Hello! This is my first time making sourdough and I'm making Tartine's country loaf. I received a lively starter just a few days ago and I made the leaven last night. This morning, it was doubled in size and passed the float test. In my just gotten out of bed state, I forgot the step where I'm supposed to measure out 200g of leaven and used the entire thing! The leaven was made with 1 Tbsp starter, 200g water, and 200g 50/50 white and whole wheat flour mix. The dough is now almost done autolysing.

What should I do? Should I shorten fermentation times and keep an eye on it or is it a goner? Is it going to be a super sour loaf? Advice? I can't believe I messed up already. Thank you. 

Hello,

I've been lurking on this site for quite awhile and this is my first post. First I want to say thank you to all the passionate bread makers out there, you are very inspiring and I might add...intimidating! Anyway, on to my problem.  I recently made a sourdough from a wild starter.  The recipe is the basic country bread from the Tartine book.  I had two rounds of dough about the same size, one I let final rise about 2 1/2 hours and the other went into the refrigerator for a retarded rise :) for about 14 hours.  The first one came out beautifully!  a lovely crust with deep cuts. Look...

The other loaf has a nice flavor but the crust is not even in the same league.  The cuts did not fully expand or crack and I'm not sure what I did wrong.  I baked both in a cast iron dutch oven at 20 mins covered, temperature started at 500 and I turned it down to 450 after the bread was placed in the dutch oven, then another 20 mins uncovered. 

2nd loaf 14 hour final rise.

Does anyone have any ideas why the difference?  Thanks for you help.

Hi all,

Two questions for all you experts :-)

#1 Regarding baker's percentages....For my Desem-type loaf (not made per Laurel...my own bastardization, mostly from Alan Scott) if my flour weight ( in this case 100% whole wheat) is 375 g and my leaven weight is 225g (100% whole wheat, 100% hydro) and my water weight is 283g and my salt weight is 10g....is my overall hydro  81% (if I calculate in the weights of water and flour in my leaven) or is it 75% (if I do not calculate the weights of water and flour in my leaven)?

The math difference is more dramatic when figuring the % of leaven against the flour weight...without adding in the leaven ingredients, the formula above would represent 60% leaven and figuring with the leaven ingredients would represent only 46% leaven.

I am so confused.

#2 If I choose to retard my desem loaves 8-12 hours, should I reduce the leaven in the recipe and if so, by how much? Also, if I retard, should I allow the loaves to proof briefly at room temp after bulk fermentation and before retard? If so, for how long? I am worried I will over proof the loaves under retard with Scott's crazy percentage of leaven (2-3 times that of other recipes).

BTW, my loaves come out wonderfully at this leaven percentage when BF 4hrs at cool temps and proofed 1.5 hrs at warm room temps. I am looking to get a more sophisticated and slightly more sour flavor from the overnight retard.

Lastly, I do not knead the bread at all, simply autolyse 30 min, add salt and then turn in the bucket every 45 min during BF. I get lovely open crumb that rivals white flour loaves and awesome oven spring if I closely monitor proofing.

Thanks all for your input!

Cheers

~Krista

is the leaven supposed to actually float at the top of the water it is tested in?  mine doesn't do that but doesn't actually sink?  i have had various issues including loaves that dont rise and wet loaves. anyone have this issue?  thanks alot.

I'm approximately 25 days into feeding my Tartine starter (every 24 hours - 150g flour mix, 150g water, 75g starter).   The starter was residing on my kitchen counter (approx. 69 degrees).

Last night I progressed to making the Leaven (1 Tbs. of the starter mixture, 200g flour mix, 200g water).  This morning I did the float test and it sunk.  I then waited 30 minutes (placing the mixture in a warmer place) and the mxiture failed the float test again.

Finally I mixed half the starter mixture, 100g of flour mixture, and 100g of water.  Let it ferment for two hours and again the dough didn't float.

I have not had an extreme amount of bubbles at any phase.  The rise/fall has been subtle.  The aroma is sweet with a hint of acidity.

Thank you for any advice.  I have NO idea what to do next.

With the starter that I made a week ago, I finally got to try a recipe using Dan Lepard - The Handmade Loaf.  White Leaven Bread Pg 28.

I halved the ingredient as I was not sure how it'll turn out.  With the freshly made starter,  I just did 1 refrehment.  Made a little too much,  and the rest went to making muffins and pancakes.

Ayway,  it was quite an experience.  I wanted a good well developed gluten,  and I wanted to nice holes in the crumbs.  I decided to do more rest,  stretch and fold and add my salt last.  

Thursday night:  Prepare Leaven.

