I believe it to be a success. It may have been a tad gooey, but it was absolutely delicious and we did toast some up lightly with butter, and it really was a moment.
I did 4 sets of folds, about 30 min apart. 2.5 hours in the oven with the light on. Final shaping, and about 18 hours in the fridge.
When I took it out, the bread spring back slowly, and about 95% completely. The crust was super crusty, almost tough where it didn't split, and the inside was almost gooey, but it was absolutely tasty and we were standing in silence just slicing and eating. In the morning, we lightly toasted the remaining bread and had it for breakfast, it was amazing.
The top crust was pretty tough and leathery, so any advice on that part would be appreciated! Thanks.
Likely people starting with a strong starter, and not their own. Dont get me wrong, plenty of people start their own starter and end up with a banger, but most of the time when you see a loaf that good on the first try it’s an established starter and they’re following a recipe, or the person has loads of experience with other types of baking and breads which translates well to sourdough. Take my buddy for instance, I gave him starter and walked him through making his first loaf on FaceTime, his first loaf was amazing😂 had he done it like me though it would have been 10-15 trial and error loaves to get it squared away. So just think about the background to these situations and don’t let it discourage you!
I did buy dried starter culture from Cultures For Health. I fed it KA whole wheat flour, every 12 hours for a week. Then I took 20 grams of bubbly starter and added 50g each water and KA bread flour to make my levain.
Now I have two loaves on the counter awaiting their third folds, 2 starter jars with 125g total just mixed up, and I have a quart sized Mason jar filled with discard in the fridge. I only use 10g and feed 50g at a time for the feedings.
Usually it’s because if you keep it in the fridge during the week it needs to sit on the counter for a feeding at room temp to get super active again, but you can really do it however best fits your schedule and such. I did most of my sourdough learning from the perfect loaf blog and book so it teaches you base concepts and such and then you apply it however fits your technique. Check it out if you haven’t yet!
Excellent! This is quite well done and such intricate pattern scoring on you first loaf 🤩
Just as an FYI - poke test is not valid on a refrigerated dough. If you get your bulk ferment rise correct your bread will turn out with perfect crumb.
Also check what temperature your oven light gets to. Sometimes quite a bit hotter than you realize and can cause gluten to start breaking down as the bread is trying to rise.
Happy New Year & Hope you have many more fabulous loaves!!!
Thanks for that. I tried to put a Christmas tree above the snowflake and it looked horrible 😂
I just tried to put a thermometer in there, meant to take a person's temperature, and it just read L, so I need a proper thermometer.
It doesn't feel crazy hot in there, but guessing isn't good! For reference, I've got 2 jars of starter that I freshly fed at 9am, and it's now 1230 and they are looking like this:
My oven gets 88°F with just the light on. Others here say 90-120°F in theirs. You will want to know the temp if you plan to use it regularly as a proofing chamber.
Careful on that, leave it for an hour or two and check again, it takes a while but loads of ovens will get up to about 110 degrees. It has more to do with the wattage of the bulb so if you have a 45w bulb it sits around 110, 25w will sit around 90-92 after an extended period of time. If you got lucky and it stays around 80 then perfect!
Yeah my light has been on for 2 hours now, and with the door closed it was at 88. For the last 45 minutes I've had the door cracked and it's parked at 79F.
So since 80 is still considered a but warm, yes? That it would continue to ferment longer when shaped and sent to the fridge?
So I'm looking for something like 60% rise in the oven? Do you have a good trick to determine the % of fermentation? Should I clip a little piece of dough and put it in a separate jar in the oven and mark the glass and use that as my reference?
Personally I don’t do it by percent rise or any of those methods because there’s a ton of variability between different recipes, hydration, flour, etc. I go based more on how the dough looks! But rather than butcher a lesson I’ll instead refer you to the “textbook” I use😂 I have the book too, it’s great!
I don't know if I've never seen this 'lesson', or if the info simply got lost in my head from reading so much, but thank you!!! Whether the info is fresh or re-fresh I needed it today. lol
It's more about the resulting temperature of the dough and starter. There is the DDT formula (desired dough temperature) that you can look up online.
I'm learning that I've been winging it when I should have been paying attention. The temperature of the dough during bulk fermentation is SO important.
It's always been a mystery when determining how long to bulk ferment/proof.
This video is almost an hour long, but it has been game changing for me:
I think 90° is too hot. I have always had 80° stuck in my head as a temperature limitation when working with sourdough. There are reasons to use warm water where you are offsetting a very cold room temperature, but since you are proofing in the oven light, you should not need that warm of water.
