Sourdough bread

[Sussan Estela Olaya]

Hi Hanan.

Welcome to the Scoolinary community!

This solid sourdough by Xevi Ramon is more of a pre-fermented dough or preferment made with commercial yeast and left to chill in the fridge to develop flavor. Since it doesn’t go through feedings, you can’t easily adjust it in future refreshes as you would with a traditional sourdough starter.

Since you’ve already made it using all-purpose flour, your bread will still bake, but it may have some differences:

1. Less strength in the dough: The structure may be weaker, leading to a less voluminous loaf.

2. Faster fermentation: All-purpose flour absorbs less water, so the yeast activity might be more intense.

3. Softer texture: The bread may be less chewy, with a tighter crumb.

What can you do?

If the dough is already in the fridge: Go ahead and use it, but keep an eye on the final fermentation. If it rises too quickly, shorten the proofing time to avoid over-fermentation.

When shaping your bread: If the dough feels too weak, consider adding extra folds during the bulk fermentation to strengthen the gluten.

If you haven’t baked with this starter yet: I recommend doing a small test batch before making a full-sized loaf. Use a smaller portion of dough to bake a test loaf and check its structure, fermentation, and flavor. This will help you determine if any adjustments are needed before using the entire batch for a larger production.

This isn’t a major issue,your bread will still turn out fine, but the texture may be slightly different from usual.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions, and I’ll be happy to assist you.

Best regards.

[Hanan Sikander]

Can u please tell me what mistakes i could’ve made that led my bread to bake like this?could it be because of the all-purpose flour I used instead of whole-wheat flour in the solid ferment? Or is there any other reason?

[Sussan Estela Olaya]

Hi Hanan.

Thanks for sharing the photo. Analyzing the bread’s crumb, I can see that it has a rather dense texture, with small air pockets and little volume development. This could be due to several reasons:

Use of all-purpose flour in the stiff starter:

All-purpose flour has less protein and lower water absorption capacity than whole wheat or rye flour, which may have affected the dough’s strength and gluten development.

Fermentation might have been faster, reducing the time needed to develop flavor and structure.

Under or over-fermentation:

If fermentation was too short, the dough didn’t develop enough aeration.

If it was too long, the gluten may have weakened, preventing the bread from properly retaining gases.

Weak shaping:

If the dough lacked enough tension during shaping, it couldn’t expand properly in the oven and resulted in a weaker structure.

Incorrect baking:

If the oven temperature was too low or there wasn’t enough steam at the beginning, the bread couldn’t expand well in the first few minutes.

I hope this information helps! If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out, and I’d be happy to assist you.

Best regards.

[Hanan Sikander]

I think it was the flour, i didn’t over-ferment it, i put it in the fridge for 18 hours as required by the recipe, but i do think the temp may have been too high, can u pls advise on how much steam i should give to the bread in the beginning? The recipe states a time of 8s, is that enough or should i do more?

also, do you think that using a different starter recipe(from another baker) and then using this recipe of bread would affect it’s making? Or it doesn’t? Coz the starter was ready to use.

also, can u please explain why the cling film is placed on top of the dough during it’s fermentation and not on top of the bowl(as we do in baking other normal doughs like donuts,cinnamon rolls etc)and if it affects the way the dough rises?

alot of questions ik, but pls reply:)