More often than not, gumminess is a result of under fermentation (cutting the bulk fermentation time too short). But we are utterly puzzled by the outcome again. Hi, I'm Kate! For the most recent of these, I used the following recipe/process:66.67% 600g King Arthur Bread Flour33.33% 300g Whole-Grain Einkorn (locally grown and milled by River Valley Community Grains, in NJ)20% 180g Liquid levain (King Arthur AP Flour)2.1% 19g Kosher Salt75% 675g Water, Levain built and matured for 3 hours @85F . You want to be fast enough to limit any sticking, but not too fast or you might make a mess. The difference between wet dough being successful and wet dough being a big sloppy mess is dough strength. We actually followed this recipe twice, the first time was in the exact proportion mentioned with a hydration of 81% and "Betty" turned out tacky and moist. More often than not a tight crumb with a number of larger holes - but it's not even or open. What Basic Methods Are Used To Make Quick Breads? This can result in your dough feeling wetter and stickier than normal. SOLUTION - Allow your bread to cool for AT LEAST 90 minutes (much longer for rye bread). Thanks. You went with 150 and 150 - which is only 300, then 90 WW and 45 starter, for a total of 435. and so that drove the hydration from 81%, which is still fairly high, to over 90%. SOLUTION - Allow your bread to cool for AT LEAST 90 minutes (much longer for rye bread). Some things to have on hand to work with really wet dough are: So how do you fix wet and sticky sourdough? if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'crustylabs_com-box-3','ezslot_2',120,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-crustylabs_com-box-3-0');There are other reasons besides having very high hydration levels that can cause your sourdough to be wet and sticky. Gluten development is strengthened by adding salt to your dough, so don't forget to do this! A strong, mature sourdough starter will reward you with amazing sourdough at your next bake. This is the dry mixture. It is generally healthier and easier to digest. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. link to Yeasted Pre-ferment (Poolish & Biga) VS Sponge VS Dough, link to Pate Fermentee VS Poolish VS Biga VS Sourdough Starter, Stand Mixer (KitchenAid Type All Purpose Mixer). And dont let it sit in the fridge so long that it dries out. It is normal when working with dough of very high hydration for it to feel quite wet and sticky after it has finished mixing. Agree with the previous comments and hotter, longer and let dry, https://www.abeautifulplate.com/artisan-sourdough-bread-recipe/, Lamination butter for croissants - question, Mexican buns aka coffee cookie buns aka rotiboy buns, Farmer's Market Week 18 (Whole Wheat Walnut YW/SD Combo), Red Fife x 4 = Awesomeness!!! Just know that it will be sticky early in this process. Take the bowl off the scales and mix well, it will look rough and lumpy, but never fear it will soon start to look like bread dough! Lets look at some of the common problems with sourdough bread and how to deal with them. (12-15% protein content), plus extra for dusting 2 teaspoons fine sea salt Method. It can be leathery rather than crispy. If your kitchen is too warm, the dough can become a sloppy, wet mess. Mix until no dry patches remain. A tightly shaped dough that has been stitched when placed in the banneton will hold together better when tipped out for baking. This is a one of the most frustrating sourdough bread problems to have. Flour issues. You can try to fix things like high humidity in your house or waiting until the kitchen has warmed to room temperature before getting to work. CAUSE - This most likely caused by under fermentation, but can sometimes be a shaping issue too. BE CAREFUL, IT'S HOT! Heres What To Do. One should be sticky, and one should be dusted with flour. full guide to all purpose flour vs bread flour here, Baking sourdough when it's really hot or really cold. I tried your suggestions, kinda - 2 large (880g) loaves baked covered at 465F for 25 minutes, then uncovered at 425 for 25 minutes. This also provides its sour flavour and. So you __may__ need a longer bake, which will mean a lower temp. I'll come back with the results in a week! Shape into batards. The uneven crumb occurs because fermentation has not been long enough to allow the gases produced by the yeast to evenly distribute, resulting in some larger holes (generally in the middle). It affects pretty much every part of the process. Sourdough starter is wild yeast and bacteria. stickiness is usually not cooking off enough moisture. It may just be that you need to leave it in the oven longer with the lid off your. Copyright 2021 The Pantry Mama 2021 - All Rights Reserved, 5 Ways To Strengthen A Sourdough Starter: Give Your Starter A Boost, Sourdough Discard Crackers Recipe with Parmesan + Rosemary, Easy Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread Recipe, Sourdough English Muffins {with a discard version too}. However under fermented dough will not cook all the way through, so this sourdough bread problem can have a deeper cause. Our problem was with the tacky, rubbery, sticky insides of the baked bread (I could press a piece of the inside between my fingers and it would stick on without falling) no matter how long we bake it for (Charlie was baked for 40 mins in the cast iron and 20 mins on a rack, and the picture attached shows the insides). Though