The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

My first sourdough loaves

thaliablogs's picture
thaliablogs

My first sourdough loaves

Hi all

I found this site last night while searching for 'why does richard bertinet's method for sourdough differ?" and found some absolutely brilliant advice. I'm very happy with my first two ever sourdough loaves. I've always baked cakes, but didn't start making bread until my 30s. I've made challah for a long time, tea cakes for a few years, moved onto rich doughs with the ottolenghi kranz cake last year, and just did an ordinary white bread loaf last week followed by some lemon rolls (both bertinet, from 'dough'). But Sourdough bread is what I like to eat, so I decided to move on to 'crust'.

I followed the bertinet instructions to make the ferment, and started making the loaves themselves yesterday afternoon. I didn't want to wait til next weekend, and although I knew I"d have to go to work today, I just wanted to get started so I figured I'd work out the timing somehow. I used the slap and fold method, and worked the dough until it really did go smooth and live in my hands, which took AGES (prob 30 mins on and off. Clearly I need to work on my technique). It was really helpful to have seen the advice on here, read 'flour, water, yeast, salt' and watched the bertinet videos to get confidence in what I was doing. 

It was 5pm by the time I'd done both 1 hour rises, so I decided to let the loaves rise for 24 hrs in the fridge, thinking I'd just bake after work today. But this morning both loaves had risen really well in the fridge, and one really looked perfect so I did a rush job and got it into the oven on a pre-heated pizza stone, steam created by pouring water into a baking tray on the bottom of the oven, while making the children's breakfast. My husband took it out after I went to work, and it looked good with a nice crumb. As others have said the proven loaf was pretty liquid and hence the loaf is oval rather than round as I had to roll it onto the pizza stone as even with lots of semolina it stuck to my oven peeol. 
 (tried to insert photos but can't figure it out)

Second one I baked when I got home. It deflated a lot as I moved it into the dutch oven, and it's risen rather wierdly with a sort of ledge where the outside first touched the hot inside of the dutch oven, so I thought all was lost, but the crust is brilliant and although it's a bit dense, it's quite edible.

So overall I'm delighted. Will try again w different rise times etc. next weekend. Onwards and upwards and thanks for all the help.

 

thaliablogs's picture
thaliablogs

second loaf

figuring out the pictures...

this is the second loaf

 

 

 

 

 

cerevisiae's picture
cerevisiae

First, congrats on such fine loaves of sourdough! They look quite tasty.

Second, there's some advice on adding pictures to posts in the FAQ section, which you can find by looking at the sections listed and linked at the top of the page.

CAphyl's picture
CAphyl

thaliablogs: Your loaves look so much better than my first ones, you should feel great.  I learned a lot by checking out the instructions on this site and others on shaping and scoring.  The tutorials really helped me.  I don't think my shaping is as good as I want it to be yet, but I keep trying.  Good luck with your future bakes.  Best,  Phyllis