jade32•1mo ago

Just realized I was overproofing my sourdough for months

I always let my sourdough bulk ferment until it looked super puffy and doubled. Then a baker at a farmer's market in Eugene told me I was probably overproofing it. She said to look for a domed surface with small bubbles, not a flat, jiggly mess. I tried her method on my next batch and cut the bulk rise by about 45 minutes. The crumb opened up way more and the tang was stronger. Has anyone else had better luck with a shorter bulk ferment like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

river_bailey21mo ago

Oh man, I did this exact same thing for like six straight months last year. I was using a King Arthur recipe that said "let it double" and my dough was always this jiggly, wet looking mess by the end. Then I started pulling it at the domed surface stage too, cut about 30 minutes off for my kitchen which runs around 76 degrees, and suddenly my loaves had that ear and open crumb I was chasing. It's so frustrating when the basic advice just doesn't work for your specific setup.

the_robert1mo ago

I read a post on r/sourdough where someone figured out the same thing after like a year of baking dense loaves. They said they were chasing that massive rise during bulk fermentation but it was actually killing their oven spring. I tried backing off on my bulk time too and got a much more open crumb and that nice sour bite. It's wild how the standard advice to just let it double can mess things up depending on your flour and temp.