I've been making breads recently which, while they're delicious, seemingly well-baked, and with an open crumb, are a bit tacky/sticky to the touch and during slicing. Oil the mixing bowl, the bowl used for bulk fermentation and folding, and the proofing vessel. Send your . The only solution for this is to toss your dough and put your time into strengthening and maturing your sourdough starter. This will ensure that the bread is cooked all the way through. How Do You Know When Your Sourdough Starter Is Ready To Bake With? Flour issues. Okay, so maybe sourdough is never going to be extremely easy to handle, especially when it has very high hydration, but you can get to a point where youre very comfortable with handling sticky sourdough. This is the sourdough baking course you need if you are just starting out in sourdough bread baking. Different types of mixers uses different mixing arm which develops the dough at different rates. 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). Lightly Flour One Side Of The Dough During Shaping. Perhaps your sourdough is too sticky when you start working with 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. The stickiest of doughs are the ones that dont have a developed gluten network. You'll find a full guide to all purpose flour vs bread flour here. The problem here is, there's not a lot you can do with over fermented dough. CAUSE - Your sourdough is lacking oven spring, which means your dough is not growing in the oven as it should. 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). 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. 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. Avoid using cake or pastry flour for dusting as it contains a higher starch content and tends to lump up more than bread, rice or semolina flour. Nor should it be sticky after youve baked it. Over-proofed Sourdough Bread When sourdough bread is given too long of a rise time it will result in bread that is over-proofed. The good news is, there's always a way to fix your sourdough bread problems for your next bake! This allows the dough to absorb the water into the flour and start to form gluten strands that hold the bread together. A basic sourdough is made with only wheat flour, sometimes just white flour and sometimes a combination of whole wheat flour and white flour. Even then the hydration would be on the very high side. Always shape your loaf on a piece of non-stick, silicone paper, then when it's proved, stick it straight onto the hot stone and reduce the temperature of the oven down to around 180-200C. Overproofed bread will also have a pale crust because the yeast has used all the sugars and therefore there are none left to caramelise the crust. 30g flour (in this case I'm using 15g organic rye flour and 15g organic white flour) 30g water (preferably filtered and room temperature - not straight from the tap) Weigh the flour and water, and combine them in the container. It will be sticky. 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. 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. However, it shouldnt be so sticky that it is hard to knead. If the dough breaks before you can pull it so thin that you can see the light, resume kneading. 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. Set aside. CAUSE - cutting into your bread too soon! Thanks for the tip! A tightly shaped dough that has been stitched when placed in the banneton will hold together better when tipped out for baking. Your bread may still be sticky after baking if it has been underbaked, has too much water in it, or has had problems with gluten development in the dough. Once mixed, the dough enters the bulk fermentaiton phase where folding also takes place which helps significantly to develop more gluten network as well as to incorporate more water into the dough making it feel less wet and sticky. Dough made with a young sourdough starter just won't develop. Combine the starter, water, rye flour and 1 cup of the bread flour. Turn out to lightly floured counter, divide into 2, preshape. In this blog we will explore what causes wet, sticky dough and how to fix the issue so you can bake amazing sourdough bread. Mix, and add some spices, dried herbs, or even some cheese powder. Pate Fermentee VS Poolish VS Biga VS Sourdough Starter. Bake in a preheated 425F oven for about 45 minutes, until bread tests done. 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). How Do You Know When Your Sourdough Starter Is Ready To Bake With?. You/we need a hydration % of the levain too, to figure out how much flour and how much water is in the levain. Send your bread making problems to breadsos@bakewithjack.co.ukInclude your name, your location, a method or recipe if possible and the temperature of your kitchen if you know it and we'll get to the bottom of your most common problems right here. Hot water strengthens the gluten in the flour. You'll know you have sufficient gluten development by performing the window pane test on your dough. Sourdough differs from most bread in that it contains no baker's yeast, relying instead on a fermented "starter" of water and flour to provide lift. SOLUTION - extend your bulk fermentation to enable the yeast in your dough to release some of their energy before hitting the oven. If your kitchen is too warm, the dough can become a sloppy, wet mess. Only add more flour if it remains excessively moist or sticky after youve kneaded it in. Just know that it will be sticky early in this process. Place the bread pieces on a parchment lined baking sheet in a single layer. This method works better with slack dough anyway. How long did you wait before slicing the loaf in the photo? In the first few minutes of the bake, the surface of the bread must be kept moist and pliable. Placing a baking tray underneath your Dutch Oven should do the trick. 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. Starting at a lower hydration (70% is good) is best for beginners. Flour contains starches, and some of these starch molecules inevitably cracks and breaks due to the harsh milling process; these are known as damaged starch particles. If it sticks at this stage, youll have a much more difficult time and it could throw of the results of your bread. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Throughout the shaping, the dough felt aerated and light and bouncy and it was easy to handle after dipping our hands in water. Matching my work schedule. This method involves mixing the dough so the flour is fully hydrated before performing a series of stretch and folds. 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. I wouldn't reduce temperature, but rather increase baking time. It may be that you just need to cut back on the water. A lack of oven spring could be due to a shaping issue, under fermentation or poor gluten development - but more often than not it's a combination of a few things. This step hydrates the flours and helps with gluten development and dough structure. Jack Sturgess. A tough crust can also be caused by a lower hydration recipe. Instead, stretch and fold it. Another tactic is adding flour to the work surface before you start working with the dough. This is a one of the most frustrating sourdough bread problems to have. Many start at 400 F and drop to 375 F at some point during the baking. The two main bread baking systems commonly used today are the sponge/pre-ferment system and the straight dough system. The yeast has too much energy when it hits the oven and this excess energy causes a "rush" when your dough hits the oven. Over proofing or fermenting the dough can also result in the gluten structure weakening causing sticky dough. 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. 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. Below, Ive listed the main reasons your sourdough is sticky, so have a look through and see how they might be affecting your dough. The next day, preheat the oven to 500 degrees for 60 minutes. Dont try traditional kneading techniques like punch and turn with moist sourdough. 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}. At first, the dough will be very sticky, but the gluten will develop more and more after each stretch and fold. Similarly, if your sourdough starter is too runny you may also end up with a super wet dough. 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. 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.