Friday night:  Prepare dough - did a few 1/2 hour stretch and fold.  I almost forgot the salt,  added in after my 2nd or 3rd stretch and fold.   Shape - was really really careful not to burst those bubbles that were forming,  retard in fridge - wasn't sure about this step as I didn't want to over proof the dough.  But I needed my sleep.

Saturday morning:  Final baking - Heated my oven with cast iron skillet (since I had difficulty finding a baking stone,  this is a good alternative). I score the dough,  should have scored deeper.  I was not sure whether to steam the oven,  as the book only described to spray water on the dough.  I went ahead to steam the oven as well, every 10 minutes, squirt on the iron cast skillet.  I had difficulty sliding the dough from my pizza peel onto the skillet,  one of the ends drooped down,  tried to push it but was too late,  that portion would not budge.  Well,  I went ahead anyway.  Turning every 10 minutes as my oven couldn't turn with the skillet sitting on top of the turntable.  

I was really really pleased with the outcome.  The dough had a great oven spring, browned nicely,  and there were open crumbs,  and you can see the stretching of the gluten.

Even my father was happy about the outcome (he had been staying with me for the past month), and not exactly giving me compliments on my other breads so far. I think I can add a little more salt...The bread was not sour at all,  but has a nice fragrant to the taste.  

Jenny

More details - click here.

Last week I baked Hamelman's Semolina with whole-grain soaker, using a natural leaven rather than fresh yeast, and was delighted with the results.

I wrote it up in detail at my blog, but wanted to mention it here for one reason: if it hadn't been for the help and support of the people here, I would almost certainly have made a mess of it and abandoned it. Thanks to your generosity, I have the confidence to handle doughs that, a year ago, I would have found much too wet, much too sticky and much too sloppy to work with. I would have murdered the texture by using too much flour, over-kneading and all that. Instead, I let time and stretch-and-fold do their thing, and was rewarded with excellent loaves.

So, thank you.

Jeremy

As I begin to work my way through Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf, there is a bread pictured on the inside cover that got me wondering. It looks like a boule with an appendage twisted with pointed tips and makes me think of a handle to hold while carrying or cutting. Dan didn't identify the bread by name and I haven't seen anything like it before so until I hear otherwise from Dan or someone who knows the real name, I'm calling it Medieval Bread. I used the first recipe for White Leaven Bread as the mix and tried to shape the dough as pictured.Waiting until after proofing to shape the twist was a mistake I suspect. If you have the book, you will be amused at my rookie attempt to replicate the image.

I have made Dan's Black Pepper Rye and the White Thyme bread which were delicious but I think I should progress in an order that will let me understand Lepards thinking. After looking at nearly every bread in the book, I see the ratios of leaven and timing are different than I have been accustomed to using. There are also a few specialized techniques that I haven't used and ingredients while common at home are unfamiliar to me in baking. Pickle Juice would be a good example. It would be easy for me to get distracted by the many wonderful new recipes and ignore the common sourdough white loaf. As I discovered, that would be a mistake.

I made the White Leaven bread by the book except I substituted 30 grams of sifted rye into the 500g white bread flour. Dan suggests using fresh yeast and as soon as I find a local source for 1 pound bricks I intend to make the change from Instant Dry (IDY). Most of the brick fresh yeast sold in the US is made just a few miles from here so it's just a matter of finding a distributor.

The method of developing the gluten in all of the recipes in this book are most easily done with your hands or a plastic scraper. Dan is insistent on minimal kneading, waiting 10 minutes and again just a few seconds of kneading and wait 10 minutes. After a few cycles of this you begin to see the dough come together well and become smooth and silky. Following the initial development comes a schedule of stretch and fold, waiting between folding sessions. All very gentle and effortless steps. The result is a perfectly incorporated and developed dough with just the right amount of aeration.

Remembering that these same four ingredients can be mixed and handled in many ways to arrive at vastly different ends, I am very pleased to have followed the procedure exactly. The bread is wonderful. For me a perfect outcome is a bread that looks wonderful and has a full flavor with a long lasting after taste. The crust has been baked to a dark brown and has a deeper caramelized flavor that contrasts the crumb. When I manage to bake a bread that has this contrast and tastes this good, I'm really pleased.

I know there are many bread books out there to choose from. Many are very similar and will produce great breads. If you are serious about making breads that are not merely great but outstanding, "The Handmade Loaf" or the US version "The Art of Handmade Bread"  is available from our link for $12. At this point it's the best value in my library and I'm delighted with the best breads I have made. Lepard has traveled Europe and befriended some of the old time bakers in far off the beaten path corners of the world. Developing these recipes for modern use is a gift to those of us who strive to bake these old style hearty breads.

No snickering at my attempt to make the twisted boule now!

Eric