust which could This is the crust which could be better also. 48E0B593-5BB1-490C-983D-5CC70385FF30.jpeg
Struggling with my new sourdough starter Hi, I am new the site and new to sourdough baking so any advice would be great. I started my sourdough around 5 weeks ago and am yet to see it double in zip in less than 12 hours.i am feeding it every 12 hours with 40g wholewheat flour and 80 g strong bread flour plus 120g filte...	New sourdough Baker myself Have you baked bread with your starter? It might be just fine or even better than fine. I've been baking for maybe 8 weeks, and my starter sounds like yours but makes great bread. I also think higher hydration (1:1) starters don't rise as much/as fast people say, and look nothing like those ...
BUTTS! Hello there,I've been making sourdough for about a year and a half now - with varying results. Due to having much more time at the moment I've been doing things a bit differently and using the Bake With Jack method that takes around a day to do before putting in the fridge overnight (before I was trying to do a ...	Convection oven? Generally, this happens when using a convection oven, or using the top heating element. The top crust sets before expansion is done, and the dough expands out the softest/weakest point.Too much steam from the bottom also cools the underside of the baking stone or baking tray.If you can't turn off the ...
Adventures in Sourdough - Round 2 Evening!Thanks again for the advice I've received so far. I've taken it onboard and today was my second attempt at Jim Lahey's Pano Bianca.To recap, it is a 70% hydration dough that bulk ferments (recommended timing 8-18 hours) and is then shaped, given a final prove (recommended timin...	Well done! The crumb looks good, it seems you did a good job judging the bulk proof and the final proof. The relatively flat shape is very common with a high hydration loaf but you can improve it by working on your shaping skills.Do you like the taste? Do you like the texture?Next time cut all the way through to show t...
Point of maturity. Hi everyone,I’m new to bread baking. I read Ken Forkish’s book Bread Evolutions and used his formula to create my own sourdough starter or levain as he calls it. I had no problems getting the starter going and have fed it after one week so it is currently two weeks old. But I have a question on leavi...	point of maturity Hi, Ken shows how it looks when mature on p.60. Use that picture to visually access your own levain. He also provides a description of a culture that is fully ready. Most importantly, he gives us a time frameFeed it 50g levain + 200g water +200g bread flour, let it sit for12 hrs at 27-29C/80For 24 hrs...
Starter log and first loaves pictures ! (More recent updates first : starter logs below).Update 21/05/2020 - Baking ! :Finally, some pictures of the second loaf made tuesday with this starter (more pictures in comments) :It is the overnight country blonde from FWSY. Bulk fermentation lasted about 9h at 22°C. After this...	If I'm reading that chart If I'm reading that chart correctly, it looks like you are feeding ever increasing amounts (in relation to how much starter you use). But your starter is not mature yet. I'm pretty sure you are overfeeding and essentially diluting your culture with every feeding. More importantly, you are a...
Soupy seed culture Hi all,I'm trying to start a sourdough seed culture based on Peter Reinhardt's recipe in the Bread Baker's Apprentice. I had no issues when doing it before in a wetter and cooler climate but I'm in a desert climate now and nothing seems to work.In my previous attempts, I left the seed culture out, bu...	Does Reinhart recommend you Does Reinhart recommend you keep the culture so cool? It will definitely slow things down compared to someone who is starting a starter at room temperature. I don't see any reason your room temp of 76-78F wouldn't be ok, altho if you get much higher than that it can suppress yeast reproduc...
Suddenly sluggish starter My starter has suddenly become sluggish. It bubbles after feeding and smells pleasantly fruity, but it does not rise and fall in the aggressive way it used to. It is much more liquid than before and although it does pass the float test, it spreads out like foam on the top of the water rather t...	A more liquid starter will A more liquid starter will tend to rise less because the bubbles make their way to the surface and pop faster, rather than being trapped in the starter. The switch from bread flour to "plain white flour" (which I'm assuming is AP flour) could definitely result in your starter becoming more l...
Oven rise in high hydrations dough I am just wondering what technique should we use in order to have a good oven rise in high hydrations doughs for sourdough breads using wild yeast starters.	You will need to rely on oven You will need to rely on oven spring. The dough is easiest handled if placed on a sheet of parchment for transfer to oven. Do your best to not over proof the dough. It needs to have “plenty gas in the tank” when it hits the hot oven. Bulk Ferment to 30-50% rise. No more.See this video.htt...