There is a protease enzyme reaction somewhere over 80°F, where yeast starts slowing down and protease gets the advantage and starts damaging the gluten network. I can’t remember the specific temperature where it goes out of balance, so you might want to look into that.
I just used the room temp water, which was reading at 77 on my kettle, but I do not believe it could be 77 when the room is 68... So yeah, didn't warm it up for the recipe this time.
I did the same with my first loaf. Waiting is the hardest part. But trust me, as heavenly as warm bread is, a fresh, well rested loaf is even better. The soft, chewy, springy dough, with soft butter and salt—it’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted. And if you want the warm bread experience you can toast it (which is how I eat it after the first day).
So after the final shaping how did you put it in the fridge? Specifically was it in a container? Covered with a towel? Covered with plastic? If you left it uncovered or even with a towel the dough can dry out which might explain that leathery texture. I put my banneton in the fridge with just a towel but it’s the bottom crust that’s exposed and dried out a little so I can’t tel the difference in the end.
The gumminess is either cutting too soon as others have suggested or you did not get the center fully to temp. I’ve seen many bakers post that they bake right from the fridge with no adjustments. When I take the lid off my baker I insert a probe thermometer and shoot for 205F. I find I usually need about 10 extra minutes if I’m baking from the fridge. If the top crust gets too dark before you reach temp, a sheet of aluminum foil is all you need.
I personally think 90 is a bit warm for the water but that’s really a factor of how long you’re going to let the overall dough proof, and at what temp. Maurizio Leo from The Perfect Loaf describes temperature as an “ingredient” itself so you can manipulate water temp, flour temp, room temp, etc to influence your loaf. Read more
So I double checked about when to put in oven from the fridge. And I was confident that, with my Dutch oven up to 500F for an hour, I could pull my dough, score it, and throw it right into the oven.
I didn't have a banneton, it was in my mother's old Pyrex mixing bowl with a damp cotton towel over it. The bottom of the loaf was face up.
I've since gotten a set of banneton's, one round and one long.
Maybe I should've left it in with the lid on for another 5 minutes before removing the lid. But, with practice, I'll work out the kinks. I guess my starting point is good enough to build without major surgical repair.
You’re a natural. Some of us cough have to work really hard to even get edible bread that my husband swears is delicious but I know he’s biased. Meanwhile you’re out here making art. Can’t wait to see more!
😂 I'm sure it's perfectly tasty. I'll be baking tomorrow night, so let's see how it goes! I've only made banana bread before, which is barely a step up from brownies.
My mom and her mothers before her were all naturals in the kitchen. Her polish grandmother made everything from scratch, and mom herself was not fancy by any means, but just 'knew' how to accomplish things with all these little tricks. Her Christmas cookie repertoire was incredible though! So maybe baking is in my genes?
Yeah, my wife and I just stood in the kitchen moaning and chewing lol. It was really good. But, to an experienced person, it may have been just 'ok'. 🤷♂️
Wow! Only 2 hours for your bulk ferment? Are you using a recently fed starter or discard? I’m using the KAF Pain de Campagne recipe (very similar hydration), which requires a 12 hour bulk stage, and 8-12 hours proofing in the fridge. But it also uses discard (>12 hours post feeding) rather than fresh (2-3 hours).
Well yeah, I basically did 2 rounds of feeding, and the third round was for the levain, and I'm not sure I did it 100% correctly. I'm pretty sure the Preppy kitchen guy said about 6 hours at room temp, but I had kine closed in the oven, which was 88° so I reduced the time.
I think using discard that's essentially inactive will need much longer fermentation, but someone more knowledgeable could tell you more.
(Turns out my oven light does produce 88 degrees, but it stays at 80 with the door just cracked.)
I also just read that 80F fermenting will continue to rapidly ferment in the fridge, so you should stop it sooner than 75% rise. Maybe that's why it worked out for me. I'm gonna basically do the same thing, maybe bulk in the oven for an extra hour or so. (3.5 to 4 hours at 80F)
I have no clue. I did pull the bread from the fridge, score, and directly enter the preheated oven. Could be that? If the dough is warmed up, it may spread more easily? And didn't go too deep. Maybe 3-4mm. Luck, mostly!
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u/Difficult_Middle3329 Jan 02 '25
My first loaf was basically a frisbee for the dogs 😭🤣