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Hi friends, welcome back to the Saving Bread Podcast.
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We've had a huge, huge influx of new listeners from this past week's episode with Tom Kakuza.
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Thank you so much, Tom, for consistently posting about the podcast and sharing it on your social media.
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And welcome to all of the new listeners.
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I'm really, really, really excited and happy that you're here.
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Tom's episode was the perfect follow-up episode to the country loaf start-to-finish episode.
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And today I'm going to continue to expand on some of the ideas that we talked about in that episode and really talk about some of the common mistakes that we see when people start making sourdough, or maybe they've been making it for a long time and they keep running into certain issues and they're not quite sure what's happening.
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So I really want to go over a lot of that with you today, and that's what today's episode will focus on.
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But I also just came back from teaching my three-day science of sourdough bread class in Petaluma at Central Milling at the Artisan Baking Center.
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And we had something happen in class that really it opened my mind and my eyes to something I hadn't really considered before.
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And I think it made me, I know that it made me a better baker, a better instructor, a better coach.
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It helped me understand something that I didn't understand before.
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So I will be sharing that towards the end of the episode.
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And the beginning we'll just kind of get right into it.
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I had a lot of listener questions that were submitted about, you know, issues that people had going on with their loaves.
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So we're just going to go right into it.
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I'm Allie White, and this is Saving Bread.
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Some fails, some issues, just little wonky things that can happen.
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And it can feel frustrating.
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People want to know why did my sourdough fail?
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I thought I followed all of the right steps and you know my loaf is flat or it exploded out of the side, or I just can't quite get an ear.
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And sometimes the answer to that question isn't really, you know, just one thing.
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It's it tends to be a multitude of things.
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So I wanted to go over some of the things that we've previously discussed, but perhaps a little bit more deeply.
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Some of the questions that I've received are: Is this loaf underproofed?
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Why is it gummy?
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My loaf spread out a lot, and I'm not sure why.
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Um, another one that I saw was just really big holes through the center.
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And I want to be thoughtful and talk about each one of these individually, but again, it's more of a system, and we're going to talk about how each part of the system plays its own role into making a successful loaf of sourdough.
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So your starter influences fermentation, your flour influences fermentation and dough strength, temperature influences fermentation, hydration influences handling, mixing influences strength, and bulk fermentation influences everything that comes afterwards.
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And how we shape our loaves plays a really important role.
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How we score them, how we bake them, all of these things have to be in harmony to get the type of loaf that we would like.
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And I know that can sound really frustrating and overwhelming, but I promise you, it really just takes practice.
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We tend to want to be amazing at something the first time we try it.
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If any of you do yoga regularly, you know that it's a practice and it's a never-ending journey.
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There's no finish line.
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So once you release that and welcome the journey, I think it's it can be more freeing.
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I have things that I'm working on.
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I have types of breads that I'd like to make.
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I have goals.
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Everyone does, whether it's your first day or your thousandth or you've been doing this since the day you weren't born.
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There's it's never going to end.
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So release the idea that you're going to be perfect at it right away.
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Let's talk about some of these things.
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Let's talk about our starter and our Levan.
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That's kind of the beginning of the story.
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So your starter does need to be healthy.
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If you've not listened to the lessons episode about taking care of a starter and starter variables, I would strongly recommend going back a few episodes and listening to those ones and make sure that you are being consistent about your feeding because I've received a few messages about people who are very determined to only feed their starter once a day or every so often.
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And then they're frustrated with the types of loaves that they're making.
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I would encourage anyone who's listening to consider feeding their starter every day, twice a day.
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And if that feels overwhelming, putting it in the refrigerator for a few breaks, and then understanding that you will need to do at least probably three or four feeds to get it back up to strength in order to bake with it.
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And what I mean by full strength is you give it a feed and it doubles or triples in the amount of time that you expected it to, and smells healthy, looks healthy, has lots of bubbles.
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You shouldn't have to use your imagination to think that it has doubled.
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You shouldn't have to question yourself.
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You will look at it and you will say, oh yeah, that has definitely doubled in size, if not more.
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That's a strong starter.
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That is the type of starter, that is the type of Levan that we want to put in our bread to do the work, to do the job.
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But on the other side, I do think that sometimes starter gets blamed for too many bad loaves.
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It is a very important part.
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But if your starter health and your starter care maintenance are really, really dialed in and you feel great about it, we can move on to some other things that could be causing issues.
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So if the starter is great, let's let's leave that alone and let's move on.
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The next thing that we would want to talk about and want to think about is after we've added our starter and we're mixing, the dough might feel wrong from the very beginning.
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So let's say you've added your super healthy starter, your super healthy Levan into your dough, and you've mixed your dough, and right away it feels off.
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It feels really loose, it's spreading everywhere, it doesn't seem capable of holding itself together.
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And so a common reaction to something like this is, oh, I should do more folds.
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And sometimes that can do the trick.
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Sometimes you really do need a few more folds up front if you didn't properly mix your dough.
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But sometimes you've either heated the dough up more than you thought you did with your mixer, and the dough is kind of separating because it's just too hot and needs to cool down for a little bit.
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Or what's more likely is that you've added too much water into the dough, then that flour can comfortably support.
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So your hydration is not an accolade, it's not a score, no one's coming to give you a high five because you had a high hydration loaf.
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You need to appropriately hydrate the batch of flour in the way that can still support itself.
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This is like my favorite hill to die on.
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I don't care if anyone has high hydration bread.
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It doesn't mean that it's better, it doesn't mean that it's special.
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We need to take a step back from that and say, can this amount of flour support this amount of water?
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And if we have a very slack dough, the answer might be no.
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So what do we do?
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You don't need to dramatically reduce your hydration, but you can consider reducing it by 2%, 3%, maybe in extreme cases it's 5%, and start there.
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Try a more dry autolase.
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And if it comes together in a really nice way, then great, we've solved the problem.
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And as you get more comfortable with that dough, maybe you can add a little bit more of that water back in, but there's no shame in reducing hydration to make a loaf of bread that's easier to handle.
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The next thing I would like to talk about is bulk fermentation.
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So when we're talking about bulk fermentation, I do think there's also a little bit of confusion about what that even means.
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Bulk fermentation refers to when the dough is being fermented as a bulk mass.
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And when we're making one loaf, that can be a confusing term because there's only one.
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When we're making 15, the term bulk fermentation makes a lot more sense because all of those 15 loaves are being fermented as one bulk mass, typically in a bus tub or a container of some sort.
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And then it's divided out into smaller pieces because they're going to be shaped and put into their basket.
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Bulk fermentation is just referring to the amount of time that the dough is fermenting as one cohesive mass.
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Maybe that's one loaf, maybe it's 15, maybe it's a hundred.
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The quantity doesn't really matter what it means.
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It's the dough before it has been pre-shaped or final shaped or moved along through the process for shaping.
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Bulk fermentation typically, typically for a dough that has been given 20% Levan or 10% prefermented flour, as we've discussed in the Baker's Math episode, that dough should typically ferment between three and four hours during bulk fermentation.
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Not always, but generally, if it's at a temperature of around 77, 78 degrees Fahrenheit, we should see between three and four hours of bulk fermentation time before that dough is ready to move on to the next step.
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Could it be a little faster?
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Could it be a little bit longer?
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Of course, there are things that happen.
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Sometimes the temperature dips down too low, or sometimes it's too high and things move quickly.
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But generally speaking, that's about the amount of time that that dough at that temperature will be in what we're going to refer to as bulk fermentation, meaning it has not yet moved on to any type of shaping yet.
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So how do you know when it's done?
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It's really hard and it's it's a moving target.
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It's something that every baker thinks about every single time.
