Looking for a good basic sourdough recipe

Wild Yeast Susan's Norwich Sourdough is a good basic loaf to try:

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/my-new-favorite-sourdough/

Try the Sourdough Home;  http://www.sourdoughhome.com.  Mike Avery is the host there.

Ford

just switch out the water in the 1-2-3 sourdough for milk products and/or add some fats to the dough.  A small potato cooked and mashed in the water will also render a nice soft crumb. 

When adding up the flour to take 2% for salt, don't forget to add the flour hiding in the starter to the dough flour first.

Adding pre-gelled flour to the dough will also soften the crumb.  Take 5% of the total flour (using the same example) or 5% of 350g, you get 17g.  Multiply that by 5 for water amount or 85g.  Be sure to subtract from the recipe or to use from already measured ingredients.  Mix together and set bowl on scale and weigh.  Then Microwave the water & flour to thicken stirring often.  Cool.  Return to scale and add any missing water.  Add to dough.   

http://www.shipton-mill.com/baking/recipes/sourdough-starter-or-leaven.htm

Regards

Chris

Hi Sarah. Welcome to TFL. I'm sort of a new member as well. Amazing people here with so much knowledge and very helpful.

This is a great video and is what I used to learn about sourdough before I found out about TFL.

Jacob is super awesome and will help you out all the way.

http://www.stellaculinary.com/podcasts/video/how-to-make-a-basic-loaf-of-sourdough-bread-video-recipe

Cheers!

• I learned to bake sourdough with this recipe 5 years ago and still use it today. I got it from Shasta at northwestsourdough.com long before that website closed.  

My sourdough bread recipe with instructions...

• 500 grams of KAF bread flour
• 200 grams starter at 100% hydration
• 300 grams of water
• 11 grams of salt
• Note on water temp... You want this dough to come out at about 80 degrees when you're done mixing it. That will cut down on the time it takes to rise. With a thermapen determine the heat of your flour in the bag it is stored in. Determine the heat of your starter. Then use water at the temp it takes to bring it close to 80 degrees. 

• Flour as stored is 72 degrees
• Starter is 70 degrees
• Use 85 degree water... It will be close to 80 degrees when combined and mixed.

• Here is how I do it, step by step... 

• 1) the very first thing I do is the float test. I fill a glass almost to the top and take a teaspoon of my starter and drop it in. IF... It floats its ready to use, if it sinks it's not ready to use. 

• 2) with my digital scale I measure the water called for in the recipe.

• 3) with my digital scale I measure the salt called for in my recipe 11 grams and put into a little tiny mixing bowl. 

• 4) I pour enough water into the salt container to just barely cover the salt... 15/20 grams... Which I will pour into the dough later. 

• 5) I put my mixing bowl onto the digital scale and pour in my starter. 200 grams.

• 6) I pour the remaining water into the mixing bowl on top of the starter and mix it gently to break it up. 

• 7) I add the 500 grams of KAF bread flour... 

• 8) ... With a large wooden spoon mix it to just the shaggy condition. There will be some loose flour on the sides of your mixing bowl... Scrap it down but don't worry about it. 

• 9) put your shower cap or a kitchen towel over the top of you mixing bowl and let it autolyse (rest) for 30 minutes.

• 10) add the salt and remaining water to the dough and mix it in. You might want to get your hands wet and work the dough by hand. 

• 11) put your shower cap on your mixing bowl and autolyse (rest) it again for 30 minutes...

• 12) pour a little vegetable oil or olive oil on your work surface where you're going to do your stretch and folds... Not flour at this point. The dough is too wet and will swallow to much flour. 

• 13) do your stretch and folds on the oil for the first 2 times... For the third stretch and fold wipe the surface clean of the oil and put flour there. Leave a foot of your work surface, nearest your body, clear of flour. You want to make the dough drag on it as you are pulling it toward you with cupped hands. That adds lots of tension to your dough. You should have some bubbles starting to show in your dough by now, if your starter is working right. 

