My starter is a bit over a month old and it is VERY active--and nicely sour. It passes the float test easily just three hours after feeding and the boule I made yesterday per Chef Jacob's recipe/video way more than doubled over night--even though it was in the fridge. I did put it in for the initial ferment instead of the proofing stage, just because of timing issues. Anyway, my thought is that next time, I'll only use 250 grams of starter mixed with 250 grams total of equal parts water and flour, then follow the recipe immediately. Thoughts on that tactic?
Second, ever since my first loaf, my dough has been much stickier than the first loaf AND much stickier than shown in the Stella video. I compensated on the current loaf by adding a few percent flour to the dough AFTER initial slap and fold (I do have good gluten structure). The one change I did make from the first loaf is to go without whole wheat (WW) flour for the boule (tho I'm still 50/50 WW and bread flour for the poolish). Does the change to all BF sound like a cause for stickier dough? I can cut the hydration back a bit to solve (hopefully) the problem as the dough really is too sticky to deal with. The other thought I had is that maybe my scale is off, so I will check that out. Comments?
Second, ever since my first loaf, my dough has been much stickier than the first loaf AND much stickier than shown in the Stella video. I compensated on the current loaf by adding a few percent flour to the dough AFTER initial slap and fold (I do have good gluten structure). The one change I did make from the first loaf is to go without whole wheat (WW) flour for the boule (tho I'm still 50/50 WW and bread flour for the poolish). Does the change to all BF sound like a cause for stickier dough? I can cut the hydration back a bit to solve (hopefully) the problem as the dough really is too sticky to deal with. The other thought I had is that maybe my scale is off, so I will check that out. Comments?
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