How To Kill Your Sourdough Loaf

How To Kill Your Sourdough Loaf

by Azélia on 08/03/2012

in Bread Techniques,Help & Problems With Dough,Sourdough Recipes

If I’m experimenting then I expect to have a few failures but failures that happen when you know why and you were in a position to stop it I find frustrating, it’s a kicking-myselt type of situation.  I wanted to make a loaf for my meeting with John Letts yesterday, he was kindly providing some lunch at the farm.  I wish I hadn’t offered to bring bread, these sort of occasions I’ll turn out a duff loaf which I did below, both of them.

I’ve been experimenting with water temperatures to feed my levain, and it’s been working out well putting the theory into practice.  Wild yeast do not like temperatures exceeding the 30˚C +, I have been adding water ranging from 27˚C – 32˚C and that’s been ok, the water is poured over the flour by the time it’s mixed in it will happily sit in the highs 20s˚C.

For these loaves I added water around 36 – 37˚C  yep I know…pushing it.  There was still yeast cells active, but I had killed some.  Not a disaster and very recoverable if given time, only I didn’t, I didn’t give the remaining wild yeast in the new levain time to multiply.

What I should have done in this situation is to leave the levain time to show signs of bubbling away, near the exploding stage as in photo number 2 in this post here.  But I wanted to use a young levain to take down the acidity in the loaf and to give some extra lift as I was using stoneground flour.  I didn’t think through the consequences, I suspected I might have killed the yeast and instead of waiting I was running out of time and went ahead, foolish.

I used the levain too soon and the result was what I have below, on the surface the loaves look ok, but I knew even before baking these they were wrong.  I had left them to prove overnight at room temperature and by morning they should’ve been bursting at the seams instead they had increased some but not enough, at that temperature they should’ve increased significantly.

The rise these have are from what yeast cells I hadn’t killed, and the exceptional rip in this circumstance is down to the characteristic of the late oven spring amaretto flour gives a loaf.

Just in case you’re thinking these loaves are a failure because they’re slightly flat it’s not,  you can still produce slightly flat loaves and have a great crumb, this can happen with very hydrated loaves.  Very high hydration is always relevant to the type of flour that is used.

The reason they failed is the horrible crumb and I knew it was awful when I lifted the loaves out of the oven because they were heavy, sign of a dense crumb.  Heavy is ok for a rye but not for a wheat loaf.

The first slice above looks sort of ok but not great, the first slice always has more air bubbles in a folding-method loaf.

The second slice is now giving a true picture of the wrongs with the crumb.

You have to ignore the large holes, they mean nothing.

What you need to look at is the crumb texture, the aeration around the large holes, that will indicate the difference between a good crumb and a bad one like this one.

Can you see how so much of the crumb is closed around the large, medium and small holes?

Around the holes there should be lots and lots of other bubbles formed setting the structure of the crumb.  The more bubbles the lighter the crumb.

I highlighted two areas on the slice above but it’s all over the slice not just there, a failure of air pockets.

In order to see exactly what I mean I have picked out some slices of different sourdoughs below, sometimes it’s easier to see what’s wrong when you put it next to correct examples.

If you see the aeration all over the crumb of these loaves there isn’t a dead space.

Even below in a low hydration crumb it’s not dense and heavy, the holes are just very small but on close inspection they are there.

Below is a crumb from a 10 hours last rise crumb, the lightest of sourdough crumbs you can have without having to add anything.

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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

michaelthebaker March 8, 2012 at 11:21 am

hi azelia, nteresting, but.. I just got back from watching many french artisan bakers feeding their levains with water hotter than you. It is true that the final dough/levain temperature should be in the good living range 20-26 c but that may entail using water at 40′c . i always use a formula.
A lactic wheat levain can be tripled or quadrupled or more, depending on the time scale and taste profile needed. The french bakers held the chef in the fridge overnight, then whacked up the temperature on first doubling, then a tripling, I suppose really it depands on the strength of the littles blighters in the levain. Sorry to pour hot water on you analysis.

Azélia March 8, 2012 at 12:01 pm

hi Michael – you haven’t poured hot water on my analysis at all. You’ll have to compare things like with like.

Firstly you need to look at quantity of flour you’re using in mix, remember I’m using small scale amounts here not bakery amounts, it will matter on the larger amount of flour the bakeries used, a larger amount will cool some of that temperature off than a small amount…and the important thing is not so much how hot the water started out at but how hot the levain was once it was mixed. I should’ve taken the temperature after mixing to make a record.

I state I didn’t kill off ALL my wild yeast as you can see by some of the gas bubbles they created, but I did kill off many however. As I said above this doesn’t matter so long as you give the remainder of the survivors enough time to multiply with the fresh flour, which I would do had I not been stupidly impatient and rushing.

It’s the not strength of the wild yeast as such that’s the problem it’s how many you have in the levain to then have enough power to raise the dough. When looking at a levain you always have to consider multiplication comes with time. And that is also the same with lactic acid bacteria.

The microbes multiply with time hence the “flavour” gets stronger with time, not because an individual yeast/bacteria has been to the gym and is bodybuilding getting stronger but because they’ve divided and divided and divided and so on, they do this while they have access to fresh food which is the sugar in the flour.

It sounds like your French artisan bakers were giving the levain “time” to divide and produce a lively active levain, which is what I should have done with mine.

Carol March 8, 2012 at 3:51 pm

Thank you for the crumb comparison; now I know what to look for!
I’ve been reading your posts with great interest and they are very helpful. I’m in the very early stages of learning to make a good sourdough loaf so I keep re-reading them. It would be easier to learn if I baked more often.

James B March 9, 2012 at 10:49 pm

I have yet to make sourdough, but will be shortly. Thanks for the advice, I will make a note. :)

Azélia March 10, 2012 at 8:15 am

I know it’s dull Carol but repetition does great improve the skill of bread making forcing to look for differences.

Azélia March 10, 2012 at 8:24 am

James – Also have a look at the post on Proving Sourdough in Winter, if you live in a very changeable climate. http://www.azeliaskitchen.net/blog/proving-sourdough-in-winter-maxs-loaf/

Carol March 10, 2012 at 9:19 am

It’s not that it’s dull, Azelia; it’s a fascinating process. I only eat a loaf of bread a week but when I improve enough to supply other people, I’ll bake more often. One of my main worries about giving it away is that I have no idea what the bread is like inside!
On the upside, thanks to your website, there has been a steady improvement. Every time I learn a little more and don’t have to turn on the Mac to read the recipe now!
Thank you

Gareth July 13, 2012 at 1:41 pm

French bakers typically work from a ‘temperature de base’, adding together the temperature of air, flour and water to get the required level. Obviously the only variable here to any extent is water, and so in colder weather, the baker will use warmer water to achieve the temperature required.

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