• 14) your 4th stretch and fold... And pre-shaping. Stretch your dough out on all four corners. Do the business letter fold in both directions and pre-shape it into something close to what you want your final shape to be. 

• 15) let it rest for 10 minutes...

• 16) final shaping time... This is critical. Yahoo has all kinds of good videos on this topic. 

• 17) leave you boule or batard on the counter, uncovered, for 15 minutes... 

• 18) put it into your proofing basket or benneton. 

• 19) off to the refridgerator for 12/24 hours... 12 hrs is enough but 24 will add some tang to it.

• 20) out of the refridgerator...

• 21) warming/final proofing - it takes about 2 hours. After 1 hour preheat your oven, baking stone and stainless steel mixing bowl. 

• 22) do the poke test... Dip you index finger in flour and then poke your dough with your index finger 3/4" down into the dough... If it springs right back up, it's not ready. If it takes awhile to come up... It's ready to bake.

• 23) place your dough on parchment paper and slash/score it and spray your dough with water... Google scoring/slashing dough on YouTube there are many good videos on this topic. The angle of your razor blade is critical to creating the flap you need to get the ears you want. 

• 24) preheat your oven, baking stone and stainless steel mixing bowl to 500 degrees. The mixing bowl will be used to create the steam you need to achieve the maximum oven spring. 

• 25) remove your preheated stainless steel mixing bowl from your preheated oven - transfer your parchment paper and dough on to your baking stone... Place stainless steel bowl over your dough so no steam can leak out. Let it cook for 15 minutes. 

• 26) after 15 minutes take your mixing bowl off, turn your oven down to 465 degrees and cook to color... Rotate your loaf 180 degrees after 8 minutes to keep the color consistent. If you have over proofed your dough you will not get the browning you want. The rule of thumb is the internal temp of the bread should be close to 205 degrees. Don't worry about going a little over that number to achieve the color you desire. It will not affect the crumb much at all. It should take about 30 minutes to bake. 

• 27) pull the loaf out of the oven onto your peel... Done deal! 

• If... You do it  like this, you will get a good looking loaf like these... http://www.flickr.com/photos/food_pictures/8991726160/

• The crumb...  https://www.flickr.com/photos/food_pictures/9001969603/

• Stainless steel mixing bowl to trap the steam from the water you spray onto your loaf right before it goes on to your stone. The steam keeps your dough moist during the first part of the cook and allows your loaf to attain the maximum oven spring.  

https://www.flickr.com/photos/food_pictures/8858491734/

Sourdough starter's function is to be a source of leavening (that is to say, a source of yeast microbes) to your dough.  As such it hardly matters how much fresh sourdough starter you add.  Take the presently ever-trendy Tartine Loaf (search "Tartine New York Times recipe").  Typically it will say to start with a mixture of a certain weight of water, maybe 650 gms, which you mix with 200 gms of your sourdough starter.  You then go on to add the bread flour (or flour mixture) and proceed according to directions.  Well, I've made that loaf with that amount of freshened starter many times with success.  But, I've also made it 1/4 or 1/8th that amount of freshened starter with success. I've made it with starter that's been in the fridge for up to two to three weeks without being freshened, using unmeasured amounts that just, to my eyes "look" like 200 gms or less.  That works as well.  Why?  Because once you've added the starter, as long as it's not truly dead, there's yeast in it.  That yeast will propagate in your dough, causing it to rise, regardless of the amount.  

Is there a difference anywhere in the kind of bread you're making?  Not much; since your starter's just a carrier of yeast (not flavor, mind you; that comes from the temperature and duration of you first rise).  You can alternate yeast products (SD starter, rapid rise, dry active) in recipes and taste little difference if you know what your doing with temperatures and duration.  So, not much if you control the temperature of the bulk rise (the first rise).  The warmer the temperature, the faster the rise.  The cooler the temperature, the slower the rise, though it's always faster the more yeast you add.

