Oaty Sourdough - lower hydration this time

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leslieruf on 26 Jan 2019 at 12:54

This was a repeat of this lovely bread, attempting to get more height and less spread.  http://weightloss-slim.fit/node/58551/oaty-sourdough%3C/a%3E.%C2%A0 I also wanted to see if there was a difference between my two starters.

I scaled this to make just 1 smaller loaf.  The porridge was enough to make two lots of dough so I did a little experiment with my starters.  One I had converted to 60% hydration 3 weeks ago and it had been in the fridge all that time.  The other loaf used my standard 66% hydration starter that always lives in the fridge.  Both had been refreshed the day before and the l built a small 100% hydration starters in the evening with final build next morning using a bit of bran as part of the flour.  Levain matured for 7 - 8 hours before I used it.  Method was as my second attempt, with no lamination just coil folds. Dough hydration was 76% as opposed to 82% for the original.   The porridge also added to the hydration and I haven't calculated that.  The dough was very soft but manageable.  As I had to go out I popped the bulk fermenting dough in the fridge for about 3.5 hours. When I came home, I warmed it up for 30 minutes and this time did a preshape and rested 30 minutes before shaping.  It then had just over an hour on the bench before retarding over night. Baked at 240 deg C in two DOs at the same time for 15 mins lid on and 15 mins lid off.

I thought the 60% hydration starter dough was a little less sticky and easier to handle but the 66% hydration starter loaf had slightly better volume.

Is there a noticeable difference? in reality not much.  Flavour might be a tad different and I haven't checked that yet.  My crumb is no way as open as "fullproofbaking"  gets for this bread, but I am really happy with this bake. 

I will test my two starters again in a couple of weeks after they have been fed and left to see if the difference in hydration makes much difference in flavour. 

Leslie

 

Oat bread (especially with a splash of honey in the mix) is one of my favourite breads. They both look great!.

I believe it's hard to do a test like this to compare starter hydration's impact on dough structure because the spring is most affected by dough development / folding / shaping technique. And given the starter hydration is 10 percent for what is probably 10-20% of the total dough volume it probably is a hydration difference on the total loaf of probably less than one percent, but for sure less than two percent by total dough volume.  Either way - looks like some great tasting bread! Well done! frank

 

My aim is actually to see if flavour and dough strength are impacted by the different starter hydrations.  not sure how to judge strength, but felt the higher hydration, well it is not very much more, produced a softer, more sticky dough that I thought may have been weaker. it had a slightly better oven spring, but it is not huge!  Taste is of course the next test and I plan to compare in next day or two.  Theconversion was quite young so I will re do later to see if the flavour profile (? starter population/profile) has changed....

Very well done and pretty loaves Leslie. Nice open crumb and I think they look quite similar. From the picture it seems the 665 got a little more over spring, but that depends on the position you cut the slices.