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Sourdough School

Saving My Sourdough Dough

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The dough has hit the fan. Come along as I try different methods of Saving My Sourdough Dough that went (way) too far and compare the final results.

Be warned, this is going to be a little bit more sciency than my Easy Everyday Sourdough Bread.

saving my sourdough dough expedition. dough risen way too far, spilled on the table

Disclaimer.

I am not a mathematician nor a scientist.

I am just a mother who loves sourdough experiments, and hate to feel defeated by a DOUGH!

My Recipe for 6 x White sourdough loaves at 68% hydration

Easy Everyday Sourdough Bread Recipe

Method

  1. Mix flour and water to autolyse for 20min.
  2. Then add all of the rest of the ingredients and mix until oil is well absorbed.
  3. Do 2 stretch and folds 15min apart, and 3 coil folds 30min apart.
  4. Now leave dough to rise until 30% risen. (Did not happen exactly)
  5. Divide and pre-shape.
  6. Rest 15min.
  7. Final shaping.
  8. Into fridge for overnight fermentation.

Notes

Right now it is winter where we are, and I always struggle more to get the dough to rise during the winter and get it to slow down again in the fridge. But I have a very strong starter (obviously), that rises very fast and strong once it gets going. So in my base recipe I adjusted the starter from 20% bakers% to 10%. I thought it would be safe to increase my starter and leave it through the night on the counter since it was so cold.

Also, usually I mix in the morning and put the dough, shaped and ready to bake in fridge for the night. This time, I wanted to try to not use the fridge, as I feel my fridge is very bad at holding even temperature for the dough.

Apparently not a great idea.

Timeline

DAY 1

DAY 2

sourdough spilled on the table

Honestly, I was a little flatlined for a moment…

And then my brain started working and I thought of a few different ways to save what I could from the dough.

Rescue mission: Saving My Sourdough Dough

Test 1 – To compare, I am going to continue normally with 2 loaves, dividing, shaping and putting them into free-form bowls to do final rise in the fridge and open bake the next day (Day 3).

shaped sourdough on wooden table

Here you can see the dough tearing because the gluten structure is damaged because it was left for too long. This will also happen when gluten did not sufficiently develop during the stretch and fold process.

pre-shaped sourdough that tore

1.1 One of these loaves I will freeze for 2hours before open baking.

Test 2 – I will take two loaves and put them into buttered bread pans to do final rise and bake in the bread pans.

saving my sourdough dough by putting it into bread pans

Test 3 – I am going to use the rest of the dough as a preferment, add flour, water and salt and make a new dough, wait to rise again, pre-shape, final shape and put into free-form bowls to final rise in the fridge and open bake 2 of these loaves to compare the next day.

3.1 – One of these I will freeze for 2 hours before baking.

Recipe for Saving My Sourdough Dough with preferment

Method for Saving My Sourdough Dough with preferment

  1. Mix flour and water to autolyse for 20min.
  2. Then add all of the rest of the ingredients and mix until oil is well absorbed.
  3. Do 2 stretch and folds 15min apart, and 3 coil folds 30min apart.
  4. Now leave dough to rise until 30% risen.
  5. Divide and pre-shape.
  6. Rest 15min.
  7. Final shaping.
  8. Into fridge for overnight fermentation.

This Cambro container works perfectly to see accurately how your dough is rising. You can make a mark on the side with a wet erase marker at current dough level and at the percentage where you want to stop fermentation. You can find it here.

Timeline

Procedure of baking day

I open bake multiple loaves in a gas bread oven on a pizza stone.

Bake time is usually 60min.

Top element at 200°C, bottom element set to 265°C.

Spray dough with water before putting into oven, at 5min, 10min and 15min into baking.

Here are the pictures on bake day:

DAY 3

four different experiments for sourdough that fermented too far
four different sourdough ready to bake
four different sourdough, scored
sourdough in bread pans read to bake
saving my sourdough dough baking in the oven
comparing baked sourdough experiments
baked sourdough in bread pans
comparing rise and crumb of different sourdough loaves cut open

Conclusion

1. Original dough

2. Original dough, frozen for 2hours

3. Original dough in bread pan

4. Preferment dough

5. Preferment dough, frozen for 2 hours

Was Saving My Sourdough Dough Successful?

Depending on your taste, you could definitely save a dough that fermented too far by shaping or re-shaping carefully and putting it into bread pans to rise again and bake. Just know the taste will be quite sour. 3 days was pushing the limits with taste, I would say.

In my opinion the very best loaf was the preferment one that was frozen for 2 hours. It looked the best and it tasted wonderful.

What is bakers percentage?

Bakers% is a method of analysing a recipe to make it easier to scale up or down without mistakes.

The flour will always be 100%, and all the other ingredients will be measured in relation to the flour.

For example, with formula from grams to %.

Once you have the percentages you can start with any amount of flour and get the exact weights of the rest of the ingredients. For example:

and there is your new recipe.

More (normal) Sourdough Recipes

Healthy And Delicious Recipes

My favourite Sourdough gadgets

Cast iron dutch oven

cast iron dutch oven for sourdough baking

Sourdough kit

sourdough kit

Kitchen scale

ourdailybread kitchen scale for sourdough baking

Infra-red thermometer

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