What the heck is happening?? Today, I've made my WORST LOAF EVER.I'm a beginner. I've made 7 loaves so far. My loaves have been ok! Usually, I try to only tweak one variable at a time to keep track of the changes, but for my last two loaves I've tried a totally new method and I'm perplexed with these terribly ugly resu...	You bulk fermentation was too You bulk fermentation was too short. Look, in your good loaf you had 9% (50/550) prefermenteed flour and ~15.5 hour fermentation. In your bad loaf you had 18% (70/390) prefermented flour, 4.5 hours of bulk ferment and then you retarted, which is probably worth another 1-2 hours of room t...
Help!! Under- or over-proofed? An open crumb journey Hello!!!!Am fairly new to the game, with my starter (Stiles) being about 9 months old 100% hydration, fed 90% bread and 10% rye. I've been getting quite decent crumb structures with my bakes but am on a quest to a more open/lacy crumb with little luck so i thought i'...	What kinds of strengthening What kinds of strengthening techniques are you using and how many times do you perform them during your bulk? Lamination and coil towards the end of bulk seem to really help for me, but maybe you are already doing that. It sounds like this is what you are after:https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Frassinetto wheat starter - so stinky Hi everyone - I searched through the "stinky starters" posts, but couldn't find a Frassinetto-specific problem. I recently ended up with a few pounds of this flour, and thought I'd make a new starter with it. The first try yielded a fermented thing that was increasingly pungent and...	Debra Wink's and yumarama's blog posts I chased down some posts that lead me to continue working on the starters, stink or not! I'll update in a few days, but if anyone should come across this and has had Frassinetto wheat starter experience, please drop me a line!
Small Tip: Temperature of Autolyse Hey there, This is something that I have noticed today.Temperature of the autoyse indirectly matters (of course it does).For us that are doing 30 minutes, one, two or 3 hours its nice if the dough is at higher than room temperature during autolyse. Why? Because when the starter is fin...	Thanks For Sharing I will give it a try.
Can this starter still be saved? Hi guys, I tried to go down the route of saving just a little starter after I used it. However I had forgotten to feed it, my bad. Can this still be saved?I last used it almost forty hours ago. It has all dried up with the center looking odd. Smells yeasty.	Yikes I wouldn't even want to try
Baker's Percentage of Sourdough Starter Hello everyone,I'm having a hard time finding a definitive answer on this question. Can anyone provide clarity?Say you have a recipe that calls for:- 800 g of Bread Flour- 400 g of 100% hydration Sourdough Starter- 420 g water- 13 g salt There are 4 different ways I can calculat...	1) 20%😃😃😃
Tartine- anyone adding more starter to leaven than recipe states? I have rebuilt my starter about 5 weeks ago. It performs very well in its container usually doubling in 4-6 hours ( Jim in London, England and my kitchen is coldish) , but when mixed up into the Tartine leaven according to NY times recipe, everything slo...	Nothing to it MoneyPenny,I do it all the time, mostly because I don’t want to deal with discarded starter…seems wasteful. It just increases the amount of pre-fermented flour in your dough…not an altogether bad thing. So formula calls for 200 g and I made 280 g at 100% hydration. I have 80 g extra, half flour and half l...
Do I need to feed again? Hi guys, I took a portion of my "mother starter" from the fridge, fed it before bed and woke up to this. I read that most people will refresh it twice before using when taking it out of the fridge.Do I still need to do that if the starter has more than doubled and passed the float test?? 00100...	Holy frick, that's bubbly Holy frick, that's bubbly!Feeding it twice or more before using your starter just ensures the bacteria are very active and ready. But judging from your picture, it doesn't need to be fed again.
Starter - Can I use it on the second rise? So my starter has doubled when I woke up this morning after feeding it before I slept.But my other ingredients are not yet ready. I need to bake some potatoes baked for an hour for a potato bread recipe.I stirred the starter down. and it is slowly rising again.Am I able to use...	I've heard the Foodgeek say I've heard the Foodgeek say you can use a starter within 12 hours of it reaching it's peak. Haven't tried more than a couple of hours myself, so ymmv.
stretch and folds Hi AllI have to mix my dough soon because my starter is about to peak. But i also have to leave the house in about an hour. I have to do half an hour or autolyse . then fit in one stretch and fold then i won't be home until about 3 hrs after bulk fermentation has begun.. When i get home can i do m...	Yes of course, just be Yes of course, just be careful not to deflate the dough, it probably will have built up some gas until then.
Starter taking 16 hours to double ... I am feeding my starter at 1:2:2 -- 10 g starter, 20g fl (50% ww, 50%white), 20 g water -- per suggestions on here about upping from 1:1:1 for my sad little starter that couldn't double.It definitely picked up, and started doubling! So it is happier for sure ... but still is taking...	Seems normal to me. My Seems normal to me. My starters and doughs never really double.