my guess is, that if you are getting the internal final temp to 211 F (even 210 F is usually good enough even for a mostly whole grain loaf)and it's still gummy, then your hydration was too high to start with. #7 The bread cooled in the oven When the bread looks ready, some bakers turn the oven off and leave it inside for 20 minutes to make their bread less gummy. Cutting the bread while still warm will create a gummy interior as the crumb hasn't finished setting. During this time, the flour has the chance to fully hydrate and gluten network is able to develop in spite of the lack of mechanical mixing. Place a long piece of parchment paper over the bowl with the dough. When the oven floor is clean, but before the equalizing soak, the temperature is ideal for pita bread, which cook in a minute or two. 2. Throughout the shaping, the dough felt aerated and light and bouncy and it was easy to handle after dipping our hands in water. Turn out the loaf out onto a floured peel, make a cut in the top with a grignette and slide it onto the baking stone. If you are working with regular dough, ready How to Fix Super Sticky Dough. Alternatively, you could add a little oil to the work surface and your hands. CAUSE - Your sourdough is lacking oven spring, which means your dough is not growing in the oven as it should. The bassinage technique is used to help build the dough up to the desired high level of hydration in stages. We want to mix the dough until it develops adequate gluten network which is indicated by a dough that is stretchable without tearing but at the same time offers a degree of resistance when pulled apart. We will hold back from slicing it too early the next time!! Another reason we want to minimize dusting is because the additional flour from dusting is not well hydrated and when baked can leave unsightly gray streaks on your sourdough bread that taste raw. As the flour is better hydrated, more water is absorbed by the dough, and less water is coating the doughs surface which makes the dough feels less wet and sticky. The exterior was perfectly brown. When the dough is excessively over mixed, it first becomes very strong and stiff, then when mixed further, the gluten network starts to unravel and unknits, releasing the absorbed water out into the dough environment, causing it to be wet and sticky. Generally, flat loaves will still taste ok, they just lack that beautiful airiness we want to see in our sourdough. Loaf In a small mixing bowl, mix the flour and salt together thoroughly. Place in bannetons. If you're having trouble understanding the timing of bulk fermentation, I've written an easy to follow guide. I think it's quite common to get some stickiness if you are slicing fairly soon after the end of bake. Many start at 400 F and drop to 375 F at some point during the baking. This is the most comprehensive and easily understandable explanation of sourdough I have read. (Top Reasons). Modified: Dec 27, 2022 by The Pantry Mama This post may contain affiliate links. Sliced through the bread in an hour and it left sticky residue on the knife and the insides was tacky. We should fold once every hour of bulk fermentation. @halfbakedharvest.com Cheaters No Knead Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread. It really is a delicate balance to ensure that the yeast have consumed enough of their food to produce those beautiful pockets of air - but not too much so they can still provide oven spring at baking time. Some people add too much water to compensate. Your email address will not be published. In this blog we will explore what causes wet, sticky dough and how to fix the issue so you can bake amazing sourdough bread. Step 3 - Total amount of flour is 80 grams + 600 grams = 680 grams. Youll notice that you can stretch the dough further and less will cling to your hands by the time youre done. Second, mix the dough using a previously fed, active and bubbly sourdough starter, water and a mixture of bread and whole wheat flour. Sourdough bread offers a number of benefits. - longer waiting period before cutting --> this to me seems where you should start. The gluten network serves to provide structure and strength to the dough but it also plays an important role in containing and holding water and moisture. All Purpose flour is ok, however it generally doesn't have the protein necessary to develop a strong gluten network. If your bread contains rye, it can take up to 24 hours! Bake the Bread. Mix the drier dough until it has developed into the desired dough strength. sourdough after baking. After every fold, you will notice a significant improvement in dough strength and significant reduction in the wetness and stickiness of the dough. If you find your dough to be relatively dry after mixing, but gets wetter and stickier over time, it means that the flour you are using contains a very high percentage of damaged starch particles; try changing to a different flour brand and use European flour instead of American flour. If you do have a watery starter, you'll need to adjust the amount of water in your dough or set about finding a solution to thicken it up. After sourdough fermentation, the lactic acid bacteria produce acetaldehyde. The hardness of water measureshow much calcium and magnesium ion is present (expressed as ppm). The bacteria on the other hand create a sour taste and ferment the bread. The side thats dusted with flour is the only side that