Dough getting worse with each knead
I have a very active ww starter that tripled in less than 4 hours.
I did about 500g of bread flour with 80% hydration and 2% salt and 75g of starter.
I autolysed the flour for about an hour and it was very nice and elastic. I added the salt and starter and a tiny bit of water to mix that all in. Dough was still very nice. I rested it for about 15 minutes and dumped it onto my counter for some slap and folds. The first few slap and folds went fine and the dough became more elastic. However as I went on, the dough got worse and worse and became even worse than before autolyse. I added some more flour as I thought maybe the dough was too hydrated. Left that dough to rest and the same thing happens. What am I doing wrong?
Flour I’m using is wessex mill’s strong white bread flour which has a 13% protein. Autolyse and following tests were kept in my oven with the light on. Temperature is about 25c.
At this point, I've added extra flour twice now and I've just given up kneading and gone in with the stretch and folds. I plan on doing 6 stretch and folds or until (hopefully) the dough comes together. I've probably added 20-30g more flour overall so hydration is somewhere around 75-80%.
I think the dough falling apart when I try to knead may have something to do with a mixture of my wet hands and/or the slightly damp counter (I'd given it a wipe before dumping the dough onto it).