Stopped over-proofing my sourdough after a bakery visit in Portland

I always wondered why my loaves came out flat and dense even though I followed all the steps. A baker at Tabor Bread in Portland told me I was letting it ferment like 2 hours too long. She showed me the poke test and now I actually get that oven spring I see in all the videos. Anyone else have a bakery visit completely change how they bake?

3 comments

3 Comments

val_williams9d ago

My friend Sarah had the exact same thing happen at a bakery in Seattle called Sea Wolf. She was convinced her sourdough was supposed to look like a brick and feel like a hockey puck because that's how it always turned out. The baker there spent like 20 minutes with her showing how to tell when the dough was actually done proofing using just a finger poke and a timer. Sarah said she went home, tried it that same night, and her loaf finally looked like the ones in her cookbook for the first time ever. It's wild how a tiny tweak like that can change everything, right? What did the poke test look like for you when they showed it?

wesley1819d ago

Kinda makes you wonder why more bakeries don't offer that as a regular class, right? Sea Wolf sounds smart to invest twenty minutes on the spot like that. Most places would just sell you the bread and send you on your way, not teach you how to make it yourself. If they charged even like ten bucks for a mini lesson, they'd probably have people lining up every weekend. It's way more useful than a five dollar loaf you'll eat in one sitting, that's for sure.

jordanblack9d ago

Sea Wolf is the kind of place that actually gets what people need.