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No one is looking at their dough at the end of bulk fermentation and thinking this is the exact moment.
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Like some alarm bells are going to go off or something.
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It doesn't work like that.
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When I'm looking at my dough towards the end of bulk fermentation, I'm trying to decide how much time do I have left before this dough and the way that it looks right now needs to go into the refrigerator for its overnight cold proof.
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So when I'm looking at it, I'm thinking, okay, I know that I want to do a pre-shape and I want to do a final shape, and I want 45 minutes of this dough time in the basket before it goes to the fridge.
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So if I'm looking at this dough now, where am I in its proofing journey?
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And is this a good time to move on to the next step so that I have enough time to do everything else that I would like to do with this dough before it goes into the refrigerator?
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Sometimes I might look at it and think, hmm, it's definitely not ready.
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I'd like it to be a little bit more gassy, a little bit more lively.
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I'd like the dough to feel perhaps a little bit more thin before I move to the next step because towards the beginning of bulk fermentation, the dough will feel very thick and dense and heavy, and towards the end it will start to lighten up and the the walls of those gluten bubbles will begin to thin out a bit.
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So where am I there?
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Can I move on to my next step and still have enough time to do all the things that I want to do?
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These are the types of questions I would love for you to start asking yourself.
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We can absorb all kinds of data.
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We can read when things are supposed to be done, we can have all sorts of ways that we can decide if it's time.
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And I would strongly recommend that you do that.
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Specifically, you know, read Tom's bulk fermentation guides, listen to the Josh Fairbanks episode, get all of these ideas and clues.
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But when all of that kind of fades into the background and you're just sitting there with your dough, give yourself permission to trust your intuition and decide if it's ready to move on.
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Not just because it's been three hours, really look at that dough and make an assessment and think about where else is that dough going.
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And I truly believe that we all have these instincts within ourselves if we practice enough to know, okay, yes, I think it's time to move on so that I can do XYZ and not risk over fermenting this dough.
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And speaking of overfermentation, let's let's talk about that.
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Most people are so afraid, as Parker mentioned in his episode, most people are so afraid to over-ferment their loaf that they often will under ferment it.
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And truly, I think that go for it.
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Go for the over-fermentation.
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Better to be over-fermented than under, in my opinion.
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And then just walk it back 30 minutes next time.
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Let's say you go and you turn off the loaf and you score it and it bakes a little bit flat.
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It's okay.
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Shorten your bulk fermentation by 30 minutes next time and try again and see how it comes out.
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Don't worry about overproofing your dough.
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I think we should be much more concerned about underfermenting our loaves.
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When a dough is underfermented, we will cut it open and look through the center, and you're going to see really large elongated holes through the center of the dough.
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Typically, they run from north to south.
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And then all of the crumb around those holes will be quite dense and hard.
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And the loaf will never become dark in the oven.
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It just feels like a heavy loaf of bread that never became full of air.
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This is something that we'd really like to avoid.
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So better to just keep pushing the fermentation as far as you can go and slowly walk your way backwards than bake some really, really heavy loaves.
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Because at the end of the day, if you turn out an overfermented loaf, you could always just, you know, throw some olive oil on there and dimple it for focaccia and you can still enjoy it.
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But under fermented, there's not much that you can do there, and it's not going to taste very good to eat.
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Signs of overfermentation, again, would be a flat loaf.
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You go to score it and all of the air just sort of deflates out like a like a whoopee cushion.
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You don't get an ear when you're baking.
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You know, you go to score it and the the score line closes itself up and it never fully expands.
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It's okay.
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These are not personal attacks against us.
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It's just a lesson.
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We've learned, oops, I pushed the fermentation too far for this flower blend.
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It's fine.
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Walk it back 30 minutes next time and try again.
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And I know it can feel really frustrating because it feels like this, oh, we put all of this time and energy, and then this thing happened and it's a bummer.
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And I'm not going to gaslight anyone and say that that doesn't really stink because it does.
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But we have to go through these uncomfortable places when we're baking to learn where we can't go.
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Like kind of learning the rules of a game.
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If I step over here, that doesn't work.
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And if I go this way, oh shoot, that doesn't work over there.
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But if I stay in this area here, there's a range of things.
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There's a range of choices that I can make.
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And I know that I can make a successful loaf of bread within all of that safe space.
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And it does take quite a few failures to understand where you can and cannot go.
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But just like you, I started out not knowing anything about bread.
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And almost six years later, I'm still learning.
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So don't be discouraged.
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If something silly happens and you take a flat loaf out of the oven, it's okay.
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Shake it off, move on, take some notes about what happened and try again.
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Don't take it too personally.
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It's it's not that serious.
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It should be fun.
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Another question that I get is how much rise should I look for?
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That can be one type of rise, which we just talked about in bulk fermentation, and Tom went over that really extensively during our interview, and he goes into it in detail on his page, The Sourdough Journey.
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So I'd really recommend going there for some more resources about that.
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I like to see a lot of activity in my dough.
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I also use pH, something that we haven't discussed yet, but I promise you that we will.
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We're just not really there yet as a saving bread community, but we will get there soon.
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Once we have our bulk fermentation dialed in, something that I personally enjoy using is a basket rise.
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And I know it's not for everyone, but I do really like it.
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So I go into my pre-shape, I allow the dough to relax between 20 and 30 minutes, and then I do my final shape, which tends to be quite gentle, and then I put it in the basket.
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And I do like about 30, 45, maybe even a little bit longer minutes in the basket.
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And I like to see that dough relax in the basket and sort of fill it up.
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And for me, that's really when I know it's time to go ahead and go into the refrigerator.
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So I think what can happen is people go into the basket and immediately go to the fridge when the dough hasn't really finished proofing just quite yet.
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So if you're turning your loaves out and they're a little bit underfermented, maybe you could try using a little bit more time in the basket before you go to the refrigerator.
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I'm not reading anyone's specific questions because I had a lot of really similar ones, but I'm just sort of walking you through what I do and some of the things that I've tried for success, hoping that when you listen to this and you're thinking about all of these things, you can say, oh, maybe it's not just one simple change.
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It's kind of the system that's all working together.
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And maybe if I make a few little tweaks here and there, I can get the result that I want.
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So let's talk about the pre-shape and the final shape.
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Pre-shape is something that is optional.
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I think it is a good idea when you're newer to use a pre-shape because it can help you sort of organize the dough.
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It also gives you more time of proofing so that you're not risking under fermenting your loaf.
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But as I explained earlier, as your dough starts to go through fermentation, in the beginning it's quite dense and heavy and very thick.
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And as those yeasts start to consume some of the sugars in our dough and they produce gas, that gas fills up the dough.
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But also the walls of the gluten bubbles that are kind of around in our dough and everywhere, those can become a little bit more fragile the longer that this dough is proofing.
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As we go further into bulk fermentation and we decide it's time to pre-shape and final shape our loaves, it's important to consider that that dough needs to be touched with very gentle hands because if we're really rough with it, especially if you have a higher percentage of whole grains, we might risk what's referred to as degassing the loaf too much.
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A little bit can be a good thing and create a really nice even crumb.
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But what I'm saying is a super heavy hand really over shaping the loaf, really pressing it really hard, squeezing all of the air out, sometimes it can be difficult for that loaf to recover from that type of handling so late in fermentation.
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So I would just encourage you if you've gotten to the end of your bulk fermentation and you see that that dough is nice and aerated and light and lovely, please try to avoid over-handling it when you turn it out for shaping, for pre-shaping and final shaping.
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If you've done all of the work up front of strong mixing, maybe a couple of folds early, and then your dough is standing nice and tall during the pre-shape, you have to trust yourself and the work that you've already done that the structure is there.
