As Ive already mentioned, gluten is essential to prevent too much sticking. Skin tension during shaping is developed when one side of the dough sticks lightly on the work surface while the hands pulls the dough inwards from the opposite side, stretching the surface of the dough taut. The sticky side should only touch the dough. Q: My dough is too slack and is not developing good strength. Its like an extension to your hand and can be used to improve your technique with the dough. A strong, mature sourdough starter will reward you with amazing sourdough at your next bake. A new bake this morning. When youve kneaded the bread dough enough, stretch it while looking at a light source. if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'crustylabs_com-leader-1','ezslot_6',124,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-crustylabs_com-leader-1-0');The table below is extracted from Jeffrey Hammelmans Bread Book that shows the relative mixing time between different mixers and hand mixing to develop the same dough to the same strength. More often than not a tight crumb with a number of larger holes - but it's not even or open. A starter is a collection of yeast and bacteria that feed on flour. Make sure that you're not using too much flour when shaping your dough. Unfortunately, this results in tougher bread. This arguably makes the dough easier to work with. Add the all purpose/bread flour and whole wheat/spelt flour. Jack Sturgess. Thank you for the pointers, will be reducing the temperature to allow a longer bake the next round! Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Rest the dough for 30 minutes. BEST TOOLS FOR MAKING BREAD AT HOME (Links to Amazon below). STEP FOUR: Pour the starter/water mixture into the flour mixture and stir, using a fork, into a thick, sticky ball. Dusting with flour is useful for some parts of the baking process for preventing sourdough from sticking, but it is not the best method for every application; other methods for preventing sourdough from sticking is to wet your hands with water, oiling the work surfaces and using parchment paper for baking. I find that I need to bake the moisture out before the top crust gets too hard and seals in the moisture, and if that happens then you just end up over-baking the crust while it's still gummy inside. CAUSE - the dough has been over fermented and/or over proofed and has too much air trapped in the shaped dough. What to do: This is a heavily over proofed dough. If the recipe is overly generous with the sourdough starter fermentation time, you end up adding too much-trapped air to the recipe and get a sticker dough. Mix together the flour, sourdough starter and 250ml/9fl oz water in a bowl. The water and other wet ingredients are absorbed into the flour. It's possible that the dough is rising too much during the cold retard which will also cause this issue. . More often than not, gumminess is a result of under fermentation (cutting the bulk fermentation time too short). In a large bowl, combine 350 g of water with the sourdough starter, stir to dissolve the starter. Add 850g water to your mixing bowl and mix with your hand until the levain is wholly dissolved. When it comes to building the gluten, everyone has a different preference in how to do it. If the sourdough is unworkable at the very start, this obviously isnt because the oven temperature isnt set right for your elevation. The trick is to pinpoint which one is affecting your dough so you can fix it or change your formula for next time. 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. After fermenting for too long, the gluten in the dough begins to break down, which leaves you with a thick, gloopy mass of flour and water with no way to make good sourdough. if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'crustylabs_com-box-4','ezslot_1',121,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-crustylabs_com-box-4-0');It is completely normal for very high hydration doughs at more than 75% hydration to feel excessively slack, wet and sticky after the mixing phase. American flour has a damaged starch percentage of roughly 8-9% while European flour has a lower damaged starch percentage at about 7%. If your dough is under fermented it will lose shape quickly and spread when it's tipped out of the banneton. Your email address will not be published. When mixing, hold back a portion of the intended total water quantity called for in the formulation. Your dough can become sticky when you add too much water or the flour isn't suitable for the type of dough you are making. Sticky and unmanagable sourdough. This increases the chances of tearing, which can make your life more difficult when shaping or kneading it. Place on a floured cake or bowl with a tea towel and fold over. Sourdough does not stop cooking when you take it out of the oven. When this has cooled, add the rye sour, yeast mixture, 2 cups medium rye flour and the remaining 4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour. Mix well. (Top Reasons). It can be a mixture of rye and wheat or just rye. Required fields are marked *. CAUSE - cutting into your bread too soon! From a gummy crumb to a lack of rise and everything in between. Sticky sourdough isnt something anybody wants to work with, but it is completely normal and something that you need to get used to if youre going to get good at making sourdough bread. 