Hi All,

I have been making sourdough bread for around a year now and after a variety of "experiements", although the bread forms and tastes good, it is far too dense and the crumb is moist (it is more like an English crumpet than bread). I have been using recipes from "Bread Alone" by Leader and Blahink and adapted slightly through my experiments.  I have detailed my technique below and would greatly appreciate any help you can give me.

thanks very much in advance

Lee.

Starter

- 200g stored in the fridge

- Night before baking, feed starter with 200g strong white bread flour (11.6% protein), 200g filtered water and leave out on the work surface covered over night

- Starter is bubbly and increased to about double in size (may be a little less)

Dough

- Recipe

400g starter

100g wholewheat flour

900g strong white flour (as above)

600g water (luke warm and filtered)

1 tablespoon fine sea salt

- Technique

- add starter and water mix well then add salt

- add remaining flour and mix with spoon to bring together

- knead using a dough hook on mixer until dough it springs back "slowly" when pulled (approx 5 mins)

- rise in oiled bowl (approx 3 hours) on work surface

- knock back and form into 2 loaves

- proof in bowls lined with floured cotton for around 1.5 hours again out on the work surface

Bake

- preheat oven 250 degrees C

- shape dough gently

- put on preheated baking sheet spraying oven with water to create steam

- reduce oven to 230 degrees C (have also tried 210 and 190 and no difference in crumb - lower temps seemed to make thinner crust)

- bake until internal temp is 98 degrees C (have tried 99 and 97 and no difference)

I have both Leader's Bread Alone and Local Breads.  I've been maintaining my starter per the instructions for a liquid levain in Local Breads.  I've wanted to use this to make some recipes out of Bread Alone, but I'm not sure how they convert.  I was surprised to see that the starters seem to be somewhat different in their composition (flour to water ratios), also the amounts of sourdough starter in Bread Alone is about two cups, which is far more than the Local Breads recipe produces.  I don't want to maintain such a large starter as I don't bake frequently enough (not for lack of desire) but I'd still love to make some of the Bread Alone recipes. 

Has anyone figured out how to convert between the two systems?  How can I use my liquid levain in the Bread Alone recipes?

(And while I'm at it, how do I convert the Local Breads Rye sourdough for use in the Bread Alone rye recipes as well--I've come across the same problem, and my math isn't good enough!)

Thanks!

I keep my own blog with my sisters at www.threecleversisters.com, but as I have a question about this bread I figured I'd repost it here too!  I'm not sure if that's how TFL community works/if others do this as well?  Do people keep parallel blogs around here?  I think my bread stuff is a little technical sometimes for the rest of my blog, though here probably pretty basic stuff ;-)  All in the name of better bread, right? 

Anyway here is the post (link is http://threecleversisters.com/2010/09/12/dark-pumpernickel-bread-with-raisins/)

This bread, Dark Pumpernickel Bread with Raisins, from Dan Leader's Bread Alone, was a lot of fun to make.  However, it takes a LONG time-two ferments rather than one (that's three rises) and 1 1/2 hours in the oven. 

I halved the recipe (and Lord knows how I would have kneaded all that dough if I hadn't) and as the rye starter I maintain (from Dan Leader's Local Breads) seems to be different from the Bread Alone book in composition (and since my starter is drastically smaller in amount than required for this recipe), I built the necessary proportions using the rye sourdough elaboration from the Local Breads recipe for Whole Rye Berry Loaf.  (I added about 5oz of water rather than the 4 oz called for in the pre-ferment as the Bread Alone sourdough seemed wetter).   I meant to only add 9oz of the final starter but ended up adding the full amount which was nearer to 11 oz.  This turned out not to be a problem, as far as I could tell. 

The recipe gives a wide range of flours, I stayed within the lower end of this range.  This seemed to work out well.  The only problem was that I think my oven got too hot over the long baking period, so as is obvious, the crust was burnt.  The inside is just fine, and I was thrilled by the dramatic oven spring.  Plus it's the first pumpernickel I've made that was truly dark (which is what I think of for pumpernickel).  It was quite sweet from the molasses and raisins, and deliciously moist:  I was happy to eat it plain.  I put half in the freezer as this is one massive loaf (and I only made a half batch!  Unbelievable.  I'll have to keep this in mind when making more out of Bread Alone-Leader is clearly baking for a crowd!)

Final question:  if anyone uses both of these books, do you know if the starters are interchangeable, as they seem to be different formulas to me?  If you use a local bread starter, how do you convert to the Bread Alone starter (not only in the hydration proportions but in the quantities required!?)

Hi all,

 I purchased Leader's 'Local Bread' book and found his older book, 'Bread Alone' at the local library.  I've made my stiff firm levain following the instructions in the Local Bread book and the instructions for refreshing it makes a total of about 200 g of levain.  This is enough for a single batch of bread but what do I do if I want to make a double batch of bread?  In that case, I need a minimum of 250 g of leavin for baking + 45 g for saving.  The refreshing proportations are: 45 g levain, 50 g water, 95 g all-purpose flour, 5 g of whole weat flour.  Is it possible to double the amount of water and flour but keep the proportion of levain the same?  I don't usually end up with much more than 45 g of levain remaining in my container after baking a single batch.

Thanks.