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You're just coaxing it into the right shape to be a loaf when it comes out of the oven.
00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:35.440
So really consider using super gentle hands during that pre-shape and the final shape.
00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:41.839
This is not the time to take out any emotions that we're having out on our dough.
00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:47.680
Sometimes I'm just like so gentle, like a little bird, uh barely touching it towards the end.
00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:56.079
So I would love to encourage you to just relax a bit and be really gentle with that dough towards the end of handling it.
00:21:56.319 --> 00:21:59.759
Um, I think that's covering most of the things that I wanted to.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:03.599
Talk about the final proof in the refrigerator.
00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:08.160
I did get some questions of cover, don't cover, what should I do?
00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:20.240
I think I shared this in the country loaf start to finish, but in case that I did it, when we don't cover our loaves, sometimes the bottom crust can become very dry and hard and chewy in the oven.
00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:22.480
And that's something that people would like to avoid.
00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:36.400
But when we cover it right away in the refrigerator, sometimes the dough can risk overproofing or you get a lot of condensation inside of whatever it's covered with, and then the loaf is wet when you turn it on.
00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:41.119
And if it's very wet, you could potentially burn the bottom of your dough.
00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:43.759
So, what is the solution to this problem?
00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:53.680
Something that I've done and adopted over the years is I will sometimes put my dough into the refrigerator and let it cool down for a few hours.
00:22:53.920 --> 00:23:02.079
And then once I feel like it's quite cold, then I'll go in and cover it with proofing bags or you know, whatever you're using at home.
00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:07.279
It depends on how many loaves, but you can wait a while before you then go back and cover it.
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:11.039
And that's kind of a nice best of both worlds.
00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:18.400
So I wanted to keep this episode to around 30 minutes today, and I'm already getting closer to that because I'm just kind of rambling on.
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:25.920
But I wanted to talk about the class that I taught this weekend at Central Milling and someone that I haven't talked about quite yet.
00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:30.480
And that person is my very, very dear friend, Hilary Austin.
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:35.599
She was my assistant for this class and every other class that I've taught there.
00:23:35.680 --> 00:23:41.039
She's a wonderful person, incredible baker, one of my closest friends, and my mentor.
00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:43.200
And I'm so thankful to have her in my life.
00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:50.079
And she was just such a rock star in class, and she's just such a cool person and a great, a great friend.
00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:53.920
So on Instagram, she's Backyard Terroir.
00:23:54.319 --> 00:24:01.759
And I've tagged her in some of my posts from Matriarch, but I'll be sure to do a post about her on the podcast.
00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:07.680
So you can follow her, and you can follow when we bake together and when we do classes, and in case anyone's interested in coming.
00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:11.920
But we had a great time and we had a wonderful group of individuals.
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:22.799
We had 15 people in class, and they we had everyone from, you know, just people baking only one loaf to people who are doing full production and everything in between.
00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:30.880
And there were a few things that came up that I just really wanted to share with this community, especially because we have a lot of listeners, new listeners this week.
00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:32.079
And again, welcome.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:42.640
The first thing that I wanted to say is when we started, I always love for everyone to introduce themselves and talk about what they're baking in and what their goals are.
00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:54.720
And I've felt this in this class and in classes that I've taught in the past of a little bit of reservation and hesitation for the bakers who are only baking for themselves or maybe just their family.
00:24:54.960 --> 00:25:02.799
And they feel, I don't want to speak on behalf of how they feel, but it this was communicated to me in this class by this baker.
00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:14.079
So I feel comfortable saying it that they felt a little bit um like, oh, should I be here because all of these people are in production, or um, you know, should I be in production?
00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:14.960
Is that my goal?
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:26.480
And I just, in case no one has said this to you, you do not need to have baking be anything but joyful in your life.
00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:30.319
You do not need to turn your passion into profit.
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:36.559
You don't have to open a bakery, you don't have to sell your bread, you don't have to do any of those things.
00:25:36.880 --> 00:25:39.680
You are allowed to just bake for joy.
00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:47.839
As adults, we don't play enough, we don't laugh enough, we don't have as much fun as we did as children.
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:54.319
And I can say that with a lot of confidence because I have two children and I have a lot of fun, but I'm not having as much fun as they are.
00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:58.799
And bread can just be silly fun, it can just be for you.
00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:03.519
It doesn't have to be anything that you ever monetize.
00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:10.480
Okay, so if no one has said that to you, I'm saying it to you, and I'm giving you permission to just let it be what it is.
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:17.440
And for those who are in production, for those who do want to grow, I see you.
00:26:17.839 --> 00:26:32.559
I see the struggles, I see the long nights, I see the the loaves that never make it to our customers because they failed in the oven and the the dollars that we had to scrape together to buy the oven to do all of the things.
00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:36.640
Wherever you are in your journey, I hope you feel welcome here.
00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:39.920
I hope you feel safe here, I hope you feel seen here.
00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:45.839
And whatever your goals are, I hope that this can be a place that you come to for resources.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:48.000
None of us are better than another.
00:26:48.160 --> 00:27:02.880
I'm not better than any baker who only wants to bake for themselves or someone who has a huge successful bakery isn't better than someone who, you know, is just baking for their community in the town where they live.
00:27:03.119 --> 00:27:04.000
It's all of us.
00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:16.480
It's going to take all of us to make these changes to support local grain, to support local farming, to bring food back into our own control and bake for ourselves and for our family and for our communities.
00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:18.160
And all of us are welcome.
00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:22.799
And I would never want anyone to feel like they didn't belong here or any of my classes.
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:28.000
Like I see you all, I love you all, and I'm I'm just so happy you're here.
00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:34.880
So I'll get off my soapbox a little bit and talk about one of the things in class that really surprised me.
00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:37.279
And this is how I'm going to end the episode today.
00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:48.400
We made a couple of different doughs in class, and one of them was a the country dough, very similar to what's posted on the saving bread podcast page, but just a little bit higher hydration.
00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:54.400
And we had a ton of country loaves ready to go into the oven.
00:27:54.720 --> 00:28:00.880
Typically, I will bake the first round of bread before anyone arrives in class so I can see how it's baking.
00:28:01.039 --> 00:28:07.440
I need to know the behavior of that dough in the oven before I give instructions to how to handle it for the rest of the day.
00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:10.319
I've got to assess how it's coming out of the fridge.
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:15.920
So I baked off six of them in the Rackmaster oven that they have there, and they were beautiful.
00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:16.880
They came out perfect.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:23.200
The students did an incredible job with shaping, the mixing, the folds, everything was fantastic.
00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:24.960
Super happy with them.
00:28:25.200 --> 00:28:33.680
And so I thought, great, um, the next round that goes in the oven, I'm going to delegate this task to two of the students in class.
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:39.039
You saw me score and load and steam the loaves.
00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:40.319
Go ahead and do that.
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:43.279
And so I delegated that task out.
00:28:43.359 --> 00:28:44.880
And this is not shade at anyone.
00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:47.519
I'm so glad that this happened because I learned a lot.
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:54.559
And I left the classroom and went into the lab to help students there work on shaping, and there's just a lot of things going on.
00:28:54.799 --> 00:29:01.759
And when I came back, I saw those loaves in the rack master and they were completely flat.
00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:04.000
They had completely deflated.
00:29:04.319 --> 00:29:12.160
They were all touching each other in the oven and had sort of fused together in certain places, which can happen.
00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:14.400
And they never opened up.
00:29:14.880 --> 00:29:22.880
And I was thinking, wow, was the oven not hot or like what I swear I checked the temperature of the decks before.
