Not getting the proof quite right on your sourdough bakes?
I’m a sourdough baker and I’ve watched 200+ hours of sourdough baking tutorials on youtube, read countless blog posts, and sourdough baking books trying to get this right. Not one shared this super easy tip that has helped me solve my proofing problems. I think that experienced bakers, just have a sense when a dough is ready, but for a beginning baker, we don’t.
I was consistently making dough that was over and too sticky or under and too stiff. I couldn’t get that surface tension they talk about; my loaves were coming out uneven, slopey oven spring and with these massive internal bubbles in the crumb. Some would come out with boggy middles, even with a crust that was too thick. Frustrating.
Let me save you time and effort.
First lets set the stage. You’ve followed a good recipe you trust. You’ve done everything right and now you’re getting in the bulk ferment stage where they say “every house is different”, or the temperature matters”, or “I just put it here and come back to it in 6 hours” or some other vague direction.
Well, that didn’t work for me. I bake on my kitchen counter here in Seattle and the room temperature can vary from mid 60s to low 80’s. Humidity can vary a lot too throughout the year, from the rainy maritime winter to the bone dry summer. That wide range affects the time needed for the loaf to proof.
Now let us talk the hack. The trick is to feed the starter at the same time you add the starter to the wet flour. If you start the loaf and the starter at the same time, you can then roughly know in real-time where your rise is in respect to current conditions, and roughly what percent of the eventual total rise has been completed. The loaf will be slightly behind the starter given how the bacteria and yeast propagate, but still roughly the same. When I do this, I’m always able to judge where I am on the total potential bulk ferment and a sense of current fermentation rate.
I combine that “timer” with the finger poke test and when the poke test comes back ready, I shape the dough and put it in the fridge until I’m ready to bake.
Here’s a link to a great and easy sourdough loaf recipe:
https://heartbeetkitchen.com/2020/recipes/all-purpose-flour-sourdough-bread/
Here’s a link to the finger poke test details:
Here’s a link to one of the best sourdough bakers on the web, to see what’s possible:
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Happy sourdough baking!,
Kareem
