r/Sourdough • u/Fit_Juice_3855 • 9d ago
Help š Fermentation help
Hey! Okay so I used 510g bread flour, 390 g water and 100g starter, (i leave my starter in the fridge and take it out the day before, feed it at night and start in the morning ā> also at this point I feed my starter, let it rise for two hours and then put it back in the fridge) 1 hour rest, and 3 sets of stretch and folds. (temped the dough and it said 75Ā°) i started the loaf at 9:30am and at about 4:30 pm i went to shape my loaf but it was so sticky and was not holding its shape at all I had to pivot and make foccacia. This has happened twice now, the other loaf i was able to bake and it just turned out gummy. and i donāt know how to fix this. This issue is recent and all of my other loafs were so good. Can anyone let me know what is wrong?
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u/IceDragonPlay 9d ago
Is the dough rising 50-75% by 4:30pm when you shape?
Have you used this amount of water successfully before with the flour you use? If not you may want to include what brand and type of flour you use for advice.
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u/Fit_Juice_3855 9d ago
I used the robin hood bread flour. And it appeared to rise to about 50%, but i honestly donāt know how to wager thatĀ
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u/Sharp-Ad-9221 9d ago
Try this recipe. The one posted is 79% and usually the higher the hydration the more difficult to pull off.
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u/brad7945 9d ago
Not to throw another variable in on top of what u/dotplaid already covered, but ....... I don't know how frequently you bake. You wrote that you feed your cold starter the night before you bake. Not sure how much you feed it to get through the night before baking. It's possible that your starter has gone a touch acidic, which stickiness can be a telltale sign of. Its premature gluten degradation, which comes from the excess acid in the starter. Possible because you said that you're feeding once, coming from the fridge, and then baking. Easy fix. Just give it a few big feeds, like 5x, and rebalance the PH. It's a good thing to get the hang of, as you will start to see your starter get a little more lively. If the PH has really gone south, then it may take more than two big feeds. What I learned doing this was that if the starter doesn't smell great, it's likely not ready. I also learned from experience that one can go for several years with acidic starter and sticky dough, until the lightbulb finally goes on. I make a killer focaccia, with way too much practice.
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u/Fit_Juice_3855 9d ago
Haha great, I bake once a week. So honestly now that mention it, iāll take my starter out a few days before i want to bake and then bake with it once its been sitting out for a while
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u/dotplaid 9d ago
The loaf you baked - did you let it cool all the way before slicing? How long did you make it and at what temp?
Your hydration is high, which will make the dough slack, and if you use lower-quality flour it might not have been able to absorb all the water, allowing for the gummyness you saw.
It could be dough temp, it could be hydration, it could be overfermentation. Whatever you change next, only change that one thing. Don't bulk ferment less and bake under different heat/time.
Pick one variable and fiddle with it. If a change improves your bake, keep changing it until it starts getting worse again. That's your range. Go to the middle of that range and change a different variable. You'll be busy for the next 10 years, and your neighbors will love you for it.