00:29:23.119 --> 00:29:25.680
And I was like, okay, well, you know, it happens.
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:30.799
And um, when I took the loaves out of the oven, I realized what had happened.
00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:49.519
And so I want to talk to you about it because this is a really great example of how you can do everything right, every single step of the way, you can do the right thing, and then you get to the last step and you make the wrong choice, and it feels like you made a bad loaf of bread.
00:29:49.599 --> 00:29:53.200
And it really comes down to something really simple.
00:29:53.440 --> 00:30:06.160
When we score our loaves, if I'm looking down at my loaf from a bird's eye view, and I'm talking about a batard, so an oval loaf, when I'm looking down, there's a bird's eye view of my loaf.
00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:18.400
And if I were to cut that loaf in half with an imaginary line, I would not want my score line to go past that line too much.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:24.079
So typically, if we're right-handed, we're scoring from top to bottom of the loaf.
00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:28.079
And usually we're doing we're doing it as a curve.
00:30:29.359 --> 00:30:41.920
If I start that curve at the midline and go towards the right and then go back to the midline, I'm kind of risking that dough spreading more than I want it to in the oven.
00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:45.119
I need that dough to be very supported.
00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:55.920
So when I'm scoring and I'm going top to bottom, I am trying to stay as close to that midline as possible while still doing a curved score.
00:30:57.359 --> 00:31:02.880
What happened was the friends that scored the bread did the score.
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:07.440
If I'm looking straight down at the loaf and I divided it into thirds.
00:31:07.519 --> 00:31:10.960
So I've got the left third, the middle third, and the right third.
00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:16.160
That score line was on the right third of the dough, almost on the side.
00:31:16.480 --> 00:31:20.880
And it was very long, all the way from the top all the way to the bottom.
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:25.119
And so what happened was the loaf could not support itself in the oven.
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:26.880
So it didn't really open.
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:29.519
And instead of going up, it just went outwards.
00:31:29.599 --> 00:31:30.559
It spread.
00:31:31.200 --> 00:31:38.720
Additionally, during the steaming portion of the baking, and not everyone has a rack master, some people have steam injection.
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:41.279
And I do actually think that this would still apply.
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:48.640
Um, the bakers sprayed the bread directly instead of spraying around the loaves.
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:57.920
And so that water, when it hit the surface of the loaf where there's a little bit of flour still left over from the bannettin, when we flour the bannerins, right?
00:31:58.079 --> 00:32:04.160
It almost turned into a almost like a Modge Podge or a paper mache.
00:32:04.480 --> 00:32:09.759
And it really stopped the loaves from opening up as much as they could.
00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:12.880
So they just sort of stayed hard and they went flat.
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:14.400
And it was so interesting.
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:18.799
And I'm so glad that it happened because I learned a lot from this.
00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:27.200
And I thought, wow, how frustrating would that feel as a baker to really know that you've done everything up until this point correct?
00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:32.400
Because we had already baked a bunch of loaves in there and they came out the way that I expected them to.
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:37.359
And then something this simple and it turned into something that you couldn't sell.
00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:40.720
And I would feel very frustrated if that happened to me.
00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:44.240
And so I'm I wanted to share that in this episode.
00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:55.680
And thank you to those bakers for, you know, being cool enough to just own that and say, yeah, like that happened, because we we all learned so much.
00:32:55.759 --> 00:33:07.279
And it I thought it was so valuable that I wanted to share here on the podcast that you could do everything right and you can get to that last minute of baking and you can put your score in the wrong place and you're going to make a terrible loaf of bread.
00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.359
Move your score line up.
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:12.640
Make sure it's just right in the center of that loaf.
00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:14.960
If you need to, get a lawn that's a straight lawn.
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:22.559
Get the Campbell Rackmaster LOM that's literally straight and just score it from top to bottom, right through the center of the loaf, if you're unsure.
00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:25.039
And please don't score too deeply.
00:33:25.279 --> 00:33:29.359
We don't want too shallow, but too deep of a score is also not a good thing.
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:32.720
I just wanted to share that story because I do think it's really valuable.
00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:35.920
I certainly learned a lot from it, and I hope that you do too.
00:33:36.079 --> 00:33:52.720
I hope that I've gone over some of the common errors that people have had in a way that is thoughtful and helps you recognize that this is a system of things working together and not something as simple as like, oh, I just, it's overproofed, or your starter's not healthy.
00:33:52.880 --> 00:34:01.759
We need to check things all along the way to make sure that the system is working together and everything is in harmony.
00:34:02.079 --> 00:34:04.559
So that's all I have for you today.
00:34:04.799 --> 00:34:10.480
And again, it was just such a lovely class with wonderful people and great assistance.
00:34:10.559 --> 00:34:16.960
Um, Tanya and Sarah May from Central Milling, thank you so much for all of the time that you volunteered for class.
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:18.639
And my dear friend Hillary, thank you.
00:34:18.880 --> 00:34:24.800
And for all the wonderful students who who came, it really enriched my life to meet you all, and I'm very thankful for it.
00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:30.000
And to all the listeners that are here today and new friends, welcome, welcome to the community.
00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:37.440
And next week's episode will likely be an interviews episode, and we'll just kind of keep going from there.
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:43.360
A nice mixture of lessons and interviews and fun deep dives down the rabbit hole.
00:34:44.719 --> 00:34:48.159
Thank you for listening to the Saving Bread Podcast.
00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:54.079
Music by Joshua from Dope.
00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:04.400
And as always, happy baking and long live Real Bread Twitter.
00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:03.919
Hi friends, welcome back to the Saving Bread Podcast.
00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:12.400
We've had a huge, huge influx of new listeners from this past week's episode with Tom Kakuza.
00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:19.440
Thank you so much, Tom, for consistently posting about the podcast and sharing it on your social media.
00:00:19.519 --> 00:00:22.239
And welcome to all of the new listeners.
00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:26.719
I'm really, really, really excited and happy that you're here.
00:00:27.039 --> 00:00:34.159
Tom's episode was the perfect follow-up episode to the country loaf start-to-finish episode.
00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:54.960
And today I'm going to continue to expand on some of the ideas that we talked about in that episode and really talk about some of the common mistakes that we see when people start making sourdough, or maybe they've been making it for a long time and they keep running into certain issues and they're not quite sure what's happening.
00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:01.200
So I really want to go over a lot of that with you today, and that's what today's episode will focus on.
00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:11.200
But I also just came back from teaching my three-day science of sourdough bread class in Petaluma at Central Milling at the Artisan Baking Center.
00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:21.200
And we had something happen in class that really it opened my mind and my eyes to something I hadn't really considered before.
00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:27.280
And I think it made me, I know that it made me a better baker, a better instructor, a better coach.
00:01:27.519 --> 00:01:30.719
It helped me understand something that I didn't understand before.
00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:34.239
So I will be sharing that towards the end of the episode.
00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:37.439
And the beginning we'll just kind of get right into it.
00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:43.359
I had a lot of listener questions that were submitted about, you know, issues that people had going on with their loaves.
00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:46.719
So we're just going to go right into it.
00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:50.159
I'm Allie White, and this is Saving Bread.
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:12.960
Some fails, some issues, just little wonky things that can happen.
00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:15.199
And it can feel frustrating.
00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:17.919
People want to know why did my sourdough fail?
00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:27.680
I thought I followed all of the right steps and you know my loaf is flat or it exploded out of the side, or I just can't quite get an ear.
00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:34.639
And sometimes the answer to that question isn't really, you know, just one thing.
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:38.159
It's it tends to be a multitude of things.
00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:44.719
So I wanted to go over some of the things that we've previously discussed, but perhaps a little bit more deeply.