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. Some Student Reviews: by Pam H - Outstanding. You'll find a full guide to all purpose flour vs bread flour here. Shape into batards. If you find your sourdough bread dough is too sticky when you are dividing and preshaping, it might be because it's over hydrated, under strengthened, or under proofed. Here are some of the problems that can cause wet and sticky sourdough: Many people say "just use wet hands" if your dough is super sticky or wet. Even with parchment paper, the base of your bread is sitting on the hot base of the Dutch Oven causing it to cook more quickly. 480F is not as hot as you could bake. When you have finished Sourdough Bread Baking 101, you will have the confidence to not only bake using your own sourdough starter, you will be ready for more advanced sourdough baking techniques which will enable you to bake all sorts of sourdough artisan breads. Autolyse is an important part of the baking process where flour and water is initially mixed without any other ingredients and left to rest for about 20 to 60 minutes. 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. full guide to stopping your sourdough bread from collapsing here, Flavored Sourdough: How To Make Additions To Sourdough Bread. 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. This makes it easier to handle. Step 4: Bake. Youll find that most recipes are making sourdough with fairly high hydration, which means that the sourdough is naturally stickier, but this doesnt mean that all sourdough has to be sticky. These need to be done without hesitation. Generally, flat loaves will still taste ok, they just lack that beautiful airiness we want to see in our sourdough. The gluten structure has become weak and is unable to hold up. You just get more un-fermented dough that wont stand up. Alternatively, you could add a little oil to the work surface and your hands. It is normal when working with dough of very high hydration for it to feel quite wet and sticky after it has finished mixing. This method works better with slack dough anyway. The bacteria on the other hand create a sour taste and ferment the bread. If the dough is too sticky at this point, add a little flour and knead it in. Some things to have on hand to work with really wet dough are: So how do you fix wet and sticky sourdough? If youre not comfortable handling high hydration dough like sourdough, Id advise that you drop the hydration of your dough slightly and see how you handle that. Too much dusting of flour can also reduce stickiness to the point where sufficient skin tension is not able to be developed. I'll come back with the results in a week! 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. Many start at 400 F and drop to 375 F at some point during the baking. SOLUTION - The solution to this problem is to ensure that your dough is fermented correctly. Modified: Dec 27, 2022 by The Pantry Mama This post may contain affiliate links. In the first few minutes of the bake, the surface of the bread must be kept moist and pliable. It affects pretty much every part of the process. Sourdough made with bread flour can take up to 6 hours to cool properly. If youre new to making sourdough bread, youre bound to run into a few issues at first, especially if youre not experienced with sticky dough. Loaf In a small mixing bowl, mix the flour and salt together thoroughly. If all has gone well, the dough will be in a tight ball and ready for proofing. Generally, a good hydration starting point is 75% or so when working with bread flour, 80% or so with whole wheat. We can prevent wet sourdough from sticking by oiling our work surfaces, using wet hands to handle the dough and dusting the proofing containers. The water almost wholly stops the sticking, so you dont have to worry about messing up your dough. Place on a peel, slip into the oven, and watch. While sourdough is a wetter, stickier dough than what you may be used to, it should still be able to be stretched, folded and shaped without too many issues. The chains of gluten give your dough strength and structure. At first, the dough will be very sticky, but the gluten will develop more and more after each stretch and fold. When water is excessively soft, the lack of minerals results in a sticky andslack dough. SOLUTION - Allow your bread to cool for AT LEAST 90 minutes (much longer for rye bread). 