With quarantine in full swing, so many people are trying out sourdough for the first time. Sourdough is a little fussy, and it’s easy to make mistakes. Here are some common mistakes people make, and how to fix them.
1. Dense bread with no air holes
This can be a few things. Your starter may not be alive/awake – make sure you feed your starter the day before, and that the starter is active and bubbling before you use it. You may not have kneaded it long enough. Even though most recipes will give you a timeline of how long to knead, you need to keep kneading until the dough is strong enough. This means it can be stretched until you can see light through it, without it tearing. This can take a long time, often twice the amount of time listed in the recipe, but if you don’t get it to this point, it won’t be strong enough to hold in the air bubbles.
How to Fix: Make sure your starter is active and bubbling, and knead your bread until it’s smooth, strong, and you can stretch it without it tearing.
This means that there is too much gas in the dough. Typically it means you overproofed the dough, or, in other words, you let it rise for too long. The gas built up and took up too much space, so you have massive holes and not enough bread.
How to fix: decrease the proof/rise time, and watch the dough. If you give it a gentle poke and the dough pops back to shape, it’s still rising. If it comes back a little bit, it’s ready to bake. If the indent from the poke stays there, it’s overproofed.
Loving the city, but longing for the farm, Melissa has made a hobby and a habit out of living sustainably, and DIYing, all while enjoying the perks of living in the big city. From Vancouver BC, she posts about making your own homestead from the smallest condo, and bringing farm living to rapid transit.
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