I forgot to say that I did not spray the finished loaves with water and I did not spray or add any water to the oven. I was being a real rebel today. I think I mentioned that I used Hodgson's Rye and KA all purpose flour. In the levain I used 1 oz. of my refreshed (that day) sourdough starter and I have no clue about its hydration %. Hope you'll try this.

weavershouse

I can't read all of your blog. I'm having problems, for some reason the right side is cut off. I think you have this one down pat!

Weavershouse, those loaves are awesome! I am green with envy - hope your sister appreciates the bread. I must be the only member who doesn't know which book the recipe came from and now it looks as though I will have to buy a copy. Could you please give me the details? Again, my congratulations, A

Try here ostwestwind.twoday.net/stories/3707371/  for the recipe. I hope this link works. The Vermont Sourdough is from the bread book by Jeffery Hamelman who works for King Arthur Flour in Vermont.                           weavershouse

Weavershouse, the loaves you pictured on the the other thread were beautiful but these are even better! The slashes look perfect to me. I hope your sister appreciates it! This bread is my new favorite basic sourdough too.

Susanfnp

Thank you so much, Weavershouse. Did you use a mixer? Also, do you bake on a stone? Hate to bother you with so many questions but what do you use to slash - I think yours look perfect? Guess I will be adding another book to the collection, A

Look at you, Weavershouse! What a treat, first thing in the A.M. Is perfect good enough? Let me join the chorus of congratulators, and you might try the whole wheat variation sometime. That's just different enough to be interesting. Hearty cheers! as my uncle used to say.

I felt good when I pulled these out of the oven. I can see progress.

Weavershouse, thank you for the kind offer - I'll try not to be too much of a pest. I suddenly have the day free tomorrow and decided I HAVE to try the VS. I had fed my starter last night and I have never known it rise to much so I figured it was raring to go. I am a bit concerned because it appears to have turned into a less than liquid starter, positively brawny and I swear I could see muscles. Of course it was in the frig when I decided to use it so I warmed the water slightly and hope that will encourage it to work. I used KA bread flour for the levain and then noticed you had used all purpose flour. Maybe I will use ap tomorrow for the dough. I have no idea why my starter has become so "thick" - I'm sure there is a proper name for this but it escapes me. I have left the bowl in the oven with the light on because my kitchen gets pretty cool at night. I am really anxious to hear how the cool retardation affects your latest loaves and whether you think it makes enough of a difference. Isn't that what causes the nice little "freckles" on the crust? Oh dear, there really should be some sort of therapy for this obsession! A.

>Oh dear, there really should be some sort of therapy for this obsession! A.<

It's called the fresh loaf!

The loaves I retarded overnight are so different from my other batches and not for the good. When I retarded the Columbia loaves in the fridge they were very good but these didn't rise to the occasion. The color is drab and the browning is dull. They didn't rise as well as my former batches.

I have loved using this method but in discovering my refrigerator was running far too cold I can see why I had troubles gauging warm up the next day and proper proofing (still my problem but getting better).  I planned to try this with the Vermont sourdough later this week as it now appears, finally (just yesterday), the darn fridge was fixed - keeping fingers crossed.  I'm going to be very anxious to try Columbia again using this method to compare but anyway I have a couple questions.

How long did you leave the loaves out the next day before baking?  Is it possible that your loaves were actually overproofed?  Again, so confusing, but in one of her books Glezer says often the next day they only need about an hour to warm up and sometimes can be baked still cold.  It depends on the softness of the initial dough.  That could be a reason they did not rise as much.

Another thing, do you have a thermometer to test your refrigerator?  When I finally bought mine a couple weeks ago I was horrified to see how cold it was keeping food.  Or rather freezing food.  I am so anal about keeping thermometers in my ovens I don't know why I had not done this before.  So could it be that perhaps your loaves were still too cold?  I know I jumped the gun with some Columbia one day when I was taking it to a dinenr party.  The loaves tasted fabulous but they did not rise as much and also were not as dark as usual.

At any rate now I feel I'll have way more control with overnight retardation which I love to use so if I get the Vermont sourdough made this week I'll let you know how it compares to when I retard the Columbia.

Sorry you were not so happy with the overnight retardation results, Weavershouse, but I'm sure your friends will be thrilled. Have you got a thermometer in your refrigerator? Zolablue's comments make a lot of sense and I should buy one - I will be getting my own refrigerator back now that the kids' house is finished and they have their own. The one that came with my house is old and probably not doing a good job. Well, here on Wonderful Whidbey the weather has gone from cool to 80* today, so my kitchen will be very warm. Always seems to happen on baking day. My levain was fine this morning and it took the entire thing to make the weight. I am doing the Mike Avery stretch and fold and gave the dough 2 stretches immediately. I have learned that I am not very patient so will find something to do until the 45 minutes is up, AND I will let the loaves proof long enough. Fingers crossed, A

Paving stones, anyone? My loaves wouldn't have even made decent doorstops and I didn't even finish baking them. Straight to the dumpster. My dough looked great with small bubbles under the skin, but I'm sure it was too wet and the loaves spread out into sullen puddles. For some reason I forgot about TT's kitchen towel couche but I doubt it would have helped. The only thing I can come up with is that I must have worn the starter out with maybe too many folds? So, I have to decide - should I just go back to my quilting, paper quilts, gardening and bonsai trees? Or grit my teeth, rev up my starter and try again? I really hate to be a quitter and I know I have made good bread, but days like this are a bit disheartening. A

I'm green with envy by your scoring!  I attempted to do this for the first time last weekend, with disastrous results.  I'm determined to try learning it.  What scoring tool did you use? 

