I used plain white flour to make homemade bread. I followed the recipe from the 2011 cookbook titled "Blue Ribbon Recipes". I have been using this recipe since I bought the book in 2011, and have never had my bread smell like sourdough before. The smell was strong enough that it overpowered the smell of homemade huckleberry jam. I store my yeast in the refrigerator. There is no vinegar used in the recipe, and the yeast starter sat for approximately 10 minutes while I measured and added the other ingredients to the bowl. I've never had this happen before.
Bread – I made white bread yesterday, and it smelled similar to sourdough…why would this happen
bread
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I don't think you're doing anything wrong, I think the dough is just more slack than you're used to. As @Jay noted, it can take some practice to work with a wet dough. But once you do, you'll be rewarded with a much more open crumb and a better final product. In my experience, I've found wetter dough and higher oven temps = better artisan bread (in general).
The recipe appears to assume the reader is familiar with the process, but does offer some hints. She talks about scraping the dough out onto the work surface, then stretching-and-folding.
The recipe isn't as wet as the ciabatta I'm making below, but the process will be similar, so I hope this is helpful. I start by putting a bed of flour down, then scraping the blob of wet dough out onto it.
Then comes the stretch-and-fold part, which is just as it sounds. Using a wet pastry scraper and/or wet hands, just get under one edge, lift and pull it away, then plop it back on top of the main dough blob. Then do the same with the other side. Cover with plastic wrap and walk away. There's no process of kneading like you're used to. This photo is after a few stretch-and-folds at 20-minute intervals (I think!), and you can see the dough has started to smooth out and become cohesive.
By the time you're ready to shape, the dough should be a lot more cohesive and easier to deal with. I folded mine into little slippers and put them on a couche to rise.
Add 500 degrees and a baking stone, and I'm rewarded with an open and gelatinized crumb, and a nice crisp crust.
I have to contradict @saj14saj here. I have frequently had bread made with underdeveloped gluten (my grandma uses AP flour and tends to knead very short, 2-3 minutes per hand, and use very short proofing times). The bread is soft and cakelike, but it has no trouble rising, and it is neither flat nor dense.
On the other hand, I have had bread with exactly the same symptoms as yours - first feeling great, then left out for a long time to proof. After that, it looks good, but one touch makes it collapse into itself. The reason was very clear: overproofing. There is no doubt that underdeveloped gluten cannot have been a factor in my case. First, I am experienced enough to know when my gluten is developed - the bread was kneaded well beyond windowpane test. Second, it was a large batch of dough. I baked the first loaf at the optimal time and it rose just fine and had a nice texture with traceable gluten sheets through the crumb. It was the second loaf, which I baked a few hours later (and the proofing loaf spent them in a 30 degrees celsius kitchen in summer) which made the trouble. The dough had exactly the "loose" feel you describe, unlike the normal, springy feel before the proofing. It collapsed on touch and would not rise at all. It also had a very strong yeast fermentation taste, unlike the other loaf.
From your description and my experience, my conclusion is that overproofing until your starter died in its own waste products is the most likely culprit. The simple answer would be to not let it sit out overnight. The right amount of time to let it sit would depend on the room temperature, on the amount of starter you used, but also its leavening strength, and that is a bit hard to judge for a newly created starter. My best suggestion is to use trial and error and maybe bake 4 hours after knocking instead of 8 next time, and the time after that adjusting with a smaller increment in the right direction depending on whether the bread turns out overproofed or underrisen.
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Best Answer
It could be an issue with how long you let it rise or maybe how warm you rested it at. I was making a deep dish pizza at home once and the recipe called for resting the dough in the fridge (mixed with the yeast and other ingredients), for 4hrs minimum. Due to my getting home a little after 5pm from work and some of my family leaving for work at 6:30pm, during the time I was attempting to make this, I couldn't use the suggested times for the different steps of the recipe. To shorten that time, I made the dough the day before. I let the dough rest in the fridge from about 9pm until 5:30pm the next day. When I made the pizzas the dough was very good, but it tasted a lot like sourdough, and that was using instant yeast out of a packet. I've since made the recipe with the correct resting times and it's good dough, but there is no sour taste.
So a long resting time for your bread, or possibly having it warmer might induce the yeast to process their 'food' faster. I know it's not true sourdough as the sourness there comes from a combination of yeast and lactobacilli's, but I did get a similar taste from the instant yeast packet and it was because of the duration I let the yeast work. Some of my family actually prefers the sourdough taste of that dough, so I sometimes make it that way. It also saves me from having to do too much work on any given day.
You can test my theory out and see if temp or the leavening time affects the taste. While you didn't originally want that particular flavor, you may come to enjoy it.