sourdough

I never get a good ear on my sourdough loafs and can't figure out why

I feel like my score is pretty deep, and I spray some water to create steam which I read should help. Any ideas?

I like baking /goodbread and building apps on web3 protocols. DevRel @ ENS Labs. gregskril.com

Three options:

Angle of the score (flatter angle generally gets you a more defined ear)
Lack of tension in shaping/bulk fermentation
Under/over proofing

My guess would be #3, how’s the crumb look? If you slice off the bottom inch the whole way across that may help to debug

debug bread lol I like that

here’s the crumb, more airy than previous loafs so I assumed the fermentation was better but maybe still not enough ?

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By the somewhat flat shape and the pretty uniform distribution of air pockets I'd guess underproofed actually

Other possible culprit is a not particularly active starter, you could try feeding it more often before the next batch too

Hello it’s me, random guy with an unwelcome opinion: uniform distribution happens later in the ferment, so not really a sign of underproof. Underproof tends to give irregular crumb, large pockets surrounded by dense areas. As ferment goes on, larger bubbles collapse and split into smaller-> progressively more regular

Ah whoops, 100% agreed. I wrote underproofed but meant overproofed

This is what I get for trying to respond to WC while chasing around my 8mo old. Thanks for the catch :)

Sorry Greg!

Interesting! I heard it's hard to overproof bread in the winter but maybe I'm doing it somehow lol

Will try a shorter ferment next time, ty!

How long have you been fermenting, and at what temperature? This is all guesswork based on a crumb shot, so if you’re actually not fermenting for very long, or in a cooler temp, it could well be the wrong diagnosis.

That’ll definitely help narrowing down the issue. Also highly recommend being very deliberate about temp and timing until you work out the kinks. So measuring the temperature of the water you mix in, ambient room temp, temperature in fridge if cold fermenting (should be ≤ 3-4°C) etc. Small changes compound quickly

I don't remember how long for the pic above, but I've found any shorter just yield a flat loaf... so far I've either gotten
- basically no rise, very flat
- decent rise but no ear

maybe I should make a few mini loafs in 1 day, each with same sets of folds and then different fermenting times and see what happens 🤔