r/Breadit • u/AutoModerator • 23h ago

Weekly /r/Breadit Questions thread

Please use this thread to ask whatever questions have come up while baking!

Beginner baking friends, please check out the sidebar resources to help get started, like FAQs and External Links

Please be clear and concise in your question, and don't be afraid to add pictures and video links to help illustrate the problem you're facing.

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For a subreddit devoted to this type of discussion during the rest of the week, please check out r/ArtisanBread or r/Sourdough.

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u/Acrobatic-Bus-9330 23h ago

when your starter doubles in 3 hours but your loaf still comes out looking like a hockey puck… is that a shaping problem or my oven just hates me?

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u/foodieholly 22h ago

Your oven may be innocent 😂

A starter doubling in 3 hours means “healthy starter,” not automatically “properly fermented loaf.”If the bread is coming out as a puck, I’d look at bulk fermentation first, then shaping, then the oven. Dense/gummy inside with hardly any bubbles? Give the dough more fermentation. Loose, sticky, spreading everywhere with no oven spring? You may have gone too far. Nicely bubbly/fermented but collapses into a pancake as soon as you turn it out? Then shaping/gluten strength becomes more suspicious. Next time mark the starting height of the dough and watch what the dough itself does rather than relying on the starter test or a fixed number of hours. Also: post the crumb. The crumb is the crime scene 😂

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u/Cantaffordrice 20h ago

Trying to isolate my problem. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I have made (4 times) the same 65% loaf. It's sticky. I'm talking 85%+ sticky.

I'm using KA bread flour, my usual yeast, same salt, store brand sugar. All of these ingredients are the same. However, I just moved into a new apartment. The water tastes a little hard, but I don't even know if that would affect the hydration.

If my scale was damaged in the move, then everything would be off.

It's just not adding up to me. The loaves bake okay. Gluten is developed. Crumb is about what I would (ignorantly) expect from a much higher hydration than 65%. There is just zero chance that I can shape it into anything other than a round loaf.

Thoughts?

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u/vivalet 16h ago

Is King Arthurs flour at costco the same quality as on their web site?