I spend a little time now and then checking on a baking forum, The Fresh Loaf.There's a lot of very serious bakers there that do interesting stuff and one of them posted this, about judging the proofing issues of a loaf. The spur for this was a loaf with tight crumb with some large holes. What I like, is that it's a kind of decision tree approach to figuring out the issue.
To assess the proofing/fermentation ignore the big holes first. What is the crumb like, are the alveoli in the crumb tiny and tight then more likely to be underfermented. Is the crumb overall actually pretty nice and not tight then not underfermented. Then the large hole characteristics next. Are they large tunnels through the bread and not necessarily immediately under the crust? This along with the tight crumb equals underfermented. Are the large holes immediately under the crust? Do these large holes show in them signs of gluten breakdown with thin broken gluten strands? Then this points towards overfermented. Then look at the profile of the loaf decent oven spring or excessive oven spring is more associated with under proofing whereas flat profile is more associated with overproofing.
Thread here : https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/68045/under-proofed
To assess the proofing/fermentation ignore the big holes first. What is the crumb like, are the alveoli in the crumb tiny and tight then more likely to be underfermented. Is the crumb overall actually pretty nice and not tight then not underfermented. Then the large hole characteristics next. Are they large tunnels through the bread and not necessarily immediately under the crust? This along with the tight crumb equals underfermented. Are the large holes immediately under the crust? Do these large holes show in them signs of gluten breakdown with thin broken gluten strands? Then this points towards overfermented. Then look at the profile of the loaf decent oven spring or excessive oven spring is more associated with under proofing whereas flat profile is more associated with overproofing.
Thread here : https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/68045/under-proofed
