<sob!>
2020-06-23_06-36-23 by The Pingus, on Flickr
Less of a sourdough loaf. More of a flying saucer, FFS.
No idea why. It was a new brand of flour but surely wholemeal stoneground is wholemeal stoneground (old was Sainsbo's and somewhat old, new is Gilchesters). Other possible option is that in between folds I left it on the worktop rather than in the bowl (with the bowl placed on top) and when I came back it had flowed all over the top, maybe it overstretched the gluten. Although when I gave it the final prove it sprung back alright when prodded.
The saga continues. I started today's ferment with even less water, looked okay initially but it really wasn't after a while. I ended up having an attack of the screaming abjabs at it and Pingu came through to make sure I was alright
I ended up kneading more wholemeal flour in (it was that or throw it in the bin in a strop). The end result was less pancakey than last week but not as good as the previous effort with different flour.
So I did some research on the flour and it suggests that the wholemeal should adsorb lots of water, which makes me wonder if it's the strong white that is poor. So as an experiment I made a bog std yeast raised loaf with 100% wholemeal as per their recipe. It did indeed absorb lots of water (70% as per the recipe) without being wet or hard to handle, the dough rose nicely and although it's a bit dense looking that's not really a surprise for wholemeal.
So my attention on now turns to the strong white. According to the label it's 12.7% which isn't super strong but should be good enough, no?
I'd go back to my usual flour if I could get hold of the stuff