Yikes!! Something is off horribly!
These are sad, sad loaves!!
These loaves had limited, if any blooming at all.
I suspected that this might be the case because when I put the dough into bulk ferment on Friday evening it just didn’t feel right.
Possible issues:
- Weak Starter
- Poor strength in shaping
- Slash was incorrect/too deep
- Any or all of the above
Weak starter is my hypothesis (with a secondary cause around shaping)
I normally feed my starter with a 50/50 mix of strong bread flour and whole wheat. I’m burning through some off-brand whole wheat flour I picked up during the “great COVID-19 flour shortage“. That may be affecting my starter.
Anyway… the first sting I’m going to do is feed my starter a couple times and see if I can get it more “active”. Then to bake some more loaves. If that doesn’t work I’m going to redo my 50/50 mix with the King Arthur Whole Wheat flour and get my starter conditioning to it again.
Challenges, challenges…
Baked By Bear Sourdough 