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Just looking at the point you make about adding the water gradually. If for examples the recipe said add 500ml and you felt like the dough was too wet would you stop adding?
Light_EDDed-
What I am finding is that by adding 450ml all at once I never really get the dough to behave. So I start with 150ml and then keep adding 25-50ml. I do this up to about 350 -400 ml. And then leave to autolyse. Next I’ll add salt and more water (about 30-50ml). Then continue kneading and adding more water gradually. I might then leave for 30-60 mins before a bit more adding of water and kneading. Crucially I am now finding recipes that just produced a wet dough (and I couldn’t add all the water) are now able to take up all the water and often a significant amount more.
There are some nice advantages to working with a dry feeling dough - a lot less sticks to me or the bench. I tend to spread the dough out, simple it with my knuckles and spread a little water over the surface. I then fold it back over itself like an envelope before kneading the water in.
dancing james
I had a series of tasty but not well sprung loaves. I was proving at room temp, using warm water etc as I thought it was under proven dough. I was struggling to get skin tension when shaping, so often loaves sagged open along score lines rather than rose up.
Recently I changed tack, and made a few changes.
Monitored my starter more closely and only started to make dough when it was super airy with a mousse like structure
Added water incrementally into dough, and only adding more once the dough had fully absorbed the water that had been already added, rather than making a flour soup
Proving at a lower temperature
I think what had been happening was the overly water logged dough was giving an apparent window pane very quickly -possibly exacerbated by using freshly milled flour. But what I had was over proved but lacking extended gluten structures.
Even using the revised regime I am going from mixing ingredients to shaping in 2-3 hours and then doing a long retarded final prove. I am now getting much better rise and spring with loaves ripping open even further than the score lines.