you or anything else touches. Approximate size of sourdough bread: Approximate cooling time: small dinner rolls: 30 minutes: small white loaf (1 lb): 4 hours: large white loaf (1.5 lb): 8 hours: small wholegrain loaf (1lb): 5 hours This allows the dough to absorb the water into the flour and start to form gluten strands that hold the bread together. You just get more un-fermented dough that wont stand up. It will look like cloudy water. Hi, I'm Kate! Within eight to 12 hours of feeding your starter, you want to see a noticeable increase in volume and it should be putting off a pretty pungent. This is when you let the dough rest after it is mixed but before you start to knead it. We will hold on to the knife the next time and be sure to wait longer. Damaged starch absorbs water during mixing as opposed to undamaged starch where the water merely coats the outer surface. A tough crust can also be caused by a lower hydration recipe. So if you're over-shooting the original formula's hydration due to miscalculattion, that would be the first thing to correct. A new bake this morning. The recipe I followed was from "a beautiful plate". Make sure that you're not using too much flour when shaping your dough. Salt is called for in every bread formulation, but it is the one ingredient that we most commonly tend to forget to include into our mix. Your colon naturally contains healthy probiotic bacteria called Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli. More noticeable sour taste, possibly unpleasant. Nor should it be sticky after youve baked it. All flour has a certain percentage of damaged starch particles, but when the amount of damaged starch particles exceed 10%, dough becomes wet and sticky. CAUSE - Logically, the cause of this is not baking your bread for long enough. It's a good thing for bread dough, but it also means that it makes the mess you're attempting to clean up extra sticky and impossible to clean up . Instead, stretch and fold it. Then, mix in 70 grams of active sourdough starter. If you want to you can spritz your dough with extra water before you put the lid on. When working with high hydration level dough, the dough gets very close to the point of 100% saturation from the high quantity of water, and it is difficult to get any more water to be incorporated into the dough. (Rest for45 minutes @76Ffollowed by coil folds) - repeat 3x. 24.5- 28C) overnight (12-14 hours). We performed up to 6 sets of stretch and fold during the first two hours of fermentation before leaving it to bulk ferment for the next two hours. This isn't the worst that could happen :), but I would really like to understand why the stickiness, and how to get rid of it. Mix with the paddle on low speed until it forms a thick batter. Even though our dough doubled in size at the end of four hours with visible strength around the rounded sides, there weren't bubbles on the surface of the dough. The sticky side should only touch the dough. This is the sourdough baking course you need if you are just starting out in sourdough bread baking. I have, however, always let my bread cool for at least 4 hours, until its at or very near room- temperature, and it continues to be sticky - even when left in the oven to steam out for a little while after baking is completed. If so, fix that, and try it with your standard bake temps/times, And then, if the problem persists, then add to the lower hydration the lower/longer bake temps/times, too. A tell tale sign that you haven't let your bread cool properly is having a "sticky" knife when you remove it from your bread. To calculate, add up all the flour, including the flour in the starter, then add up all the water, including the water in the starter, and divide the water by the starter. Second sign: The dough has become loose and slack, and doesn't seem to hold any kind of shape. This site is powered by Drupal. Then the dough cant stick to them. CAUSE - There are a few reasons your crust is too pale. Mix by hand until all the dry flour is incorporated. Its like an extension to your hand and can be used to improve your technique with the dough. It can be a mixture of rye and wheat or just rye. Stir vigorously until combined; it might look like a sticky, thick dough. It's possible that the dough is rising too much during the cold retard which will also cause this issue. Once you get the hang of the sourdough process and the various phases, then start introducing whole grain flours into the mix. Having a strong gluten network means that the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast will be evenly distributed. Thanks guys!!! Once one side is stretched and dusted, you should shape the dough and put it into your banneton. First, it's helpful to have a small bowl of water nearby to dip your hands into before touching your dough. Use a 65% water content and you should be able to handle the dough and shape it with little to no problem at all. The reason most recipes are so high in hydration is that more water in the dough makes it easier to have a lighter, more open crumb, and a better crust, so its favored by most bakers. We can prevent wet sourdough from sticking by oiling our work surfaces, using wet hands to handle the dough and dusting the proofing containers. Set aside. If your bread contains rye, it can take up to 24 hours! When the lame scores the dough, the air escapes causing the dough to collapse. Gluten is impermeable, meaning it doesnt