Hi,

I have just started baking straight white bread from Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast.

I have been halving his recipes (1000g flour to 500g) and am having some variable results.

All my breads have had an excellent crust because of the pre-heated dutch oven method, but a few have had an overly moist crumb, even when its not actually too dense.

The best bread was the tallest, and some have collapsed when coming out of the proofing basket, or not proofed as I would hope. However, using the 'finger dent test', they always seem to be ready proofed/over proofed, way before the 1hr/1hr15 he asks for. The odd thing is that my best loaf resulted from shortest proofing time (half an hour).

The other issue is that my oven is 25C colder than the recipes ask for. But, because one of the breads came out excellently, I don't think this can be fatal.

I am using Sainsburys' Fast Action Dried Yeast and every single one of my doughs has risen in the bulk fermentation stage as expected, so I don't think the problem lies there. Although I may have been 'over' bulk fermenting. If I halve the recipes, should I halve the bulk fermentation time accordingly? I have been mostly going by size not time, but its difficult to see quite when a dough has doubled or tripled in size? If you bulk ferment for a bit too long, does that take time out of the proofing stage?

I'm really enjoying the process, but just feel a bit clueless as to which variables are damaging my loaves.

Any suggestions?

Angus