My loaves are not going brown

[connie]

Further on with my sourdough experiments, my loaves are cooking properly and getting the hollow sounds that they should do, but for the life of me I can not get them to go brown and they look anaemic!

They are all wholemeal flour or spelt flour, but they are basically cooking and going slightly brown where the tin touches the dough, but the tops are staying the same colour when the loaf went into the oven. They are cooking through, rising properly and there are no issues with soggy bottoms or dense areas at the bottom of the loaf. The bubbles are even throughout the loaf and well everything looks great except that the top isn't going brown!

I am cooking them for 45 minutes at Gas 4 (180C, 350F) with water in the bottom of the oven (this is a sourdough thing) but they don't go brown

 

[PattyCakes]

Your oven isn't high enough, connie. I pre-heat my oven to 240C, and I also pre-heat whatever tray or stone I'm baking my bread on. These days I like to bake them in my cast iron dutch oven; I find this gives the best 'bloom' in the oven, and the lid on for for the first 15 minutes means that the moisture turns to steam, which forms a good crust, and a more 'holey' loaf. The most important thing is the oven temperature though. You need it scalding hot for bread; bake it at 240C for the first 25 minutes, then turn it down to just below 200C for the rest of the way. You should get a much better colour, and a better rise too.

Let me know how you get on.

 

[connie]

Is this the case for sourdough though?
I ask because we are having major issues with everything else burning in our new oven. Anything in contact with metal is burning way before the cooking instructions state they should be cooked, so take oven chips for an example, the 2 sides in contact with the metal baking tray (2 sides because you turn them half way through cooking) will be dark brown and almost burnt. I also ask because sourdough bread is different to normal bread cooking as well.

many thanks

 

[PattyCakes]

You're welcome!

It's true for all bread, connie, but particularly in the case of sourdough - the dark, caramelly crust is one of the things that makes sourdough bread better than regular yeast bread. The oven temperature must be scorching hot, as together with the steam you create in the oven, they help to form the crust, as well as giving you the best possible rise from your bread.

The recipe I learned from was Paul Hollywood's Classic Sourdough - it's from his book, 'Bread', but it's also on the BBC food website. He puts his loaf into a 220C oven, and bakes it at this temperature for the first 30 minutes, then lowers it. He also bakes his on a lined metal baking tray. Since I've progressed I've started baking mine in a cast iron dutch oven, and I pre-heat to 240C, and reduce the heat after about 20-25 minutes when I take the lid off. I feel this is the best method of baking sourdough as the bread uses it's own steam to form the crust initially - and you get much better 'oven spring' too.

All that said, I think the first thing you need to do is get an oven thermometer and check the actual temperature of your oven on a particular setting; this will help you to determine what you need to pre-heat to initially. If you considered investing in a dutch oven, they're a worthwhile investment, and mine was only around £50 - you can use it for a lot of other things as well as bread baking too. I got the Lodge dutch oven from Amazon.

Test your oven temperature first though, and work from there. Let me know how you get on, and if I can help further.

 

[connie]

It sounds like I need to do some reading up on how to cook sourdough loaves.

Our oven has been tested. It was the first thing we did when we originally encountered this problem (we are tenants, so had no choice on the oven and it is rather basic and hence why we purchased an oven thermometer). Surprisingly, so far it has been accurate when we have tested it.

I have been putting the boiling water in the bottom of the oven to create the steam, I think I have forgotten to reduce the oven temperature part way through cooking though. Right now, Gas Mark 6 is cooking a 2lb loaf in 30 minutes. It did go browner today, but not a caramel colour. I still need to work on that. At the moment I am also still using a loaf tin. I think my dough has been too wet and is prone to spreading rather than rising! In a loaf tin I have this cured and today it actually rose about the tin and didn't go down the sides!

Sadly the Dutch Oven is not an option at the moment, so I will have to read up on the baking of the loaf and take it from there.

The recipe I am using at the moment, is 375g chapatti flour, 125g strong wholemeal flour and 500g sourdough culture plus 1tsp ground salt. Then enough water to make a soft dough that is sticky to touch but still a dough if that makes sense.

I probably need to revise the ingredients, but this is the first time I have measured life out, rather than done it by hand and eye. The chapatti flour is just a way of saving money, it is finely ground wholemeal flour, nothing more - but it works out at less than 75p/kg which is useful at the moment! Right must go, loaves in the oven and all that.

 

[PattyCakes]

I like the sound of using chapatti in your loaf - never though of that before, and I may try your mix. My current mix is 375g (in total) of flour - made up of a mixture of white, wholemeal, and sometimes kamut or einkorn, depending on what I have to hand. I use 250g of starter, 8g of salt. and 150-175mls of water. Maybe your dough is a little wet, but that's the nature of sourdough - if it isn't wet then you won't get the lovely holes we all want.

I think that if you're happy with how your loaves come out, and if they taste good, that's all that matters. Sure, it would be nice to have a browner loaf, but ovens can be temperamental things, and we have to go with what we have. As long as you enjoy them, that's all that matters.

 

[connie]

My husband asked me to make some more yesterday! He is actually eating the bread for his sandwiches in preference to what he has purchased!

I'm using 375g chapatti flour with 125g strong wholemeal flour and 1 tsp of salt. It probably needs more salt. I then add 500g of sourdough starter which makes for a really nice moist bread. The starter is white/wholemeal/rye in equal parts and then same again of water... so 250g total flour, 250g water and some starter left alone in a warm corner for around 4-5+ hours. The starter usually doubles in size. Then added in to the 375/125 flour mixture on a 1:1 basis plus as much water as is needed. Hope that makes sense!
That is for a 2lb or 1kg loaf tin. Set aside in a warm corner for around 3-4 hours sometimes more sometimes less depending on life and the temperature of it... and then zapped in the oven. The last batch was Gas 8 for 20 mins then dropped to Gas 3 for 15 mins. We get a really nice moist (heavy) loaf which is wholemeal and really light for wholemeal.

I just need to work on the top of the loaf now! It collapsed a touch when I moved it to the oven.