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Sour dough is so weird. You can do everything the same and the results change.
I bring this up because I was completely baffled for a while. Maybe this will help another newbie. So I started baking sourdough just over a year ago. I had some generous tutors on this board and in relatively short order (say three months) was baking passably good looking loaves with nice crumb and crust.
First bake ever was June 21, 2012 and looked like this.
By mid September, 2012 I was routinely getting stuff like this:
And then in December/January everything changed. As far as I know, I did nothing different. The only variable was that my starter continued to mature. Suddenly I was getting huge mouse holes in my loaves. I mean HUGE. Consistently over an inch, frequently two inches...running the entire length of the loaf. I was so bummed I didn't even take pics. I was completely baffled. At first I assumed that I hadn't properly developed the dough (not enough s&f's). Then I wondered if maybe I was actually physically shaping the loaves incorrectly.
I had always assumed that the dough (and the gas bubbles inside) that formed during bulk fermentation were fragile things which needed to be coddled. When I would form loaves I would rather gingerly cut a 750 gram ball off and carefully stretch the skin around so as to form the oblong ball which would become a batard. I would treat it as if I was holding a water ballon which might pop. I had no concept of outgassing the dough (I guess that's the down side of learning from written descriptions...unless you watch a demonstration...)
The amazing thing though is that even though what I was doing was clearly wrong...it worked. Judging by the pics, it worked relatively well. And then it didn't work....at all.
All that I can figure is that between June and November my starter wasn't so active that outgassing was a requirement??? And then suddenly....the starter changed...I guess.
So after a three or four month hiatus....and after running back to the board and (once again) getting advice from Jay and Faith... realized there is thing called "outgassing" where you beat up your dough before loaf formation. So then I searched for and watched videos.
So on this last bake I would cut off my 750 gram ball of dough from the bulk ferment. And then I would press it flat (about an inch and a half or so) like a square-ish pancake. I mean FLAT. Using the heal of my palm and finger tips. And then I rolled it up like some sort of pop n fresh sleeping bag and just sort of squished and pulled it into a batard shape. And it frigging worked! Twenty-nine loaves....Not one mouse hole! So, to parrot Jay and Faith....well developed dough can take (and in my cases needs) a lot of abuse. Here's what Saturday's bread looks like...all twenty-nine loaves.
If anyone has a different take on what might have caused the change in results, I'd love to hear it.
Bill
I bring this up because I was completely baffled for a while. Maybe this will help another newbie. So I started baking sourdough just over a year ago. I had some generous tutors on this board and in relatively short order (say three months) was baking passably good looking loaves with nice crumb and crust.
First bake ever was June 21, 2012 and looked like this.
By mid September, 2012 I was routinely getting stuff like this:
And then in December/January everything changed. As far as I know, I did nothing different. The only variable was that my starter continued to mature. Suddenly I was getting huge mouse holes in my loaves. I mean HUGE. Consistently over an inch, frequently two inches...running the entire length of the loaf. I was so bummed I didn't even take pics. I was completely baffled. At first I assumed that I hadn't properly developed the dough (not enough s&f's). Then I wondered if maybe I was actually physically shaping the loaves incorrectly.
I had always assumed that the dough (and the gas bubbles inside) that formed during bulk fermentation were fragile things which needed to be coddled. When I would form loaves I would rather gingerly cut a 750 gram ball off and carefully stretch the skin around so as to form the oblong ball which would become a batard. I would treat it as if I was holding a water ballon which might pop. I had no concept of outgassing the dough (I guess that's the down side of learning from written descriptions...unless you watch a demonstration...)
The amazing thing though is that even though what I was doing was clearly wrong...it worked. Judging by the pics, it worked relatively well. And then it didn't work....at all.
All that I can figure is that between June and November my starter wasn't so active that outgassing was a requirement??? And then suddenly....the starter changed...I guess.
So after a three or four month hiatus....and after running back to the board and (once again) getting advice from Jay and Faith... realized there is thing called "outgassing" where you beat up your dough before loaf formation. So then I searched for and watched videos.
So on this last bake I would cut off my 750 gram ball of dough from the bulk ferment. And then I would press it flat (about an inch and a half or so) like a square-ish pancake. I mean FLAT. Using the heal of my palm and finger tips. And then I rolled it up like some sort of pop n fresh sleeping bag and just sort of squished and pulled it into a batard shape. And it frigging worked! Twenty-nine loaves....Not one mouse hole! So, to parrot Jay and Faith....well developed dough can take (and in my cases needs) a lot of abuse. Here's what Saturday's bread looks like...all twenty-nine loaves.
If anyone has a different take on what might have caused the change in results, I'd love to hear it.
Bill
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