Watery starter Hello! I'm new to all this and am hoping someone can help me.I was given some 100 year old sourdough starter and when it arrived I fed it and put it in the fridge (right away). I fed it equal amounts flour/water. It was watery going in. It had liquid on top as the rest settled. I hadnt touched it in a fe...	I would feed it 1:2:2 For I would feed it 1:2:2 For example 15 gram starter, 30 gram flour, 30 gram water. If it starts to double in 12 ours go to 1:3:3 and go on to 1:5:5When you reacht the point it doubles or even triples put it in the fridge.
Levain - when to build it and should you feed your starter afterwards Hi there,I have recently created my first sourdough started. It's been seven days since I started the process and it appears to be ready to bake with.I'm slightly unsure about building a levain. Despite having done some reading on the topic, I still ...	Listen to the yeast Ideally, the answer to all these questions is you feed when your yeasts are finished eating. After you feed, a healthy stater will rise 2-3x and then level off and start falling. You want to add to bread or build a levain at that point. A technique that a lot of bakers use is to feed in a tallish...
No oven spring sourdough I have recently just started baking sourdough and my first two attempts have turned out like this, I don't know we're I am going wrong....I start with 1hr of autolyse then when my starter just start to drop after doubling I add it to the flour and water rest for 20 the add the salt with a littl...	This looks either severely This looks either severely over- or underproofed. Can you give us you formula? Because the process seems about right.
Sourdough Plan for the day- any watchouts? Hi All!Attempting a loaf today with main intent to get good structure! I've also started taking very detailed notes so I can compare and make adjustments where needed. This is the plan for now. Anything you think I need to adjust or watch out for? Levain- fed at 3.5 hours ago,...	Love all the detail in the Love all the detail in the process Steph. Overall it sounds like a good plan. I had really good luck yesterday following a similar process... best crumb I've had yet with 50/50 whole wheat and white flour. You mentioned that you feel like the dough starts to break down after your stretch a...
No air holes in sourdough Hi all, here I am again, still trying to perfect my sourdough! I have a good starter, responds really well to feeding having been taken out of the fridge. I make my sourdough when the starter is really active, I get a good first prove after around 5/6 hours at room temperature. I knock the dou...	OK, so what flour are you using.... and what hydration? Knocking back sounds a bit aggressive to me - a gentle approach would be better. Let's see the recipe before anything else.Cheers
Very difficult to cut through bottom of the loaf So my loafs have been coming along very nicely (I think). However, for the life of me, the bottom crust is just incredibly difficult to slice through. And I have a nice bread knife. I don't think the bottom is burned. Or maybe just ever so slightly, but definitely doesn'...	Mine get to be the same way. Mine get to be the same way. I bake on parchment paper, on the stones. I just tilt the loaf when I get close to cutting through, or else angle the knife up so the tip is jabbing down through the bottom crust to the board.
Adding Honey and olive oil to my sourdough I have been recently adding a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of Olive oil to my sourdough bread. My starter is made up of bread flour, rye flour, and whole wheat flour. My bread has been fermenting faster and rising better in the oven since I started adding the honey and...	I add 1/4 cup of honey and 1 I add 1/4 cup of honey and 1/4 cup of oil to my 4 pound recipe for two loaves of sourdough sandwich bread. No issues at all, and I think the oil gives a more tender crumb.
Sticky Dough and Gluten is not forming with stretch and folds Hello, I am so frustrated. I am following the recipe from The Regular Chef:LEVAIN:50g Mature Sourdough Starter40g Whole Wheat Flour40g White Flour (bread flour or all-purpose)80g Room Temperature WaterREMAINING DOUGH:900g Unbleached Bread Flour100g Whole Whe...	I lied None of the 3 are stiff. I can pinch a piece of the dough and it extends and then gets long holes in it and rips. I threw them in the refrigerator for the night. At this point, I will see if there is a change in texture in the morning, if not, I guess I will throw it away. Unless..... there are any suggestions t...
Sticky/Gummy Crumb 100% Rye Sourdough After about a month or so baking wheat and spelt sourdough breads I wanted to try a 100% rye loaf. I have experimented in the past adding in a bit of rye to my wheat breads and it was ok. This week I tried a recipe I found on this forum, but can no longer find the thread. I followe...	After toasting a piece my After toasting a piece my wife mentions it's like dark rye, which it is 100% whole sprouted rye flour, which I probably should have mentioned as well. Maybe this is the appropriate crumb and I should adjust my expectations having probably never had real rye bread before.