allow gas or water to pass through, when there isnt enough gluten in the dough, water molecules can easily escape out of the dough, resulting in dough mixture that is only partly incorporated with water. Your sourdough starter is not ready to bake with yet and needs some time to mature or you need to take steps to strengthen it. Stretch dough into rough 10"x17" rectangle, laminate and move to clean vessel for bulk. Bake in a Dutch Oven. While the dough is proofing, preheat your oven to 230 C (450 F) and place your Dutch oven inside to preheat as well. . In my other courses, I teach how to bake all sorts of sourdough breads, but in this course, I won't load you down with lots of information, just enough so it is easy and fun to bake your first loaf of sourdough. There are plenty of methods for developing gluten, so its up to you to try out different variations and figure out which is best for you. Your guide to solving sourdough bread problems. Starting at a lower hydration (70% is good) is best for beginners. Nothing smells better than the wheaty aroma of freshly baked goods; I enjoy it so much that I decided to quit my day job as a management consultant to teach others about the delicate art of baking! Only add more flour if it remains excessively moist or sticky after youve kneaded it in. The problem is that the crumb is very tacky to the touch and abit sticky on the knife. From a gummy crumb to a lack of rise and everything in between. Preheat the oven to 230C fan/456F/gas mark 8 with a baking stone on the middle shelf and a deep tray on the bottom. Once you get it all set to go try this delicious Sourdough Focaccia recipe yum! If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. Breadopedia.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Heres What To Do, how to stop sourdough sticking to everything, Good Food Good Mood Sign Free Printable. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. A basic sourdough is made with only wheat flour, sometimes just white flour and sometimes a combination of whole wheat flour and white flour. The yeast has too much energy when it hits the oven and this excess energy causes a "rush" when your dough hits the oven. You can still bake it and eat it, but it will be a solid mass, not the light, airy sourdough you were expecting. Maybe 80% final hydration if your levain is more "liquid" than 100% Hyd. The remaining water coats the outside of the dough, causing it to appear wet and sticky. They give you what is called slack dough.If the dough is very slack and it isnt because you added too much water, then autolyze. This allows the gluten to start to develop on its own before any kneading. sourdough before baking. Under fermented dough will also cause you to have a pale crust that just doesn't brown up, even when you cook it longer. If you've found this article on handling wet, sticky sourdough helpful, you might also enjoy these: What a great resource you've created here. CAUSE - the dough has been over fermented and/or over proofed and has too much air trapped in the shaped dough. You can read more about this, Take some time to strengthen your sourdough starter (particularly if it's been in the fridge for a while or it's doubling consistently). Insufficient gluten development is what makes the dough so sticky, so if youre using a low protein flour (protein in flour creates gluten), it wont be able to create as much gluten in the dough and it will, therefore, be stickier. Plastic and metal dough scrapers are useful tools and both have their own pros and cons. At the same time, we should dust the work surface lightly during shaping as we need some level of stickiness and friction between the dough and the work surface to create sufficient skin tension. Kneading manually will most likely just make a sticky mess thats stuck all over your fingers and difficult to clean up, but with the stretch and fold, youre touching the dough very little and you wont have to worry about it sticking too much. You can read my five best tips for strengthening a sourdough starter, Extending your bulk fermentation time to allow your dough to rise and ferment properly. Thank you for the pointers, will be reducing the temperature to allow a longer bake the next round! How to handle sticky, wet . Gluten is the foundation for good bread, so you wont get very far if its not developed. In the first few minutes of the bake, the surface of the bread must be kept moist and pliable. Lightly Flour One Side Of The Dough During Shaping. 475 F covered, and 450 uncovered for 20 min seems too hot to me for only a 30% whole grain loaf: 300 g einkorn / (900 g + 90 g from levain) = 300 / 990 = 30.3%. High temperatures can cause premature over fermentation, which will result in wet, sticky sourdough. This part is extremely important as its what determines whether you end up with a well-shaped sourdough or a mess. Evenly roll out your small 2- to 4-ounce balls into small circles a scant quarter inch thick. How to handle sticky, wet . You'll know you have sufficient gluten development by performing the window pane test on your dough. Then remove lid and continue to bake for another 20-25 minutes. But what if your dough is really wet and sticky and you just can't do anything with it? It has more energy than it should have left when it hits the oven - meaning you might get a great oven spring - but it destroys your scoring (and will more than likely be gummy inside).