Success. Six great dark chocolate sourdough loves.
Here's the baker's percentages for today's bake. What was different this time?
Well for one, I lowered the hydration by three points to 70%, and I also brought down the starter percentage to 8%. I also didn't over ferment the loaves this time, thankfully. I changed the salt, but I don't think that actually made a difference (though maybe I'll play around with that in the future).
I also made changes to the oven layout. I added two more fire bricks to the floor bringing the total up to four. I also have a mini cast iron dutch oven made by Lodge that I put on the floor of the oven. I dumped a bunch of boiling water in it and put the lid on right after the loaves were inserted into the oven. The theory being that it would constantly release a little bit of steam throughout the bake. I didn't measure it, but I'll have to in the future.
One drawback from from adding extra firebricks was it increased the heat up time by about 30 minutes. But it's worth it because I think they really help stabalize the heat in the oven.
And finally I pulled out a new utility blade to score the bread. The cuts went much deeper this time and just really flowed through the dough. I wonder how much of my previous problems were because of a dull blade?
Here's the timeline
- 0m Six loaves, boiling water into the mini cast iron dutch oven which I then covered with it's lid. Turned the heat down to 520°F from 550°F.
- 5m I added a little bit more steam via spray, which I decided was dumb because there was still water in the mini cast iron. I should have just kept the oven closed.
- 7m I'm seeing some good spring. Was it was the dough or good scoring? Or both?
- 13m Spun the loaves 180° (oh my these look good already).
- 16m Turned the oven down to 500°F because I was worried they were baking too quick.
- 19.5m Four loaves come out of the oven
- 20.5m The last two came out. I pulled off the lid from the mini cast iron and there was still a little bit of water in there. I could add a little less next time.
I'm doing another bake tomorrow, but with rosemary. I'll be using the exact same dough percentages and I don't think I'll change anything about my setup. If I can reproduce these results I'll be super happy.