Practicing baking sourdough and have a few problems.
I am attempting to get the tangy flavor of sourdough, so I have been retarding dough overnight in fridge.
Problem 1. Every time I retard the dough overnight in fridge, I get no oven spring.
- In banneton, The dough rises overnight nicely upon taking it out of fridge,
- Allowing dough to warm up for an 1.5 hour before baking, but no oven spring.
- My loaves look rather flat with pathetic crumb.
Problem 2. Crust looks very blah and dull.
- My idea of a nice crust has a reddish orange, slightly shiny, blistered crust.
Problem 3. Even after retarding dough overnight for 12-14 hours, still no tangy flavor.
Baking in lodge cast iron combo. I've tried baking at various temperatures.
This loaf, oven preheated with cast iron at 500 degrees. Put dough in and reduced to 450 for 20 minutes, remaining 10 minutes with no cover at 475 degrees.
Way too much levain and too long for retard if also warming up on the counter for an pour and a half. Cut the levain back to 20% prefermented flour. Put all the 20% of the whole wheat onto the levain. When the levain doubles retard it for 24 hours. Do 4 sets of stretch and folds 40 minutes apart with the last one being the shaping for the baskets. Once shaped and in the basket do not let it bulk ferment on the counter. Put it in a bag and into the fridge overnight for 8 hours. You can let this warm up on the counter as the oven heats up - say 45 minutes,
I too bake in AZ. If I want a 12 hour retard then I cut the prefermented flour down to 10% and that too can warm up on the counter for an hour before firing up the oven.
See my post from Thursday night on Larraburu SFSD to to see the process I am using right now for this.
Hope this helps and happy baking