00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:50.080
Some of the questions that I've received are: Is this loaf underproofed?
00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:51.599
Why is it gummy?
00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:55.520
My loaf spread out a lot, and I'm not sure why.
00:02:55.680 --> 00:03:00.400
Um, another one that I saw was just really big holes through the center.
00:03:00.719 --> 00:03:14.639
And I want to be thoughtful and talk about each one of these individually, but again, it's more of a system, and we're going to talk about how each part of the system plays its own role into making a successful loaf of sourdough.
00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:33.439
So your starter influences fermentation, your flour influences fermentation and dough strength, temperature influences fermentation, hydration influences handling, mixing influences strength, and bulk fermentation influences everything that comes afterwards.
00:03:33.599 --> 00:03:36.560
And how we shape our loaves plays a really important role.
00:03:36.719 --> 00:03:43.199
How we score them, how we bake them, all of these things have to be in harmony to get the type of loaf that we would like.
00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:49.599
And I know that can sound really frustrating and overwhelming, but I promise you, it really just takes practice.
00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:53.520
We tend to want to be amazing at something the first time we try it.
00:03:53.680 --> 00:04:00.319
If any of you do yoga regularly, you know that it's a practice and it's a never-ending journey.
00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:01.919
There's no finish line.
00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:08.159
So once you release that and welcome the journey, I think it's it can be more freeing.
00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:10.080
I have things that I'm working on.
00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:12.560
I have types of breads that I'd like to make.
00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:13.439
I have goals.
00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:20.639
Everyone does, whether it's your first day or your thousandth or you've been doing this since the day you weren't born.
00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:22.319
There's it's never going to end.
00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:25.759
So release the idea that you're going to be perfect at it right away.
00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:27.519
Let's talk about some of these things.
00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:30.959
Let's talk about our starter and our Levan.
00:04:31.439 --> 00:04:33.279
That's kind of the beginning of the story.
00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:35.680
So your starter does need to be healthy.
00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:56.879
If you've not listened to the lessons episode about taking care of a starter and starter variables, I would strongly recommend going back a few episodes and listening to those ones and make sure that you are being consistent about your feeding because I've received a few messages about people who are very determined to only feed their starter once a day or every so often.
00:04:57.120 --> 00:05:00.399
And then they're frustrated with the types of loaves that they're making.
00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:06.720
I would encourage anyone who's listening to consider feeding their starter every day, twice a day.
00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:20.480
And if that feels overwhelming, putting it in the refrigerator for a few breaks, and then understanding that you will need to do at least probably three or four feeds to get it back up to strength in order to bake with it.
00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:32.800
And what I mean by full strength is you give it a feed and it doubles or triples in the amount of time that you expected it to, and smells healthy, looks healthy, has lots of bubbles.
00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:39.519
You shouldn't have to use your imagination to think that it has doubled.
00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:40.959
You shouldn't have to question yourself.
00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:46.720
You will look at it and you will say, oh yeah, that has definitely doubled in size, if not more.
00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:48.720
That's a strong starter.
00:05:48.879 --> 00:05:56.240
That is the type of starter, that is the type of Levan that we want to put in our bread to do the work, to do the job.
00:05:56.480 --> 00:06:03.360
But on the other side, I do think that sometimes starter gets blamed for too many bad loaves.
00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:05.279
It is a very important part.
00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:16.959
But if your starter health and your starter care maintenance are really, really dialed in and you feel great about it, we can move on to some other things that could be causing issues.
00:06:17.199 --> 00:06:23.680
So if the starter is great, let's let's leave that alone and let's move on.
00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:34.240
The next thing that we would want to talk about and want to think about is after we've added our starter and we're mixing, the dough might feel wrong from the very beginning.
00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:43.120
So let's say you've added your super healthy starter, your super healthy Levan into your dough, and you've mixed your dough, and right away it feels off.
00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:49.680
It feels really loose, it's spreading everywhere, it doesn't seem capable of holding itself together.
00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:54.480
And so a common reaction to something like this is, oh, I should do more folds.
00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:56.240
And sometimes that can do the trick.
00:06:56.399 --> 00:07:01.600
Sometimes you really do need a few more folds up front if you didn't properly mix your dough.
00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:14.240
But sometimes you've either heated the dough up more than you thought you did with your mixer, and the dough is kind of separating because it's just too hot and needs to cool down for a little bit.
00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:22.240
Or what's more likely is that you've added too much water into the dough, then that flour can comfortably support.
00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:32.079
So your hydration is not an accolade, it's not a score, no one's coming to give you a high five because you had a high hydration loaf.
00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:39.680
You need to appropriately hydrate the batch of flour in the way that can still support itself.
00:07:39.839 --> 00:07:42.000
This is like my favorite hill to die on.
00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:45.040
I don't care if anyone has high hydration bread.
00:07:45.120 --> 00:07:49.360
It doesn't mean that it's better, it doesn't mean that it's special.
00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:57.839
We need to take a step back from that and say, can this amount of flour support this amount of water?
00:07:58.079 --> 00:08:01.199
And if we have a very slack dough, the answer might be no.
00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:02.959
So what do we do?
00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:15.439
You don't need to dramatically reduce your hydration, but you can consider reducing it by 2%, 3%, maybe in extreme cases it's 5%, and start there.
00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:17.680
Try a more dry autolase.
00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:23.120
And if it comes together in a really nice way, then great, we've solved the problem.
00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:36.000
And as you get more comfortable with that dough, maybe you can add a little bit more of that water back in, but there's no shame in reducing hydration to make a loaf of bread that's easier to handle.
00:08:36.159 --> 00:08:39.360
The next thing I would like to talk about is bulk fermentation.
00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:46.960
So when we're talking about bulk fermentation, I do think there's also a little bit of confusion about what that even means.
00:08:47.279 --> 00:08:55.759
Bulk fermentation refers to when the dough is being fermented as a bulk mass.
00:08:55.919 --> 00:09:02.480
And when we're making one loaf, that can be a confusing term because there's only one.
00:09:02.799 --> 00:09:15.919
When we're making 15, the term bulk fermentation makes a lot more sense because all of those 15 loaves are being fermented as one bulk mass, typically in a bus tub or a container of some sort.
00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:23.519
And then it's divided out into smaller pieces because they're going to be shaped and put into their basket.
00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:32.639
Bulk fermentation is just referring to the amount of time that the dough is fermenting as one cohesive mass.
00:09:32.799 --> 00:09:36.320
Maybe that's one loaf, maybe it's 15, maybe it's a hundred.
00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:40.399
The quantity doesn't really matter what it means.
00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:49.039
It's the dough before it has been pre-shaped or final shaped or moved along through the process for shaping.
00:09:49.279 --> 00:10:11.679
Bulk fermentation typically, typically for a dough that has been given 20% Levan or 10% prefermented flour, as we've discussed in the Baker's Math episode, that dough should typically ferment between three and four hours during bulk fermentation.
00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:29.519
Not always, but generally, if it's at a temperature of around 77, 78 degrees Fahrenheit, we should see between three and four hours of bulk fermentation time before that dough is ready to move on to the next step.
00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:31.279
Could it be a little faster?
00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:32.960
Could it be a little bit longer?
00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:34.720
Of course, there are things that happen.
00:10:34.799 --> 00:10:40.639
Sometimes the temperature dips down too low, or sometimes it's too high and things move quickly.
00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:59.120
But generally speaking, that's about the amount of time that that dough at that temperature will be in what we're going to refer to as bulk fermentation, meaning it has not yet moved on to any type of shaping yet.
00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:02.720
So how do you know when it's done?
00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:06.320
It's really hard and it's it's a moving target.
00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:10.960
It's something that every baker thinks about every single time.