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. Your dough might be too sticky because you added too much water when making the initial mix, too. STEP THREE: Stir down the starter, then mix 1/3 cup of sourdough starter (90 grams) with water (385 grams) using a fork. Set aside. CAUSES - There are number of causes here, but the main one is that it was not baked long enough for the moisture in the dough to be baked out of the bread. You just need to reduce the heat on the base of your Dutch Oven or baking tray. If those figures do not include your levain, then you have at least 77% final hydration assuming a levain of 100% hydration. Final internal temp 211F Sliced after cooling for 4 hours. Second, mix the dough using a previously fed, active and bubbly sourdough starter, water and a mixture of bread and whole wheat flour. A large mixing bowl A round cane banneton 2 clean tea towels A Dutch oven, La Cloche or bread pan A large heatproof pan, a sharp knife or 'lame' to slash the dough with. The steam that is trapped inside needs to move towards the outside. Your dough should be split into two sides. Sourdough that has hydration levels of more than 72% tends to be sticky and tears apart easily when it is handled. It should be room temperature. A simple way to check that your dough is cooked through is to tap the base. If your kitchen is too warm, the dough can become a sloppy, wet mess. If using a stand mixer, change to the dough hook. If the actual final hydration does meet your goal, or whatever formula/recipe you're working from, then the next suggestion for something to tweak would be bake temps and times. The Number #1 Reason your sourdough bread might be flat is using the wrong flour. Bread has been baked too soon after shaping / under proofed. Instructions. 2. I've written about 6 things you can do to ensure you get good sourdough oven spring (and leave the hockey pucks behind) here. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The average total mixing time when using a spiral mixer is around 6 minutes of total mixing (includes first speed mixing time and second speed mixing time). - lower hydration in the total dough formula (already noted above). You'll know you have sufficient gluten development by performing the window pane test on your dough. When using a proofing basket, line it with a clean cloth and dust its surface with flour by using a sieve to ensure an even coating. You can read more about this trick, Use water mist or ice inside your Dutch Oven to ensure you get a, Leave the sourdough bread in the oven to cool after it's baked (you'll find a. If baking in a pre-heated oven, turn on the oven to at least 200C/392F, once heated, add two big glasses of water to a dish on the bottom shelf When Im not baking sourdough, I love to hang out with my three boys on our farm, tend to my jungle of indoor plants and drink good coffee. Thank you in advance! Yes you read that right! Sourdough can be a little tricky as it can take time for the flour to absorb the water during the autolyse process. 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. Lamination butter for croissants - question, Farmer's Market Week 18 (Whole Wheat Walnut YW/SD Combo), 100% Stoneground Whole Wheat Hokkaido Sourdough Milk Bread, Borodinsky Supreme -- Old School -- 100% Rye. Place the lid on and bake for 30 minutes. This site 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. Thanks guys!!! Start taking internal temp at 45 min total time, and then allow 7 or 8 minutes for every degree it needs to come up. Under mixing and over mixing results in insufficient gluten strands to trap water inside the dough, causing the dough to be wet and sticky. Similarly, the reason we use baking parchment paper when baking is to minimize the use of additional flour in the baking process. When the percentage of damaged starch particles in flour exceeds 10%, your dough will become wetter and stickier over time. Then the dough is less likely to stick to them. This will result in a more. Sourdough does not stop cooking when you take it out of the oven. 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. This is because of the moisture that remains in your sourdough. You might get a drier dough, but you wont get the same rise in the dough and a solid crust that you were expecting. Bake in a Dutch Oven. water) slightly (eg. if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'crustylabs_com-leader-4','ezslot_20',129,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-crustylabs_com-leader-4-0');If you are proofing your dough in a non porous material such as a metal or glass container, then oiling is preferred over dusting with flour. For example, the problem may be a recipe that calls for more hydration than the flour youre using requires. Dough is sticky and wet from under mixing as insufficient gluten network is developed to hold in the water molecules. Thanks. Remove the lid and bake for another 10 minutes to get a brown crust. Stretch dough into rough 10"x17" rectangle, laminate and move to clean vessel for bulk. Modified: Sep 13, 2022 by The Pantry Mama This post may contain affiliate links. Place the bread pieces on a parchment lined baking sheet in a single layer. CAUSE - Spreading can be caused by a few factors including under fermented or over fermented dough as well as poor shaping technique. Pale crust after baked. Its very important to avoid tearing the gluten as this causes it to become sticky again. Only add more flour if it remains excessively moist or sticky after youve kneaded it in. Rest for 30 minutes @76F. It affects pretty much every part of the process. No matter how long you leave it to ferment, the yeast and bacteria won't actually grow or change. One reason why people add too much flour and mix it in is to try to get the dough more manageable. Two things - the hydration listed (390g flour and 350g water) is way too high for almost any bread that's not 100% whole wheat. Ensure that you have scored enough - you need one good score to ensure that your dough expands. But as it cooled, the crust wrinkled and collapsed what happened? Thanks for the suggestions about leaving the bread to cool longer. 