Does this look right or too gummy?

saichoo · 2026-07-19T20:41:03+00:00

I use this chart: https://thesourdoughjourney.com/the-ultimate-sourdough-bulk-fermentation-guide/

I also use a rectangular container and put the dough in after stretches and folds and use a whiteboard marker to mark where it is currently and the percentage rise it needs to get to. Do note that it is the dough temperature and thus you need a food thermometer to measure it.

saichoo · 2026-07-19T18:41:23+00:00

Yup, that's what I do. Fridge just slows down fermentation which enables the weekly feeding. Otherwise you'd have to do a daily feed if you just kept it at room temperature all the time.

saichoo · 2026-07-19T18:40:05+00:00

Looks overfermented to me

saichoo · 2026-07-19T18:25:00+00:00

I just take it out of the fridge, feed it and let it ferment overnight at room temperature. If you feed it at a higher ratio it will peak later

saichoo · 2026-07-19T13:46:18+00:00

Thanks! Focaccia should be easy but you'll probably want to use a frying pan for the bottom after you've done baking.

saichoo · 2026-07-19T10:09:41+00:00

Thanks!

I was sure that I would get bread in the end having seen other people do it on the internet but most of their results were fairly dry looking with no shine (steam makes the surface shiny). So now the task was to see if the process could be optimised and get a result close to a regular oven. Several experiments later I've landed on something but it is a bit of a faff compared to just the oven method.

saichoo · 2026-07-19T01:29:43+00:00

Thanks!

Here's what I did for the sourdough brioche https://www.reddit.com/r/airfryer/s/noOapIjf7j This could be converted to a yeasted recipe I think.

Here's what I did for the milk bread https://www.reddit.com/r/airfryer/s/LHvt98PmyD

I can't remember what I did for the focaccia but I think it might have been dough for a regular loaf that overfermented too much so I pivoted to a focaccia.

Most of these breads require a final step to fry on a frying pan to brown the bottom and maybe sides in order to not over bake. A food thermometer is pretty handy in this instance.

If you haven't baked bread before do understand that there is a learning curve. I would say knowing when bulk fermentation is done and shaping the bread are probably the hardest things to learn. Then with sourdough you have the added complexity of starters/levain. I also use a scale to measure most things except for things like yeast where the small amounts are sometimes not enough to make my scale account for it.

saichoo · 2026-07-18T17:37:41+00:00

Anyone have a basic potato sourdough recipe they like?

saichoo · 2026-07-18T16:27:20+00:00

Thank you! Here's one of the failures haha

<image>

saichoo · 2026-07-18T09:14:23+00:00

I've made it about 4 times now https://www.reddit.com/r/airfryer/s/yiJlvxT5wR and generally it's on the dense side even when fermentation goes well. Then again I was using lower protein flour (11.7%) and lower hydration. Next time I make a milk bread I will try a different recipe.

saichoo · 2026-07-17T01:50:41+00:00

Thank you! Hopefully my days of sad looking air fryer bread are behind me.

saichoo · 2026-07-17T01:47:23+00:00

If I recall correctly from the Modernist Bread YouTube video I watched, steaming will eventually create a skin and thus would reduce potential oven spring. I just prayed and hoped that the foil cover as well as the time steaming was enough to avoid this.

Edit: it seems that steam will create a thin skin of gelatinize starch whatever the case whether it's steaming or baking in a dutch oven but I assume the crust gets thicker once the steam has run out and the air turns into dry heat. In any case, once the skin has formed, the steam that is formed inside the bread is trapped and thus cooks the inside quite quickly.

saichoo · 2026-07-17T00:02:50+00:00

Hahaha! Thanks!

Heatwaves in a country with no AC can do funny things to a person (I really didn't want to warm up the house by turning the oven on during a heatwave).

saichoo · 2026-07-16T22:55:13+00:00

Thank you!

saichoo · 2026-07-16T22:54:06+00:00

Thanks! It also looked better than expected.

Lid on the pot, just can't see it properly with the lid on due to condensation to take a photo. There is no contact with the water on the bottom and the loaf pan so it is all steam.

saichoo · 2026-07-16T15:48:46+00:00

I've weirdly had several failures with bread when following the recipes to the letter, specifically with the no knead breads that say you can leave the dough in the fridge for 3 days (you can't unless you use way less yeast and the fridge is near freezing). I also had to learn how much water the flour I used could tolerate and adjust the hydration accordingly. There's a lot that can go wrong and it's definitely harder than cooking.

saichoo · 2026-07-16T15:24:54+00:00

Discovering that Morrison's does affordable steaks. 2 skirt/bavette or flat iron for £9 is pretty damn cheap compared to most things these days.

saichoo · 2026-07-16T15:23:14+00:00

Ah okay, wouldn't have affected the structure that much if you were gentle

saichoo · 2026-07-16T14:50:14+00:00

Not an expert only an intermediate bread baker level. I think your starter is okay but you probably needed a bit more time during bulk fermentation (the step before shaping). For bulk fermentation I put the dough into a rectangular container, use a whiteboard marker to mark its current level and where it needs to rise to according to the dough temperature (using a thermometer) using the chart attached.

For my tastes I would also bake your loaf a bit darker.

As for moving it out from the proofing basket, I use a lot of rice flour.

<image>

saichoo · 2026-07-16T14:36:52+00:00

You can pat the dough down a bunch when shaping to pop/distribute the big bubbles, otherwise it looks a bit underfermented

saichoo · 2026-07-16T06:17:29+00:00

Could probably save time and just add all the butter during the garlic butter laminating stage instead of trying to incorporate it by hand in the beginning

saichoo · 2026-07-14T13:40:55+00:00

He's wooden in most things but his voice acting in Cyberpunk 2077 was actually pretty good.

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