Jacob Lockcuff's blog

      With a rainy day off work, this past Tuesday I decided to make some sourdough bread. I fed my sourdough starter (composed of King Arthur bread flour) that afternoon, which left me until that evening to decide on what recipe I would follow. 

      Being a fan of Richard Bertinet, I eventually decided to use a version of his “White Sourdough” recipe from his book, “Crumb”. This is a great book for all things bread, by the way. I highly recommend it!

      So, around 7:30 P.M., I mixed up the bread. The formula was as follows:

• 1,000g King Arthur Bread Flour
• 20g Salt
• 400g Sourdough Starter, 100% hydration
• 720g Water

Obviously the ingredients for this bread are quite simple. It’s also fairly easy to work with, being only 72% hydration.

      Once I had combined all of the above ingredients, I kneaded it (by slap-and-fold) until it passed the windowpane test. All in all, I’d say it took around 10 minutes to build the gluten structure properly.

      After then letting it rest for about an hour at around 80 degrees F (in our water heating room), I gave it a fold on the counter. It then went back into the bowl to rest for yet another hour, at which point it passed the “poke” test.

      Now the bread was ready for its final proof. I dumped it onto the counter, divided it in half, and roughly formed the halves into boule shapes. I then let it rest on the counter for about 25 minutes. After this time, I shaped one of the boules into a batard, and I reformed the other into a boule. Into the proofing baskets and subsequently to the fridge they went.

      They proofed for a total of 14 hours at around 38-40 degrees F before being baked. I loaded them onto my baking stone at 475 degrees F on the oven’s convection bake setting, after which I dumped about a cup of water into the bottom of the oven for steam (it is built like a tray to hold water, intended for the steam cleaning setting). After 5 minutes, I turned the oven down to 425 degrees F and baked for another 20 minutes. Then it was turned down to 400 degrees F and baked for yet another 5-10 minutes. This was the result...

Have a good weekend everyone.

      Hey guys. It's been a while since I've posted, having been last February! I decided I'd post this afternoon's bake. My normal sourdough consists of a 85-90% mostly white dough, but I decided to do it a bit differently today. I dropped it to 70% hydration and added a small percentage of malted rye for activity boost. All in all I'm happy with the turnout. Recipe (for 1 loaf) is below, and I will post a crumb shot this evening once it's done cooling.

- 497g Strong White Bread Flour

- 3g Malted Rye Flour

- 100g Ferment (65% Hydration Sourdough Starter)

- 350g Water

- 10g Sea Salt

      Yesterday (Wednesday) morning, I mixed the leaven build, which consisted of 50g of my 50% Hydration Sourdough starter, 50g strong white bread flour, 50g freshly milled hard red wheat, and 65g water. It came out at roughly 65% hydration. About 3 hours later I mixed the flours and water listed above together to let "autolyse" to build gluten for 2 hours. I then added the ferment mixture and the salt plus around 1 tsp. water to dissolve the salt, and I mixed it together well. Now, in one of these I actually added some raisins and walnuts previously coated in a little cinnamon/sugar mixture to make a cinnamon raisin bread. The other was kept plain. After mixing, I stretch and folded the dough every 30 minutes for 2 hours, about 4 sets in total. It then sat for 3 hours, resulting in around 5 hours of bulk ferment anywhere from 70-100 degrees F. It was then ready for the fridge, so I dumped it out, pre-shaped it, let it rest 25 minutes, and finally shaped it. It went into the fridge at 38 degrees F for around 15-17 hours. This afternoon it got baked in a dutch oven at 500 degrees F for 20 minutes covered, then uncovered for 35 minutes at 450 degrees F. I'm very happy with the end result. I'll show a crumb shot once it's done cooling this evening. Have a good day everyone.

Hello everybody! I hope everyone is having a good day/evening. I figured I'd share my second artisan bread that I baked on Tuesday earlier this week. It's the recipe from a blog that goes by the name "ThePerfectLoaf." The recipe is titled, "My Best Sourdough Bread." I've followed the recipe pretty much to a T, but I have made a few changes related to the starter. Rather than create a levain as the recipe calls for, I just used 150 grams of my 80% all-purpose, 20% red wheat 110% hydration sourdough starter. I also bake it in my Dutch oven. Pictures. My whole family loves this bread, as do I. I've been making it every few days to have enough for breakfast, buttered, with my bacon and eggs, and I have it almost every day for lunch with homemade roast beef, cheddar cheese, a salad, and a great big pile of homemade sauerkraut. Delicious.

I'm very ashamed to say I more than likely ruined a piece of bread tonight...on purpose...Just gotta get this off my chest. It's stressing me out!!

So I've been making an 86% hydration sourdough artisan bread every few days as of recently. It has turned out great and my family loves it, and I really feel like my technique has come along SO much. Things have just kept getting better- until tonight.

This afrernoon I made two loaves. All was great until the preshape. After it rested on the counter for the bench rest I went to shape it. I first shaped a round loaf and it turned out great. Straight to the fridge. Then came the rectangular loaf. It just turned into a wet, sticky mess no matter what I did. I finally got so mad I went to the flour cabinet, pulled out all purpose, dumped a big pile on the dough and started beating it everywhere on the counter and then just threw it in the basket. Into the fridge...

Clean up is going to be fun tomorrow morning...