5 WAYS TO GET A BETTER OVEN SPRING | SOURDOUGH BREAD TIPS

if you're like most home bakers you've probably been in this situation you wake up nice and early ready for a day of baking get out you're carefully curated sourdough starter and spend all day mixing folding and shaping your dough and so far everything's going great you throw your loaf in the oven and come back 20 minutes later expecting to find your perfect libros and lo you remove the lid and bam it's still flat as a pancake that lack of oven spring is one of the most frustrating things that can happen in sourdough baking but it's definitely not an uncommon issue and there's plenty of things you can do to fix it so today we're gonna talk about that let's get into it if you're new here my name is Charlie and on this channel I show you how to make delicious food using simple ingredients and techniques that you can become a more confident home cook so let's talk sourdough for those of you that don't know oven spring is basically that initial rise that you see in your bread during the first 10 to 15 minutes of baking as the fermentation speeds up and the gases in the dough start to expand so it's really important to maximize your rise during that time because by the time those first few minutes are over the bread heats up to the point where the yeast can no longer survive which marks the end of the fermentation process and therefore the end of the rise so let's get into five tips that I picked up throughout my sourdough baking endeavors that'll help you get a better oven spring on your loaves keep in mind these steps aren't necessarily listed in order of importance in fact they're all necessary steps and getting a great oven spring so make sure to watch the entire video so you get all the info that you need so let's get into it so tip number one is to make sure that your starter is nice and strong and then you add it to the dough at the proper time it seems pretty obvious but to get a bread that rises sufficiently you'll first need a starter that rises sufficiently if you're struggling with your starter I've got a video about that too which I'll link in the description below but basically your starter should rise and fall within a 12 to 24 hour period and it's maximum rise it should be about doubled in size if your starter is just weakly bubbling and not really rising much then it's probably not strong enough and you'll end up with a weak rise to your bread the starter is the foundation of your entire loaf so it's really important to build up that strength but once you've built up a strong starter the next factor you need to pay attention to is the timing the best time to mix your starter into your dough is when it's achieved its maximum rise and it's just starting to fall because that's when the yeast activity is gonna be at its maximum so like I said the starter should be at least doubled in size that point and it should also pass the float test which indicates that it's nice and aerated for me this usually happens about 12 hours after I mixed my levan but your timing will depend on your particular environment and the feeding ratios that you're using so now let's move on to tip number two which is the shaping proper shaping is crucial for developing tension on the dough's outer surface which will help the loaf rise up rather than spreading out so learning the shape a high hydration dough like sourdough does take a bit of practice but there's a few things you can do to make it a little bit easier the first is just making sure that you have a nice large work surface with plenty of space and that you're using the proper technique scraping the dough from the side as you rotate at 90 degrees and scrape it back towards yourself and the next factor is proper use of flour so you want to make sure that the top of the loaf is sufficiently floured and you can also feel free to flour your hands and your bench scraper as necessary to make sure they don't stick but you want to leave your actual work surface and the bottom of the loaf as unflavored as possible so that it can pick up traction as you scrape it along your surface and then the last factor is to make sure not to over shape the dough you may think that the tighter you shape the loaf the better it's gonna end up but it is actually possible to shape it too tightly which will cause a surface to tear here you can see a loaf that I totally over shaped right next to a well shaped loaf and it's easy to see that the over shaped loaf completely lost its structure so really just a few good turns to develop some tension is all you need you can refer to my complete sourdough bread baking tutorial which I've also linked below for a more in-depth walkthrough on shaping but those are the most common issues that I've encountered now this thing's listen to tip number 3 which is to make sure not to over ferment your dough and this is the biggest mistake that I made when I first got into sourdough but once I figured out it made all the difference in my loaves over fermentation basically just happens when your both rise phase is too long and it causes your dough to become really wet and sticky and prevents it from holding its shape properly so not only is an over fermented dough really hard to work with but it also won't rise properly in the oven because the yeast activity has already peaked too early and started to decline again by the time you throw the bread and I know it's tempting to extend the Bullock rise phase as you see your dough getting softer and airier but you really just want to let it go until you start to see some bubbles forming and the dough has grown in size by about twenty to thirty percent so if you're currently doing a four hour bull rise phase for example maybe try reducing it to about two and a half or three hours and I think you'd be surprised by how big of a difference that can actually make now I'm moving on to tip number four which is to score your loaves properly a good score will allow the steam and other gases to escape through the top of the loaf which will lead to a nice clean rise and it'll also give your loaf a good ear which is that little flap of dough that springs up as it bakes and gets nice and charred if you don't score the loaf the gases will just try to escape wherever they can causing your loaf to burst in unexpected places and sometimes causing big air bubbles to form inside of the loaf so it's definitely not a step that you want to skip really the main two things to consider when scoring are one to score the loaf deep enough so I'd recommend about half an inch to one inch deep and then to to score at a slight angle rather than directly perpendicular to the loaf and you want to score in one smooth Swift motion so having a sharp razor definitely helps with this as you get more advanced you could try out some fancier scoring patterns but really one single slash right down the middle will make all the difference in allowing the gases to escape properly leading to a better oven spring now finally tip number five for achieving a perfect oven spring is to create steam in your oven during the first few minutes of baking the steam helps the crust to remain soft for longer so the loaf can rise freely at the beginning of the baking process commercial bakeries use special ovens that can actually inject steam inside during the first few minutes of baking but since most of us don't have access to those so the easiest way to duplicate this effect at home is just to bake your bread inside of a Dutch oven so as the bread starts to bake and release the steam that steam gets trapped within the Dutch oven creating that humid environment that we're looking for then after about 20 minutes of baking we can remove the lid from the Dutch oven which allows the crust to get nice and browned and crispy I'd recommend this Dutch oven combo cooker which is pretty inexpensive and the low sides make it easy to just drop the loaf in score it toss the lid on and throw it in your oven but if you don't have a Dutch oven you could also just toss a baking tray filled with water onto the bottom rack of your oven then add some damp towels or lava rocks to slow the release of steam then after about 20 minutes you can remove that tray from your oven to allow the crust to get nice and browned so both methods work but in my experience the Dutch oven method does work quite a bit better and it's a lot easier too so I hope this video helped you out and remember for a full walkthrough on my favourite sourdough baking recipe be sure to click the video in the bottom right corner of the screen so there you go I'll see you all in the next one

Channel: The Regular Chef

Views: 1,065,264

Rating: 4.9056263 out of 5

Keywords: how to, how to cook

Id: bV3at6kqnWw

Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020