As for what makes for the holes, think of it this way:  holes are the product of the duration of the rise, the percentage of water to flour (by weight) in the dough, and the baking temperature.   Northern European doughs, which have about 32% water, are used to make a denser, cake-like crumb, not the crumb of a Southern European bread (think baguette).  Why?  Because, after that dough doubles in its first rise, the directions call for the baker to punch it down.  That gets rid of the bubbles deliberately.  Going back to the Tartine recipe, because the total weight of flour is 1000gms and the water weight is 650gms, the water percentage is 65%.  Directions for this loaf call for you to allow it to rise until the bubbles make this dough appear billowy.  You then manipulate it gently so as not to destroy that billowy, bubbly texture.  And then you bake it at a very high heat in a closed space (a covered Dutch oven.)  At the very high heat, the already bubbly dough which has lots more water in it than the European bread dough, expands because all the water in it turns to steam in the heat.  The added benefit of the sealed container here is that steam escaping from the dough's surface is trapped and makes the crust thicker and crunchier.  Success!

when it works? Looks delicious.

Nice, very nice! 

What percentage of whole wheat flour did you use in that recipe? That could be the cause of your tight crumb. From what I have read if you go over 30% whole wheat flour it will effect the glutton structure some and will cause a tight crumb. 

I'm also very new to the game, and this is the formula I developed to introduce my mom to sourdough baking. It could be a nice experiment for you, if you want to give it a try:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/41331/i-call-confidence-loaf

Well done! Nothing like a tasty sourdough. 

10.2 oz of levain ... make it at 70% hydration.

20.25 oz of bread flour. You can fiddle with the flour and add some rye and whole wheat ... but as was mentioned adding whole flours tends to reduce oven spring and tightens the crumb.

15.2 oz water ... lately I've been using about 16.5 to 17 to get the hydration over 80%.

0.55 oz salt.

Autolyze the flour by adding all of the water to the 20.25oz flour. Let it sit for as long as you like (I aim for 12 hours but sometimes life gets in the way).

After autolyze add the levain and salt, and then knead. I knead in my kitchen aid for about 15 minutes, but you need to figure out what works for you.

Bulk ferment how you like. I usually leave the dough in the fridge overnight. Pre-form the dough into a ball, at this point I usually put the dough back in the fridge for several hours. Final shape the dough and put it in a banneton or brotform floured with rice flour - seam up for traditional methods and seam side down for Ken Forkish's method. Let it proof to the desired consistency. Preheat your oven with a stone to 500 degrees F. Figure out a way to get steam in your oven (search the forums here for steaming methods, dabrowman's ultra-steam looks to be one of the preferred methods), then load your dough on a peel by flipping it out of the brotform - if you're using the traditional method the seam will now be on the bottom (touching the peel) - score it with your lame. If using the Forkish method the seam will be facing up - no need to score because the seams will open on their own. Put the dough on the stone and let it bake for about 15 minutes at 500dF. After 15 minutes reduce the temperature to 475dF and cook until internal temp is 205dF (about another 20 mins).

If using a dutch oven, preheat it to 500dF and then load the dough on parchment and then into the DO. Cover the DO and reload into the oven. Bake for 20 mins at 500dF and then reduce temperature to 475dF ... at this point you should gently remove the bread from the DO and put it on a (preheated) baking stone. No need for mega steam with this method.

-Dave

Sarah:
Yes, I was saying the levain/starter should be 70% hydration.

This "lingo" is called bakers math, which is used to establish the ratio of the ingredient to the total flour in the dough. So what you do is record the amount of flour and water in the starter, record the amount of flour and water in the main dough, and then add up the total amounts of flour and water. Then divide the amount of water by the amount of flour to determine hydration.

You should make sure to compute/control/understand the hydration of the starter, because what can happen if there is a great difference between the starter and the main dough things may get interesting. For example I made a mistake on my most recent loaf - I was shooting for 82% hydration and ended up with 88% hydration - dough this wet is a bit challenging to manage.

As you experiment you will see that 50% hydration doughs (bagels) are very stiff, 65% might be what you're 'used to,' 75% is a bit on the wet side, and 80% and above a wet gloopy messes. The hydration has an affect on the structure of the crust and crumb, so it's interesting to try out the different hyrdation levels.

-Dave