00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:17.200
No one is looking at their dough at the end of bulk fermentation and thinking this is the exact moment.
00:11:17.519 --> 00:11:20.320
Like some alarm bells are going to go off or something.
00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:21.679
It doesn't work like that.
00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:38.240
When I'm looking at my dough towards the end of bulk fermentation, I'm trying to decide how much time do I have left before this dough and the way that it looks right now needs to go into the refrigerator for its overnight cold proof.
00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:52.799
So when I'm looking at it, I'm thinking, okay, I know that I want to do a pre-shape and I want to do a final shape, and I want 45 minutes of this dough time in the basket before it goes to the fridge.
00:11:53.039 --> 00:11:59.519
So if I'm looking at this dough now, where am I in its proofing journey?
00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:10.720
And is this a good time to move on to the next step so that I have enough time to do everything else that I would like to do with this dough before it goes into the refrigerator?
00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:14.799
Sometimes I might look at it and think, hmm, it's definitely not ready.
00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:19.120
I'd like it to be a little bit more gassy, a little bit more lively.
00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:36.080
I'd like the dough to feel perhaps a little bit more thin before I move to the next step because towards the beginning of bulk fermentation, the dough will feel very thick and dense and heavy, and towards the end it will start to lighten up and the the walls of those gluten bubbles will begin to thin out a bit.
00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:38.000
So where am I there?
00:12:38.320 --> 00:12:43.840
Can I move on to my next step and still have enough time to do all the things that I want to do?
00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:48.399
These are the types of questions I would love for you to start asking yourself.
00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:50.639
We can absorb all kinds of data.
00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:56.480
We can read when things are supposed to be done, we can have all sorts of ways that we can decide if it's time.
00:12:56.559 --> 00:12:58.639
And I would strongly recommend that you do that.
00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:08.080
Specifically, you know, read Tom's bulk fermentation guides, listen to the Josh Fairbanks episode, get all of these ideas and clues.
00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:21.600
But when all of that kind of fades into the background and you're just sitting there with your dough, give yourself permission to trust your intuition and decide if it's ready to move on.
00:13:21.759 --> 00:13:29.679
Not just because it's been three hours, really look at that dough and make an assessment and think about where else is that dough going.
00:13:29.919 --> 00:13:43.039
And I truly believe that we all have these instincts within ourselves if we practice enough to know, okay, yes, I think it's time to move on so that I can do XYZ and not risk over fermenting this dough.
00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:47.600
And speaking of overfermentation, let's let's talk about that.
00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:59.120
Most people are so afraid, as Parker mentioned in his episode, most people are so afraid to over-ferment their loaf that they often will under ferment it.
00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:03.600
And truly, I think that go for it.
00:14:03.759 --> 00:14:05.600
Go for the over-fermentation.
00:14:05.759 --> 00:14:08.960
Better to be over-fermented than under, in my opinion.
00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:11.360
And then just walk it back 30 minutes next time.
00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:15.039
Let's say you go and you turn off the loaf and you score it and it bakes a little bit flat.
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:15.919
It's okay.
00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:21.919
Shorten your bulk fermentation by 30 minutes next time and try again and see how it comes out.
00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:26.240
Don't worry about overproofing your dough.
00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:30.080
I think we should be much more concerned about underfermenting our loaves.
00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:40.000
When a dough is underfermented, we will cut it open and look through the center, and you're going to see really large elongated holes through the center of the dough.
00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:43.039
Typically, they run from north to south.
00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:49.279
And then all of the crumb around those holes will be quite dense and hard.
00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:52.080
And the loaf will never become dark in the oven.
00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:56.159
It just feels like a heavy loaf of bread that never became full of air.
00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:58.559
This is something that we'd really like to avoid.
00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:08.879
So better to just keep pushing the fermentation as far as you can go and slowly walk your way backwards than bake some really, really heavy loaves.
00:15:08.960 --> 00:15:18.720
Because at the end of the day, if you turn out an overfermented loaf, you could always just, you know, throw some olive oil on there and dimple it for focaccia and you can still enjoy it.
00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:24.480
But under fermented, there's not much that you can do there, and it's not going to taste very good to eat.
00:15:24.799 --> 00:15:27.919
Signs of overfermentation, again, would be a flat loaf.
00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:33.200
You go to score it and all of the air just sort of deflates out like a like a whoopee cushion.
00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:35.840
You don't get an ear when you're baking.
00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:41.519
You know, you go to score it and the the score line closes itself up and it never fully expands.
00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:42.320
It's okay.
00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:44.799
These are not personal attacks against us.
00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:46.080
It's just a lesson.
00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:51.039
We've learned, oops, I pushed the fermentation too far for this flower blend.
00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:51.679
It's fine.
00:15:51.919 --> 00:15:55.120
Walk it back 30 minutes next time and try again.
00:15:55.279 --> 00:16:02.960
And I know it can feel really frustrating because it feels like this, oh, we put all of this time and energy, and then this thing happened and it's a bummer.
00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:09.919
And I'm not going to gaslight anyone and say that that doesn't really stink because it does.
00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:19.679
But we have to go through these uncomfortable places when we're baking to learn where we can't go.
00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:22.000
Like kind of learning the rules of a game.
00:16:22.159 --> 00:16:25.039
If I step over here, that doesn't work.
00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:28.159
And if I go this way, oh shoot, that doesn't work over there.
00:16:28.240 --> 00:16:31.519
But if I stay in this area here, there's a range of things.
00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:33.600
There's a range of choices that I can make.
00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:39.759
And I know that I can make a successful loaf of bread within all of that safe space.
00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:46.799
And it does take quite a few failures to understand where you can and cannot go.
00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:52.720
But just like you, I started out not knowing anything about bread.
00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:55.600
And almost six years later, I'm still learning.
00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:57.440
So don't be discouraged.
00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:03.679
If something silly happens and you take a flat loaf out of the oven, it's okay.
00:17:04.319 --> 00:17:08.480
Shake it off, move on, take some notes about what happened and try again.
00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:10.240
Don't take it too personally.
00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:12.000
It's it's not that serious.
00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:13.519
It should be fun.
00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:17.440
Another question that I get is how much rise should I look for?
00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:29.920
That can be one type of rise, which we just talked about in bulk fermentation, and Tom went over that really extensively during our interview, and he goes into it in detail on his page, The Sourdough Journey.
00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.640
So I'd really recommend going there for some more resources about that.
00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:37.599
I like to see a lot of activity in my dough.
00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:42.240
I also use pH, something that we haven't discussed yet, but I promise you that we will.
00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:46.960
We're just not really there yet as a saving bread community, but we will get there soon.
00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:56.720
Once we have our bulk fermentation dialed in, something that I personally enjoy using is a basket rise.
00:17:56.799 --> 00:17:58.960
And I know it's not for everyone, but I do really like it.
00:17:59.039 --> 00:18:10.720
So I go into my pre-shape, I allow the dough to relax between 20 and 30 minutes, and then I do my final shape, which tends to be quite gentle, and then I put it in the basket.
00:18:10.799 --> 00:18:17.279
And I do like about 30, 45, maybe even a little bit longer minutes in the basket.
00:18:17.359 --> 00:18:22.240
And I like to see that dough relax in the basket and sort of fill it up.
00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:27.519
And for me, that's really when I know it's time to go ahead and go into the refrigerator.
00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:37.440
So I think what can happen is people go into the basket and immediately go to the fridge when the dough hasn't really finished proofing just quite yet.