I'm just home from our visit and have to say they loved the bread and I had a piece and was very happy with the taste even though they weren't as nice looking as I hoped for. Whew!

First, to answer your question, I started on the far left end of the dough and worked my way to the right.  Crosswise, I started off-center, and attempted to keep my scores confined to the middle part of the dough.  But the scores barely opened, and my bread rose a lot, resulting to an unsightly crack on the side of the bottom of the loaves.  (Not only that, I crowded my oven and it gave birth to Siames twins.  Argh.)

I think my problem last weekend was that I used a totally alien tool, the makeshift curved lame (blade-skewered-on-a-stick) AND attempting a new kind of scoring, all in one go.  Looking back, I had cut too gingerly, because the lame felt too unfamiliar.  My preferred scoring tool is a steak knife, because of the easy handling of a small tool, and it's serrated.  That's why I got inspired by your input that you used a serrated bread knife.  I like the clean lines the lame made though, and you're right, I need to be more brave about using it.  This weekend I'll do just that.  I'll try using the makeshift lame and the steak knife on different loaves, attempting the same look, and see how they turn out.  I'll give you an update next week.  Thanks a lot!

Browndog, I'm afraid The Fresh Loaf isn't helping but in fact making matters worse! I spent the afternoon copying recipes I had collected from the site into a notebook so that I wouldn't lose them - and I want to try each and every one. But it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars so can't be all bad, A

Hi Weavershouse, and thanks for the encouragement. I decided to make a loaf of no knead bread to help regain my confidence after a little spell of gloom and despondency. I was pretty sure I would get a decent loaf, and in fact it was one of my better efforts. I used Eric's version with steel cut oats and I was really good about letting it proof long enough. The crumb isn't super holey but open enough, and the flavor is great. Perfect for supper with soup. So now I feel ready to try something more complicated, A

If you have a kitchen timer, use it to help reduce "waiting" stress between folds.  When the kitchen gets hot, get out of the kitchen and put up your feet with a cool drink.  Using commercial yeast also gives a more flexible baking schedule.  Baking should be fun and when it becomes a chore, time to re-think.  Keep track of your favorites that work for you.  No one is expected to bake every recipe, I sure don't.  It can be like a wirlwind, getting hooked on bread but it can also get to be too much when goals are set too high.  Take your time, and relax.   Most bake less in the hotter summer months.   --Mini Oven

I must be the only one on TFL that hasn't tried this and I can't get the recipe link to work. Thank you,

Eric

weavershouse

Vermont Sourdough – Hamelman

Bread, Sourdough

Yield: 2 Loaves

Ingredients

LIQUID-LEVAIN BUILD

150 grams   Bread flour

188 grams   Water

30     Mature culture (liquid)

FINAL DOUGH

750 grams   Bread flour

100 grams   Whole-rye flour

462 grams   Water

19 grams   Salt

338     Liquid levain (all less 30 g)

Directions

1. LIQUID LEVAIN:

Make the final build 12 to 16 hours before the final mix, and let stand in a covered container at about 21 °C/70°F

2. MIXING: Add all the ingredients to the mixing bowl, including the levain, but not the salt. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed just until the ingredients are incorporated into a shaggy mass. Correct the hydration as necessary Cover the bowl with plastic and let stand for an autolyse phase of 20 to 60 minutes. At the end of the autolyse, sprinkle the salt over the surface of the dough, and finish mixing on second speed for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. The dough should have a medium consistency. Desired dough temperature: 22 °C/ 76°F

3. BULK FERMENTATION: 2 1/2 hours.

4. FOLDING: Fold the dough either once (after 1 1/4) hours) or twice (at 50-minute intervals), depending on dough strength.

5. DIVIDING AND SHAPING: Divide the dough into 1.5-pound pieces shape round or oblong.

6. FINAL FERMENTATION: Approximately 2 to 2 1/2 hours at 22 °C/76° F (alternatively, retard for up to 8 hours at 10 °C/50 °F, or up to 18 hours about 5,5 °C/42 °F).

7. BAKING: With normal steam, 240 °C/460 °F for 40 to 45 minutes. More often than not, this bread is retarded before the bake. The result is a loaf with moderate tanginess and a sturdy crust that conveys a lot of bread flavor.

Thanks ZB, I appreciate that. I've been wanting to do a smallish bread that has a powerful flavor.

Eric

I just came back online to give Eric the Vt. Sourdough recipe and see you did that. We had company pop in and they just left. Thanks again zb.                                   weavershouse

Since I'm new to sourdough, the types of directives in recipes that confuse me are sones that talk about cultures.  The phrase in this recipe that confuses me is

"30  Mature culture (liquid).  what exactly does that refer to?  I'm guessing a sourdough starter, but with all the discussions I've read on the hydrations of starters - how would I know, in this particular recipe - how liquidy (?) the starter should be?

when speaking of the final build I am assuming this means once you have made the liquid levain and then mixed it with the final dough - that is the final build?

this seems to all be over my head and I need to start out at a much lower level providing there is one.  I've used bigas, and poolish, left dough to mature overnight in the fridge etc, but never worked with a starter or levain or that type of thing.  I'm making a starter now using the directions on the wildyeast blog, but I don't know what to do with it after the weeks time is up other than feed it.

I get the "take some out and replace it with an equal amount".  that seems to be about as much as my old brain comprehends.

For the record:  I build computers, troubleshoot software, fly airplanes (even work on them sometimes) , work on technical stuff all the time, but for some reason - this whole sourdough thing eludes me...............................  :-)  Am I just doing the engineer thing and overthinking everything?

-Susie

Can anyone please tell me how to make the Vermont sourdough starter.

Thank you