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I was testing some new flours over the weekend: one an 85% extraction from Yorkshire, the other about a 75% extraction from the local Charlecote Mill. They are both sold as white flours but both have this very light greyish hue which bakes into a soft light tan coloured crumb.
I fermented 2 loaves of each at 75% hydration, with all other conditions as similar as possible. The idea was to get a feel for the flour before using the flour this weekend to sell at COGS.
But, like a terrible scientist, I also changed a couple of other things. I used a 100% wholemeal levain for the first time, and I thought I’d have a go at seeing how far I could prove the loaves without over-proving them.
Seeing how far I could push the proof was a good idea in theory …
fat frisbee loaf
I did this by shaping the loaves after they were beautifully fermented. Normally, I’d refrigerate (cold proof) the loaves at this stage but I left them covered in the kitchen for more than an hour and a half. The loaves were puffing up nicely and I was thinking, “Maybe I’ve been under-proving my bread for years?”
The next morning when I took after their covers, the loaves had a telltale sign of the dough looking like it had been nibbled at or had slightly denatured a bit (wish I’d taken a photo). My heart sank. When I scored the loaves they then kind of collapsed. I baked them anyway and I ended up with four fat frisbees, but boy do they taste amazing.
I hope the local birds appreciate hand-mixed and naturally fermented sourdough.
I’m 90% sure the loaves were overproved (stands to reason) but there’s a slight possibility that both flours require a lot more strengthening during fermentation. Or perhaps the issue was a bit of both.
The upshot is that I’ll need to bake again before I can think about making loaves with these flours to sell. I’ll do this by dropping the hydration a bit (both doughs were very sticky), returning to my regular white levain, and not pushing that proof!