Need Help with Starter I've begun a starter about six times, now. They all start out great but after three or four days they turn into a soupy mess. Almost the consistency of water, in fact.For my latest batch here is what I did. BTW, I'm using a propagation mat to speed things up, but the same thing was happening when...	i think soupy with bubbles is i think soupy with bubbles is fine! Maybe don't give up and start over. How come you stopped removing after 3rd feed?
1st Successful Loaf with New Starter Hello!So I started my starter on 5/9 and here's my first loaf that came out mostly as expected. The sour still needs to develop but overall I'm pleased. I basically followed this recipe. I've only one banneton so I broke the recipe down to using 260 grams of water and 350 grams o...	Nice for a first attempt! Looks like a nice loaf of bread for the first bake from a new starter! I've started adding a small percentage of whole wheat and/or rye flour to boost the flavor profiles of my bakes, with good success. And yes, salt is important! I find most recipes don't call for enough for our tastes. I...
Flour Change I am a complete newbie at bread baking but I have been toying around with sourdough for the past few months and have had some pretty good success so far. With flour being so hard to come by lately I have switched from using AP flour to a higher protein bread flour just because that was what I have availab...	Kneading needed Flour with more protein/gluten will sometimes require more water and more mixing or kneading to develop the gluten.
Sourdough Starter Color Change I started this starter October last year. I only recently noticed the color difference after reading some articles about identifying bad starter. All of them made mention of orange streaks or tint which got me worrying. It is 50% all-purpose and 50% dark rye flour.On the right is freshly ...	One of the signs of a rye starter fermenting is a slight change in colour. I've noticed this when starting up rye starters. It varies with the rye flour and there are different varieties. Seems the more bran or whole rye flour the greater the change. It starts out grey and gets brighter, lighter and i would say more ...
Still not an amazing rise in the oven!! Hi everyone,This bread is 78% hydration, 250 gr Flour, 50 gr rye starter, 7 gr saltAutolyse 2 hours,Add starter 30 minsAdd Salt 30 minsLamination 30 mins5 coil folds(every 30 mins) In the fridge for 12 hoursPreshape, Bench rest 30 minsRetard 3 hours Bake in Dutch Oven for 20 mins...	Underfermented? This looks underfermented to me. How long does it take your starter to double in volume at room temp?
First attempt at sourdough Hi allThanks to those who have helped already in the Artisan Baking sub-forum.I've had a first go at making sourdough using a biga (Jim Lahey's Pane Bianco from the Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook) and would be grateful if you'd have a look at the crumbhttps://ibb.co/3kwq7dfIn terms of the re...	how old is your starter? how old is your starter?
Sourdough starter help! 3 weeks old Hey Fresh loaf community!I'm after some help with a 3 week old starterI used the perfect loaf recipe as a guide. I started with a 1:2:2 ratio with a mix of 1/2 AP Flour, 1/2 Wholemeal Spelt. I'm using filtered water. Have switched to a 1:1:1 ratio in last week too see if it would imp...	You got me stumped I can't even figure out what happened. :) Maybe put it all in consecutive order. Did you follow the recipe? What are the temperatures of starter and room? What is the temp of the oven with the light on? Has it gotten better or worse with using the oven light?The starting ratios sound strange......
Trouble getting structure in bulk fermentation Hi All!New poster- but have been baking sourdough off and on for about two years.We follow tartine recipe pretty much to the T. While we end up with some pretty good bread, the one issue that always bothers us is that we never seem to build structure during th ebulk fermen...	Hoe high is the hydtration? Hoe high is the hydtration? Whole wheat or rye absorb more water so that can explain the difference when you add that.
Proof is in the crumb k9ayw4wktcy91.jpg First attempt at seeded sourdough, would you say the proof on this is okay? My shaping and scoring needs a lot of work but I just want to get bulk fermentation right first.Recipe is tartine’s country bread with some of the water taken back to make a seed soaker. It’s rea...	what seeds? what kind of seeds did you use? i ask because chia (and i think also flax, maybe some others) absorb a lot of water. so, if you replace some of the original recipe’s water with the seed-soaking water, you may end up with effectively a lower hydration dough. if you were wanting/expecting a more open crumb, y...
Im About To Trow The Towel!!! Please Help Hi EveryoneIm new to this. I have a starter almost 2 weeks old. I need some help, im kinda frustrated. Already tried making some sourdough bread and some sourdough baguettes but cannot seem to pass the autolyse. Usually the dough never firms. other times it firms a little bit b...	Totally confused Hi Hanry,I'm a little confused by what you mean. Is the dough 100% or your starter at 100%? If your dough is 100% hydration, I'd find a different recipe for your bakes until you get a hang of it. 100% hydration will never really get firm, and firm isn't exactly what you are looking for in dough. What...
