A guy at the Portland farmers market said my crumb was from overproofing, and he was dead on
I've been baking sourdough for about two years now, mostly on weekends, and I always thought my dense crumb was just because I lived in a humid house. A guy at the Portland farmers market last Saturday looked at my loaf and said, "That's not humidity, that's overproofing." I was pretty sure he was wrong because my dough never looked super puffy to me. But I tried cutting my bulk ferment by 45 minutes on my next bake, and the crumb opened up way more than I expected. The loaf actually sprang in the oven instead of spreading out flat. I've done three bakes since then and all of them came out lighter. So now I'm a believer, even though I still don't totally get how to read the dough yet. Has anyone else had a stranger call out their proofing time like that?