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. The problem is that the crumb is very tacky to the touch and abit sticky on the knife. Bake in preheated, covered DO at 475F for 20 minutes, then uncovered at 450F for 20 minutes. It is generally healthier and easier to digest. 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! SOLUTIONS - These are the things you can do to try to avoid your dough splitting naturally: PROBLEM - your sourdough bread has an uneven crumb. Is rye flour good for . Content posted by community members is their own. We are compensated for referring traffic and business to Amazon and other companies linked to on this site. Work on your shaping techniques. 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. The good news is, there's always a way to fix your sourdough bread problems for your next bake! If your sourdough has a very thick base which is burnt or just very tough, there's a very simple fix for this. Home Why Is My Sourdough Too Sticky? It can be caused by over fermenting or under fermenting your dough, but also by other things like shaping issues. Nor should it be sticky after youve baked it. Makes 1 x 800-g/1-lbs. So I suspect a miscalculation, and you might actually be doing 80% final hydration. For now, you need to know exactly whats causing your sourdough to be sticky and what you can do to help yourself with it. Flour blended and autolysed for 2 hours@85F. I wouldn't reduce temperature, but rather increase baking time. And wait longer before slicing. You might want to leave the bread in the oven for 10 minutes with the oven off and door ajar to help wick away some of the extra moisture. CAUSE - This odd shape is caused by under fermentation. Whenever you handle your sourdough, you want to avoid pulling and stretching the dough too much or using sharp materials around it. Signs of over-proofing are: A huge puffy ball of dough after the end of the rising time. Instead of kneading your dough manually for 8-10 minutes, youd be better off using a series of stretch and folds to develop gluten. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. Being slow or having any hesitation can lead to the dough adhering to something it shouldnt, which would make your life a lot more difficult. Below, Ive listed the main reasons your sourdough is sticky, so have a look through and see how they might be affecting your dough. It might be that your sourdough is too sticky because there is insufficient gluten development. 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. Dont forget about your dough or leave it in a warm area for too long or youll end up regretting it. Use mineral water of a known hardness or test your tap water to be sure that your water has the appropriate hardness level for bread baking. Give it around thirty 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. Placing a baking tray underneath your Dutch Oven should do the trick. Theres nothing wrong with using less water or adding more flour to your dough if its unmanageable, but you just need to be careful not to dry the dough out by adding too much flour. However, it is possible to get sticky sourdough that is hard to get out of the pan or cut into pieces. 25 minute proof at room temperature. Add the flour and mix well with the dough whisk or your hands until you have a shaggy, slightly sticky dough. Add a little flour and knead it a few times to make it more manageable. The difference between wet dough being successful and wet dough being a big sloppy mess is dough strength. Charlie was a little better probably because we increased the bake time, but the higher hydration did it in. 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. Mix until no dry patches remain. Concentrate on shaping evenly and with plenty of tension to ensure your dough rises evenly and doesn't split other than where you've scored. SOLUTION - extend your bulk fermentation to enable the yeast in your dough to release some of their energy before hitting the oven. This blog contains scientific explanation on all matters related to baking written in simple words; I hope you will find something useful here and leave as a better baker. 