Ideas and Recipes for High Hydration Are there any sourdough recipes that have high hydration? I recently followed a recipe with 75% hydration but my loaf was super dense. If I increase the hydration, I hope to get a better and more even crumb.	There are many things you There are many things you should try before attempting to raise the hydration. If you are not skilled in baking sourdough bread already, raising the hydration will only hurt. What recipe are you following right now? Share the formula and the method. How active is your starter?
Is this considered a “Fool’s Crumb”? So I’ve been intensively working on my shaping and fermentation control to achieve a better oven spring and overall better rise. After fixing my overproofing issues and improving the initial gluten development of the dough today I achieved my best loaf up to date. Although I’m worri...	Looks pretty good to me. Looks pretty good to me.
Help me with steam baking technique please! Hello, Long time reader, first time poster.I am trying to improve my sourdough oven spring. I normally do it in the dutch oven, and it is alright, but not spectacular.Here is how it looked yesterday from the dutch oven. The crumb was nice and opened too . bake2.jpg I...	More conductivity It's possible that the baking tray you were using for steaming simply isn't conductive enough to rapidly produce enough steam necessary for oven spring. What I do and what I've seen a lot of others do is get a cast iron skillet and fill it up with lava rocks, old nuts/bolts/screws, a long length of ch...
Help! Can anyone tell me if my dough is finished bulk fermentation yet? It's been 11.5 hrs at 20c. The recipe says 8-10 hrs at 21c. and i think my starter hadn't quite peaked yet when i used it. it's 75% hydration dough. Do you see the bubbles on the lower right? But that's just 2 bubbles.	Unfortunately, nobody will be Unfortunately, nobody will be able to tell if your dough is proofed by looking at it. Did you do stretch and folds and develop gluten until window pane?How much has it risen (20%, 50%, 100%)?What happens when you poke it with a wet finger?Looks interesting, what did you put in it?
Help - Flat, dense loaf with little rise (first warm weather bake) Hello all and thanks in advance for your help and ideas.I have been baking with a starter since late December, and generally get great results. I bake once per week using Forkish's recipe for overnight brown. This past week, for the first time I had m...	Forkish is a good starting Forkish is a good starting point, but I think why a lot of bakers here don't follow it religiously is that you cannot rely on those timeframes. You just can't leave dough overnight in those temps. It will almost certainly overproof, unless you cut back your starter addition dramatically, bu...
Weird starter behaviour Hello everyone. I've been baking for 2 months now and everything was fine until 3 days ago i noticed my stater was acting differently. Usually it took it around 8 hours max from feeding to double in size and around 8 hours to levain to double in size. Now it takes over 12 hours and still not dou...	Different flour can Different flour can absolutely make your starter behave differently. It is obvious that the difference between one kind of grain or another, or whole grain versus white flour will make a difference in a loaf of bread, and it should come as no surprise that those things can affect your starter, too....
Help! Change of plans in middle of bake! TLDR: I've made the dough with a levain that was almost doubled, but definitely not peaked. It's going to retard in the fridge for somewhere around 6 hours. Then I'll take it out continue at fermenting at room temperature. What should I expect in terms of how many more hours...	Is Blob a rye starter? :)
Starter is rising but not doubling Hi All, I am on day 11 of my starter. I started it with WWF and have been feeding it unbleached all purpose flour whenever it falls, which is about once a day. I am keeping it between 75-80 degrees F. There are tons of bubbles and it is rising but it is not anywhere close to doubling....	Hi I'm new at this too. My Hi I'm new at this too. My starter never doubled and it really bothered me. So instead of 1:1:1 feeds i started 1:2:2 feeds to give it more food. That seemed to help a little. Then when i give it a 50% hydration feed say 1:2:1 (makes it really hard to stir) or feed it WWF it seems to dou...
How much levain to keep when getting ready to bake Hey folks,I'm new to the fresh loaf but have been a member and following lots of amazing stuff for months now. Seems like a really great community of passionate bread bakers, which I have now become.Question:How much levain do you keep when refreshing to prep for bakin...	Ask 12 bakers ... ... get 13 replies :)My sourdough starters contain about 500g of "mother" and live in the fridge.. I take from the mother, bulk it up if necessary then replace what I've taken out and back in the fridge it goes.e.g. earlier this afternoon, I took out 370g of mother out of my wheat starter, added into ...

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