basic sourdough boule

Three weeks of sourdough. Got my starter from a baking class and named him Clint. After Clint Eastwood - full of potential!

The basic recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup starter

2 cups whole wheat bread flour

1 cup AP unbleached flour

2 t salt

1.25-1.5 cups water

Methods:

- Mix flours and water to form a shaggy dough. Autolyse - rest for 30 mins.

- Add starter and knead 8-10 minutes, till you get a windowpane.

- Add salt and rest.

- 3 stretch and folds at 20-30 minutes apart.

- Proof till double in size. Deflate and place seam side up a linen lined bowl or floured banneton.

- Then retard overnight in fridge.

- Next morning, set dough at room temp for 2-3 hours.

- Pre heat oven to 485. Plop bread into dutch oven, seam side down. Score and lower temperature to 450 or 440. Bake 35-35 minutes or till internal temperature is 210.

- Cool for an hour and slice.

Lessons so far.

1. Week 1: The loaf tastes terrific, but is a shining example of how not to fold and shape.

2. Week 2. Started paying attention to details: weighed EVERYTHING this week, checked temperature and in a rush of enthusiasm, made english muffins with excess starter.

3. Week 3. Best lookin' loaf yet! Big holey crumbs, perfect for dipping into some olive oil.

Lessons learnt:

1. Decided to be as empirical as possible but also not try to control EVERTHING. Must tell self to bake by feel as much as bake while following instructions.

2. This bread is great for sandwiches and for dipping. My next goal is to consistently reproduce them, and perhaps to try a celebration bread using the starter.

Feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

It's been a while, but baking never stops. It's just finding time to post about it!

Here's a couple of loaves I made in the last few weeks.

First is my standard sourdough, which is 25% WW and 25% high protein flour. The crust is wonderfully crunchy and the crumb is tight and pillow soft.

(bit of a hole in the middle of the loaf, I was not paying attention whilst shaping the loaf!)

The second set of loaves are Reinhart's sandwich rye. These are 1250g loaves.

At some point I'd like to post my comparison of 0, 24, 48 and 72 hours cold fermentation. Interesting. But I am time poor at the moment.

This weekend I'm planning on some WW pita, seeded crackers and chocolate panettone (Susan from wildyeast). Looking forward to it :)

I posted this under Eric's SIMPLE SOURDOUGH CHALLANGE and here in my blog.



Two tries

Ok, here's what I did. Yesterday I made a loaf and baked it the same day. Today I baked a loaf I had mixed yesterday. I'm happy with both but want some improvement and I want to try some things a little differently.

Yesterday I used my starter that was made with AP flour. I consider my starter firm but it's not kneadable. I started at 7am, followed directions using the high gluten flour but 1/4 cup of oatmeal instead of the whole wheat. I wanted to see if I could make a loaf the same day with no refridgeration. I did the S & F's as instructed. It's cold in the kitchen, the dough was taking forever to rise so I moved it to a warmer spot on the oven. I finally baked it at 5:30pm. I was very surprised to see blisters on the crust because I thought that only came with time in the fridge. (Was my kitchen that cold??) Anyway, the crust was both crisp and chewy. Crisp on the outside with a chewy underside. The crumb was very open with nice shiny air holes and chewy. Holes are almost too big, I think. Taste was excellent fresh and this morning made very good toast with butter dripping on my front. I'm happy with the rise but I want the nice round boule with high shoulders. Try again.

The important things for me are:

Use high gluten flour if you like chewy

I did the S & F's in the bowl. Let the dough rise to double, turned it out on a lightly floured board and GENTLY did a S & F, pulling the dough out and folding it over itself, preshaped GENTLY, let rest, shaped GENTLY and it only took an hour to rise enough to bake.

I baked it under cover (in my hot le creuset) as written. Lately I've been turning the oven down from the 450ºF to 400ºF but not this time and I think it helped make the shiny holes and the crisp top crust.

SECOND LOAF

Yesterday when I mixed the first loaf I refreshed my starter with high gluten flour and it was ready for me to mix this second loaf at 4pm. I followed the recipe and was ready to put in fridge at 9pm last night. This morning at 7am I took it out. It was well risen so I turned the oven on at 7 and baked at 8am. I was trying for a nice round boule but used an oblong basket with linen that I folded up around the dough hoping to keep it round. Instead I ended up with a square loaf! The blistered crust is nice, the taste is great with a tiny bit of sour. Very chewy and if you don't like chewy I'd try using regular AP flour.

Getting the dough from my basket to the le cresuet and trying to slash was not easy so next time I'm going to turn the dough unto a cookie sheet and use the stainless steel cover. I know it will bake the same as the le creuset because I've done it before. The slashing was impossible once the dough was in the HOT pot so I just used scissors to cut some kind of pattern that didn't come out very pretty. Next time I'm going to do like hans and just turn the dough upside down and let the bread do its own thing.

Thanks Susan for all your hints and patience. Do you think your very firm starter makes a difference in the outcome? How do you get your dough to the baking surface from your colander? How do you get your boule to pop up so nice and round??

weavershouse