3. The only thing you might need to fix with your sourdough is its hydration. Here are some options for working with wet, sticky over fermented sourdough. The problem with damaged starches comes from the over absorption of water. Add dried bread to the bowl of a food processor. One solution is to use a wet dough cutter or scraper. We can use the mixing time below as a sanity check to determine if we have indeed under mixed or over mixed our dough; if you fall way out from the range in the table, increase or decrease mixing time to stay within these guidelines. The recipe technically calls to bake the bread in a preheated dutch oven (I use a casserole dish because I don't own a dutch oven), but the dough is so sticky that if I preheat the dish and transfer the dough to it once it's preheated, I find that the dough deflates and I get a flat loaf. Bread SOS Episode 5: STICKY / TACKY Sourdough Crumb. SOLUTION - Depending on the cause of your spread, you can implement the following fixes: PROBLEM - Dough splits in places other than where you've scored or even splits messing up your decorative scoring. Large mixing bowl Measuring cups and spoons Bread thermometer ( fancy or a budget one) Scoring lame Extra (nice to have): Kitchen scale Dough scraper and bowl scraper (yes, they are different) Cooling rack Baking stone (you don't need a dutch oven if you use this) Learn how to make bread and pizza with this awesome book. 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. Maybe tomorrow but it can also be the day after tomorrow. Remove the pot from the oven using pot holders (please be very careful ). Im the face behind The Pantry Mama and I want to help you bake delicious sourdough bread, no matter what your schedule. 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). It could be using the slap and fold, stretch and fold, rubaud kneading, or whatever youd like. Since using dry hands can be such a big problem for the sticky dough, Id advise that you get yourself a bowl of water to dip your hands in before you handle the dough. Sourdough made with bread flour can take up to 6 hours to cool properly. Once one side is stretched and dusted, you should shape the dough and put it into your banneton. Without salt, the dough becomes sticky and slack in nature, making it difficult to work with. stickiness is usually not cooking off enough moisture. When I first started baking, everything that could go wrong, went wrong; it felt borderline alchemy to me. I baked a loaf this morning and I dont gone cute it until we ready to eat it. If your kitchen is too warm, the dough can become a sloppy, wet mess. Next, add 8g fine sea salt. There are lots of things that can go wrong when baking sourdough bread. I tried your suggestions, kinda - 2 large (880g) loaves baked covered at 465F for 25 minutes, then uncovered at 425 for 25 minutes. We will hold on to the knife the next time and be sure to wait longer. After 30 minutes, take the parchment paper with the dough on it and place the entire thing in the preheated dutch oven. The yeast is responsible for the rise in the bread and will help create a light and airy sourdough. We will hold back from slicing it too early the next time!! This is really only an issue once you've done bulk fermentation and you are trying to shape your dough. One fold consists of the folding of all four sides of the dough into its centre. This site is powered by Drupal. You want to be fast enough to limit any sticking, but not too fast or you might make a mess. Simply combine your flour and water before any of the other ingredients, fully incorporating the flour. Over proofing or fermenting the dough can also result in the gluten structure weakening causing sticky dough. This helps keep the dough from sticking. 150g bread flour, 150g all-purpose, 90g whole wheat flour with 350g water (slightly warmer than room temperature by the touch), with 90g of starter and 9g of salt. Undigested sourdough bread can ferment byproducts in your gut when it reaches your colon. This is done in intervals over the course of a few hours, so the dough has plenty of time to become more elastic and less sticky. But we are utterly puzzled by the outcome again. The bacteria produce both lactic acid and acetic acid. SOLUTION - Lack of oven spring can be a complex problem. The dough will be sticky and doesn't quite form a ball. How to handle sticky, wet . If your dough is too dry, add a little moisture and mix it, adding just a little more water if necessary. PROBLEM - You may have baked a loaf of sourdough which appears to have large tunnels of air or just one big hole surrounded by a tighter or dense crumb. Let the integrated flour-and-water mass sit for up to an hour. Don't close the oven door or the crust will become soft and wrinkly. 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. The only solution for this is to toss your dough and put your time into strengthening and maturing your sourdough starter. This is a one of the most frustrating sourdough bread problems to have. However, it's much better to find out the cause of the problem so you can fix it and prevent it from happening again. And sometimes the issue is the recipe. Just dont freeze it. That's one of four for the set. Scrape into a greased 9" x 4" x 4" pan; cover and let the loaf rise until it's within about 1" of the pan's rim, about 3 to 4 hours. More noticeable sour taste, possibly unpleasant. However, it shouldnt be so sticky that it is hard to knead. Third, cover and rest the dough for 30 minutes. What has gone wrong to cause this issue? SOLUTION - Tunnels can have a few solutions: PROBLEM - My sourdough isn't cooked all the way through. This site is powered by Drupal. Is Flatbread Healthier Than Regular Bread? How to handle sticky, wet .