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:47.839
So if you're turning your loaves out and they're a little bit underfermented, maybe you could try using a little bit more time in the basket before you go to the refrigerator.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:19:05.680
I'm not reading anyone's specific questions because I had a lot of really similar ones, but I'm just sort of walking you through what I do and some of the things that I've tried for success, hoping that when you listen to this and you're thinking about all of these things, you can say, oh, maybe it's not just one simple change.
00:19:05.759 --> 00:19:08.880
It's kind of the system that's all working together.
00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:14.960
And maybe if I make a few little tweaks here and there, I can get the result that I want.
00:19:15.519 --> 00:19:19.920
So let's talk about the pre-shape and the final shape.
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.079
Pre-shape is something that is optional.
00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:28.400
I think it is a good idea when you're newer to use a pre-shape because it can help you sort of organize the dough.
00:19:28.559 --> 00:19:33.759
It also gives you more time of proofing so that you're not risking under fermenting your loaf.
00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:43.279
But as I explained earlier, as your dough starts to go through fermentation, in the beginning it's quite dense and heavy and very thick.
00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:53.359
And as those yeasts start to consume some of the sugars in our dough and they produce gas, that gas fills up the dough.
00:19:53.519 --> 00:20:05.440
But also the walls of the gluten bubbles that are kind of around in our dough and everywhere, those can become a little bit more fragile the longer that this dough is proofing.
00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:30.079
As we go further into bulk fermentation and we decide it's time to pre-shape and final shape our loaves, it's important to consider that that dough needs to be touched with very gentle hands because if we're really rough with it, especially if you have a higher percentage of whole grains, we might risk what's referred to as degassing the loaf too much.
00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:34.319
A little bit can be a good thing and create a really nice even crumb.
00:20:34.559 --> 00:20:51.680
But what I'm saying is a super heavy hand really over shaping the loaf, really pressing it really hard, squeezing all of the air out, sometimes it can be difficult for that loaf to recover from that type of handling so late in fermentation.
00:20:51.920 --> 00:21:07.039
So I would just encourage you if you've gotten to the end of your bulk fermentation and you see that that dough is nice and aerated and light and lovely, please try to avoid over-handling it when you turn it out for shaping, for pre-shaping and final shaping.
00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:22.640
If you've done all of the work up front of strong mixing, maybe a couple of folds early, and then your dough is standing nice and tall during the pre-shape, you have to trust yourself and the work that you've already done that the structure is there.
00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:28.079
You're just coaxing it into the right shape to be a loaf when it comes out of the oven.
00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:35.440
So really consider using super gentle hands during that pre-shape and the final shape.
00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:41.839
This is not the time to take out any emotions that we're having out on our dough.
00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:47.680
Sometimes I'm just like so gentle, like a little bird, uh barely touching it towards the end.
00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:56.079
So I would love to encourage you to just relax a bit and be really gentle with that dough towards the end of handling it.
00:21:56.319 --> 00:21:59.759
Um, I think that's covering most of the things that I wanted to.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:03.599
Talk about the final proof in the refrigerator.
00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:08.160
I did get some questions of cover, don't cover, what should I do?
00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:20.240
I think I shared this in the country loaf start to finish, but in case that I did it, when we don't cover our loaves, sometimes the bottom crust can become very dry and hard and chewy in the oven.
00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:22.480
And that's something that people would like to avoid.
00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:36.400
But when we cover it right away in the refrigerator, sometimes the dough can risk overproofing or you get a lot of condensation inside of whatever it's covered with, and then the loaf is wet when you turn it on.
00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:41.119
And if it's very wet, you could potentially burn the bottom of your dough.
00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:43.759
So, what is the solution to this problem?
00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:53.680
Something that I've done and adopted over the years is I will sometimes put my dough into the refrigerator and let it cool down for a few hours.
00:22:53.920 --> 00:23:02.079
And then once I feel like it's quite cold, then I'll go in and cover it with proofing bags or you know, whatever you're using at home.
00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:07.279
It depends on how many loaves, but you can wait a while before you then go back and cover it.
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:11.039
And that's kind of a nice best of both worlds.
00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:18.400
So I wanted to keep this episode to around 30 minutes today, and I'm already getting closer to that because I'm just kind of rambling on.
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:25.920
But I wanted to talk about the class that I taught this weekend at Central Milling and someone that I haven't talked about quite yet.
00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:30.480
And that person is my very, very dear friend, Hilary Austin.
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:35.599
She was my assistant for this class and every other class that I've taught there.
00:23:35.680 --> 00:23:41.039
She's a wonderful person, incredible baker, one of my closest friends, and my mentor.
00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:43.200
And I'm so thankful to have her in my life.
00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:50.079
And she was just such a rock star in class, and she's just such a cool person and a great, a great friend.
00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:53.920
So on Instagram, she's Backyard Terroir.
00:23:54.319 --> 00:24:01.759
And I've tagged her in some of my posts from Matriarch, but I'll be sure to do a post about her on the podcast.
00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:07.680
So you can follow her, and you can follow when we bake together and when we do classes, and in case anyone's interested in coming.
00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:11.920
But we had a great time and we had a wonderful group of individuals.
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:22.799
We had 15 people in class, and they we had everyone from, you know, just people baking only one loaf to people who are doing full production and everything in between.
00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:30.880
And there were a few things that came up that I just really wanted to share with this community, especially because we have a lot of listeners, new listeners this week.
00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:32.079
And again, welcome.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:42.640
The first thing that I wanted to say is when we started, I always love for everyone to introduce themselves and talk about what they're baking in and what their goals are.
00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:54.720
And I've felt this in this class and in classes that I've taught in the past of a little bit of reservation and hesitation for the bakers who are only baking for themselves or maybe just their family.
00:24:54.960 --> 00:25:02.799
And they feel, I don't want to speak on behalf of how they feel, but it this was communicated to me in this class by this baker.
00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:14.079
So I feel comfortable saying it that they felt a little bit um like, oh, should I be here because all of these people are in production, or um, you know, should I be in production?
00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:14.960
Is that my goal?
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:26.480
And I just, in case no one has said this to you, you do not need to have baking be anything but joyful in your life.
00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:30.319
You do not need to turn your passion into profit.
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:36.559
You don't have to open a bakery, you don't have to sell your bread, you don't have to do any of those things.
00:25:36.880 --> 00:25:39.680
You are allowed to just bake for joy.
00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:47.839
As adults, we don't play enough, we don't laugh enough, we don't have as much fun as we did as children.
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:54.319
And I can say that with a lot of confidence because I have two children and I have a lot of fun, but I'm not having as much fun as they are.
00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:58.799
And bread can just be silly fun, it can just be for you.
00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:03.519
It doesn't have to be anything that you ever monetize.
00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:10.480
Okay, so if no one has said that to you, I'm saying it to you, and I'm giving you permission to just let it be what it is.
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:17.440
And for those who are in production, for those who do want to grow, I see you.
00:26:17.839 --> 00:26:32.559
I see the struggles, I see the long nights, I see the the loaves that never make it to our customers because they failed in the oven and the the dollars that we had to scrape together to buy the oven to do all of the things.
00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:36.640
Wherever you are in your journey, I hope you feel welcome here.
00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:39.920
I hope you feel safe here, I hope you feel seen here.
00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:45.839
And whatever your goals are, I hope that this can be a place that you come to for resources.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:48.000
None of us are better than another.
00:26:48.160 --> 00:27:02.880
I'm not better than any baker who only wants to bake for themselves or someone who has a huge successful bakery isn't better than someone who, you know, is just baking for their community in the town where they live.
00:27:03.119 --> 00:27:04.000
It's all of us.
00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:16.480
It's going to take all of us to make these changes to support local grain, to support local farming, to bring food back into our own control and bake for ourselves and for our family and for our communities.
