Rant: That baker who told me to stop kneading my sourdough so much

A guy at a swap meet in Phoenix last Saturday watched me work my dough and said I was overworking it, killing the structure before it even hit the basket. I dialed it back to 5 minutes of folding instead of 10, and my last loaf had way more oven spring. Anyone else gotten a reality check from a stranger that actually worked?

2 comments

2 Comments

kelly3859d ago

Man I feel you SO hard on this one. I had a old Italian guy at a farmers market grab my arm while I was punching down some dough and tell me I was "making bread angry." Laughed it off at first but tried his way the next batch and honestly it changed everything. That gentle folding method he showed me gave me the best crumb I ever got. It's weird when a complete stranger calls you out like that but sometimes they just know their stuff.

owens.cameron9d ago

Well, that's a hard lesson to learn in public, isn't it? I had a similar thing happen at a county fair where an old rancher told me I was kneading my whole wheat dough like I was wrestling a calf. I cut back on the aggressiveness, and the texture turned out so much better. Did you ever go back and thank that baker for the advice, or did you just take the tip and skedaddle?