Baking with My Levain - A documentation of my experiments.

I have been experimenting with my levain: different proportion for hydration of the levain, different types of recipes.

So far I have tried recipes from Jayeon Bread, Carol Hu's Bread books, Ken Forkish's Book and Chad's Tartine Bread.  For each of the breads that I made, there were aspects that I liked and aspects that I didn't for each so in all I have yet to find the bread that I am looking for.

Decided to document my failures here, and to look at some possible solutions in the end.

A quick summary of the breads I made so far:

#1.  Jayeon's Cinnamon Bread :

• Bread was disappointing not well risen. - Not like the usual cinnamon 
• Too sour!
• Tze wei was brave and tried to eat one, I ate two.  He tried to be nice and said to keep the bread in the fridge so that he could have tea next few days - too wasteful to throw.  But I think it was a greater deterrent, he kept looking for excuses for the next few days to avoid tea time.  In the end, I also found an excuse to discard the bread away.

#2.  Carol Hu's Country Loaf :

• Followed the ingredients to the dot except that I kneaded the bulk fermented the dough using my bread maker.
•  I like the soft insides, crust was not crispy but perhaps because the recipe called for olive oil.
•  Liked the texture tremendously, dough was not gummy.  Didn't quite like the taste, was a little flat and too sour for my liking.

#3.  Carol Hu's Garlic Bread made with Natural Yeast (Levain)

• Again followed the recipe.  Fed levain : 100 g starter, 100 g water, 100 g flour
• Arghh.  This one I do not like the recipe entirely.
• The sourdough is really too sour....there was no sweetness and the garlic butter did not blend well with the bread.
• Texture of the bread was ok.
• Maybe sweet bread made from levains are not suitable.  Ok...this is something I need to look into later.  Before I finish this school holidays I must try and get the country loaf right!

#4.  Ken Forkish Double Fed Sweet Levain Bread

• Followed the recipe to the dot except I halved the recipe.
• During the final proof however the bread overflowed from my proofing basket. I push the sides in and put the basket in the metal mixbowl and wrapped with plastic wrap before popping it into the fridge.
• Final proofed dough was slack and did not fit well into the dutch oven.  Literally pushed in the sides.
• Argh....during the bake, Tze Wei offed the timer while baking and I was washing my plates and I didn't watch the time.  I didn't know when I started!  
• I liked the taste!  There was so much sweetness in a bread with no sugar! A slight tang but not overpowering.
• But the texture was disappointing, I had good holes, a nice crust but the crumb was gummy.  Was it because of the timing?  But when I lifted the cover of the dutch oven the crust was already hardening.
• There was no nice split (seam side up) and it did feel like a very dense loaf.

#5.  Chad's Basic Country Loaf :  Added walnuts and cranberries (presoaked with warm water)

• Levain : 100 g mature starter, 250 g flour, 200g water.  Set for 5 hours
• Halved the recipe
• The dough after proof (like in Ken Forkish loaf) was large and did not fit into dutch oven well, and pressed on the sides.
• Cranberries sourness was actually amplified by the sourdough.
• The tanines in the walnuts caused stains on my dough.
• The dough was obviously more sour that KF's double fed Sweet Levain, this could be the fact that I didn't just keep 1 tbsp of levain to make the final starter levain but worked with about 1 cup instead.  Less sweetness detected.
• Crumb is still a little tacky (like steamed huat kueh) so I guess it is not the baking time? 

#6.  Ken Forkish Double Fed Levain Bread Modified and Added Sesame seed

• 5 pm day before baking :  100g levain, fed 200 g unbleached bread flour, 50 g wholemeal flour and 200 g water.
• 9:30 pm the day before :  125 g levain from first feeding, 200g unbleached bread flour, 50 g whole meal flour and 200 g water.
• 8: 15 am :  3rd feeding.  Discard and left 100 g from 2nd feeding.  200 g unbleached flour, 200g water, 50 g wholemeal flour.
• 8: 30 am :  Autolyse flour and water. Separate container - 1/4 tsp active dry yeast to 1 tsp sugar and 1 tbsp maple syrup.
• 10:45 am :  Add 270 g levain to flour and water. Add yeast. Mix and rest.
• 11:30 am : 1st fold with 50 g black sesame seed
• 12:00 pm : 2nd fold
• 12:30 pm : 3rd fold
• 1 pm: 4th fold .  (Go for lunch)
• 3:15 pm :  Back from lunch, shape and rest.
• 3:45 pm :  proof in basket
• 5 pm:  Heat oven and placed dutch oven in
• 5:45 pm:  Bake covered.
• 6:15 :  Checked still wet in centre
• 6: 30 Uncover 
• 7: 45 pm :  Stopped at 7:45 pm
• Keep in oven for 5 min  then take out and cool propped up on rack and cooled over night.

Conclusion:  Arggh....still tacky crumb!  This is really trialing my patience, not as sweet as the first Ken Forkish bread.  Because I did not do retarding overnight?  But sesame seed was great!  A little too much though can reduce

Lessons Learnt So Far :

1.  To reduce sourness:

• Use a young levain and feed frequently.
• Start with a lower amount mature levain.
• Smell your levain, if it has a vinegar smell before baking it is too hungry!  The dough that comes out will be too sour (unless that is your intention).
• Chad recommends only 1 Tbsp and that is really very little.  
• Oh the more you feed the less sour but you will wait a longer time
• 24-27 degrees celsius promotes yeast growth but my environment is perpetually around 30 degrees and humidity is high so resulting the promotion of lactic acid.  Therefore for first refresh, it may be advisable to let levain double then keep in fridge overnight.

 2.  Doing retardation in fridge:

• Seems to promote sweetness and complexity in flavours.
• Just tried one for bulk fermentation.
• But my fridge is around 4 degrees so it does slow down the dough significantly.  My want to wait for bulk fermentation for obvious increase in size.
• So after remove from fridge, must wait for 2 hours to warm up to room temperature.

3.  Addition of oil gives a softness.

4.  Not sure on this but I half suspect, my size of dough is too big for dutch oven and hence steam gets too trapped resulting in tacky dough.