The other day I sent out a detailed new version of my Quarantiny Starter method, but I wanted to focus in on one aspect of the process, namely knowing when you are getting somewhere with it.
Thank you for addressing the obsession with a large, open crumb. I think it has done a lot of damage to the confidence of new sourdough bakers. And exactly! Big holes are terrible for practically eating your bread in any way but unadorned.
I used to be indoctrinated into thinking that open crumb is the ideal sourdough bread, with all the youtube videos about how to get the most open crumb and oven spring!
When I got back into bread making after spending some time across the country, I forgot everything and basically became a newbie. I got an open crumb but little oven spring until my 3rd boule.
The toxic crumb culture is good and bad in its own ways. Pros is that it looks good, and it can motivate someone to reevaluate some techniques in their recipe that’s unnecessary. Cons is that it’s harder to spread butter onto breads with more open crumbs and there’s more concentrated butter in the alveolies which can ruin a slice of bread with flaky salt (elaborating on what Rhianna said). Also it can probably be heat breaking to new sourdough bakers, like what Rhianna said.
We need to stop associating fine crumbs with yeast breads and start accepting that only the flavor of a sourdough loaf matters.
Also just realized that in all of my bread pictures (like my profile pic), the focus is the crumb instead of the brown exterior which enhances the flavor of the interior and is what matters rather than the crumb which only shows off the openness which is an aesthetic social construct of bread and shouldn't be written into the rules of good rustic bread and be the first thing you care about when looking at a rustic boule.
I recently started to get large holes in my loaf. I switched from using the ATK recipe to the one in this blog with the long, cold ferment. I refresh my starter once a week & cold store it. Wondering what I should do differently to avoid the large holes.
Lorna - So the older one (also mine)? I don't think the addition of a cold ferment is to blame here. I'd suggest making sure you de-gas the dough well with the pre-shape step (step 6), that's where the unevenness of the dough is meant to be eliminated. Don't be afraid to overwork it in that step.
Thank you for addressing the obsession with a large, open crumb. I think it has done a lot of damage to the confidence of new sourdough bakers. And exactly! Big holes are terrible for practically eating your bread in any way but unadorned.
I used to be indoctrinated into thinking that open crumb is the ideal sourdough bread, with all the youtube videos about how to get the most open crumb and oven spring!
When I got back into bread making after spending some time across the country, I forgot everything and basically became a newbie. I got an open crumb but little oven spring until my 3rd boule.
The toxic crumb culture is good and bad in its own ways. Pros is that it looks good, and it can motivate someone to reevaluate some techniques in their recipe that’s unnecessary. Cons is that it’s harder to spread butter onto breads with more open crumbs and there’s more concentrated butter in the alveolies which can ruin a slice of bread with flaky salt (elaborating on what Rhianna said). Also it can probably be heat breaking to new sourdough bakers, like what Rhianna said.
We need to stop associating fine crumbs with yeast breads and start accepting that only the flavor of a sourdough loaf matters.
Also just realized that in all of my bread pictures (like my profile pic), the focus is the crumb instead of the brown exterior which enhances the flavor of the interior and is what matters rather than the crumb which only shows off the openness which is an aesthetic social construct of bread and shouldn't be written into the rules of good rustic bread and be the first thing you care about when looking at a rustic boule.
I recently started to get large holes in my loaf. I switched from using the ATK recipe to the one in this blog with the long, cold ferment. I refresh my starter once a week & cold store it. Wondering what I should do differently to avoid the large holes.
Lorna - Not sure what the answer is. I'm not sure which ATK recipe you switched from, knowing that might help.
It was the ATK almost no-knead sourdough bread recipe which doesn't have a cold ferment. Does that help?
Lorna - So the older one (also mine)? I don't think the addition of a cold ferment is to blame here. I'd suggest making sure you de-gas the dough well with the pre-shape step (step 6), that's where the unevenness of the dough is meant to be eliminated. Don't be afraid to overwork it in that step.