00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:18.160
And all of us are welcome.
00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:22.799
And I would never want anyone to feel like they didn't belong here or any of my classes.
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:28.000
Like I see you all, I love you all, and I'm I'm just so happy you're here.
00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:34.880
So I'll get off my soapbox a little bit and talk about one of the things in class that really surprised me.
00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:37.279
And this is how I'm going to end the episode today.
00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:48.400
We made a couple of different doughs in class, and one of them was a the country dough, very similar to what's posted on the saving bread podcast page, but just a little bit higher hydration.
00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:54.400
And we had a ton of country loaves ready to go into the oven.
00:27:54.720 --> 00:28:00.880
Typically, I will bake the first round of bread before anyone arrives in class so I can see how it's baking.
00:28:01.039 --> 00:28:07.440
I need to know the behavior of that dough in the oven before I give instructions to how to handle it for the rest of the day.
00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:10.319
I've got to assess how it's coming out of the fridge.
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:15.920
So I baked off six of them in the Rackmaster oven that they have there, and they were beautiful.
00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:16.880
They came out perfect.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:23.200
The students did an incredible job with shaping, the mixing, the folds, everything was fantastic.
00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:24.960
Super happy with them.
00:28:25.200 --> 00:28:33.680
And so I thought, great, um, the next round that goes in the oven, I'm going to delegate this task to two of the students in class.
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:39.039
You saw me score and load and steam the loaves.
00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:40.319
Go ahead and do that.
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:43.279
And so I delegated that task out.
00:28:43.359 --> 00:28:44.880
And this is not shade at anyone.
00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:47.519
I'm so glad that this happened because I learned a lot.
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:54.559
And I left the classroom and went into the lab to help students there work on shaping, and there's just a lot of things going on.
00:28:54.799 --> 00:29:01.759
And when I came back, I saw those loaves in the rack master and they were completely flat.
00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:04.000
They had completely deflated.
00:29:04.319 --> 00:29:12.160
They were all touching each other in the oven and had sort of fused together in certain places, which can happen.
00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:14.400
And they never opened up.
00:29:14.880 --> 00:29:22.880
And I was thinking, wow, was the oven not hot or like what I swear I checked the temperature of the decks before.
00:29:23.119 --> 00:29:25.680
And I was like, okay, well, you know, it happens.
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:30.799
And um, when I took the loaves out of the oven, I realized what had happened.
00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:49.519
And so I want to talk to you about it because this is a really great example of how you can do everything right, every single step of the way, you can do the right thing, and then you get to the last step and you make the wrong choice, and it feels like you made a bad loaf of bread.
00:29:49.599 --> 00:29:53.200
And it really comes down to something really simple.
00:29:53.440 --> 00:30:06.160
When we score our loaves, if I'm looking down at my loaf from a bird's eye view, and I'm talking about a batard, so an oval loaf, when I'm looking down, there's a bird's eye view of my loaf.
00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:18.400
And if I were to cut that loaf in half with an imaginary line, I would not want my score line to go past that line too much.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:24.079
So typically, if we're right-handed, we're scoring from top to bottom of the loaf.
00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:28.079
And usually we're doing we're doing it as a curve.
00:30:29.359 --> 00:30:41.920
If I start that curve at the midline and go towards the right and then go back to the midline, I'm kind of risking that dough spreading more than I want it to in the oven.
00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:45.119
I need that dough to be very supported.
00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:55.920
So when I'm scoring and I'm going top to bottom, I am trying to stay as close to that midline as possible while still doing a curved score.
00:30:57.359 --> 00:31:02.880
What happened was the friends that scored the bread did the score.
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:07.440
If I'm looking straight down at the loaf and I divided it into thirds.
00:31:07.519 --> 00:31:10.960
So I've got the left third, the middle third, and the right third.
00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:16.160
That score line was on the right third of the dough, almost on the side.
00:31:16.480 --> 00:31:20.880
And it was very long, all the way from the top all the way to the bottom.
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:25.119
And so what happened was the loaf could not support itself in the oven.
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:26.880
So it didn't really open.
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:29.519
And instead of going up, it just went outwards.
00:31:29.599 --> 00:31:30.559
It spread.
00:31:31.200 --> 00:31:38.720
Additionally, during the steaming portion of the baking, and not everyone has a rack master, some people have steam injection.
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:41.279
And I do actually think that this would still apply.
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:48.640
Um, the bakers sprayed the bread directly instead of spraying around the loaves.
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:57.920
And so that water, when it hit the surface of the loaf where there's a little bit of flour still left over from the bannettin, when we flour the bannerins, right?
00:31:58.079 --> 00:32:04.160
It almost turned into a almost like a Modge Podge or a paper mache.
00:32:04.480 --> 00:32:09.759
And it really stopped the loaves from opening up as much as they could.
00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:12.880
So they just sort of stayed hard and they went flat.
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:14.400
And it was so interesting.
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:18.799
And I'm so glad that it happened because I learned a lot from this.
00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:27.200
And I thought, wow, how frustrating would that feel as a baker to really know that you've done everything up until this point correct?
00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:32.400
Because we had already baked a bunch of loaves in there and they came out the way that I expected them to.
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:37.359
And then something this simple and it turned into something that you couldn't sell.
00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:40.720
And I would feel very frustrated if that happened to me.
00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:44.240
And so I'm I wanted to share that in this episode.
00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:55.680
And thank you to those bakers for, you know, being cool enough to just own that and say, yeah, like that happened, because we we all learned so much.
00:32:55.759 --> 00:33:07.279
And it I thought it was so valuable that I wanted to share here on the podcast that you could do everything right and you can get to that last minute of baking and you can put your score in the wrong place and you're going to make a terrible loaf of bread.
00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.359
Move your score line up.
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:12.640
Make sure it's just right in the center of that loaf.
00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:14.960
If you need to, get a lawn that's a straight lawn.
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:22.559
Get the Campbell Rackmaster LOM that's literally straight and just score it from top to bottom, right through the center of the loaf, if you're unsure.
00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:25.039
And please don't score too deeply.
00:33:25.279 --> 00:33:29.359
We don't want too shallow, but too deep of a score is also not a good thing.
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:32.720
I just wanted to share that story because I do think it's really valuable.
00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:35.920
I certainly learned a lot from it, and I hope that you do too.
00:33:36.079 --> 00:33:52.720
I hope that I've gone over some of the common errors that people have had in a way that is thoughtful and helps you recognize that this is a system of things working together and not something as simple as like, oh, I just, it's overproofed, or your starter's not healthy.
00:33:52.880 --> 00:34:01.759
We need to check things all along the way to make sure that the system is working together and everything is in harmony.
00:34:02.079 --> 00:34:04.559
So that's all I have for you today.
00:34:04.799 --> 00:34:10.480
And again, it was just such a lovely class with wonderful people and great assistance.
00:34:10.559 --> 00:34:16.960
Um, Tanya and Sarah May from Central Milling, thank you so much for all of the time that you volunteered for class.
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:18.639
And my dear friend Hillary, thank you.
00:34:18.880 --> 00:34:24.800
And for all the wonderful students who who came, it really enriched my life to meet you all, and I'm very thankful for it.
00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:30.000
And to all the listeners that are here today and new friends, welcome, welcome to the community.
00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:37.440
And next week's episode will likely be an interviews episode, and we'll just kind of keep going from there.
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:43.360
A nice mixture of lessons and interviews and fun deep dives down the rabbit hole.
00:34:44.719 --> 00:34:48.159
Thank you for listening to the Saving Bread Podcast.
00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:54.079
Music by Joshua from Dope.
00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:04.400
And as always, happy baking and long live Real Bread Twitter.
