January 28, 2018 - 10:05am
Sourdough from Tartine
It's been three months now and I'm growing more confident about my ability to make sourdough breads. Here are today's loaves: two rye and two standard country breads from the Tartine book.
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It's been three months now and I'm growing more confident about my ability to make sourdough breads. Here are today's loaves: two rye and two standard country breads from the Tartine book.
Well, they certainly look fantastic!
Thanks! They are tasting pretty good! Great crust and crumb.
They look fab. Mine certainly don't look like that when I follow the recipe
Mine didn't either in year's past when I had tried but now they do every single time.
1. Feed the starter the night before and put it in a proofer at 84 degrees. Put 200 grams in a beaker.
2. Feed it again in the morning, making sure that it has doubled in size to 400 at least.
3. Around 2-3 in the afternoon make the bread. Let it sit for 30 minutes in the proofer. Add the salt and additional water.
4. Start doing your turns 1/2 an hour after that (longer for the Rye).
5. Around 6, do the FIRST shaping into a boule with a scraper by pushing it into a round, tightening the surface. At 6:15 or so, do the SECOND shaping, this time with a stretch & fold method.
6. Refrigerate them in bannetons.
7. Next morning bake in a cloche or a le creuset pot (lid on).
Works like magic! It's the proofer, shaping, banneton, cloche and overnight rise that make the difference for me.
They look wonderful. Could you just explain your steps 1 and 2 more fully, sorry to be slow. You feed your starter the night before right, and then what? I'm OK with 3 onwards. Think I am suffering from Tartine addiction ...
Happy to. 1. I have a starter in my refrigerator which is just passively sitting there. Maybe then with a layer of gray sludge on the top. I remove the icky grey part. I measure out 100 grams of white flour and 1 hundred grams of whole wheat flour. Add about 200 grams of water (maybe a touch more so it is almost pancake batter like). Then I add the starter, about 20 percent of it. I haven't been weighing the starter (which I should) just adding what looks to me like a 1/4 cup or so of the stuff. I put the mixture in a beaker that has numbers on it. Grams. I put in enough to measure 200 grams (if I am making a single recipe, 400 if I want to double it).
Then I put that in a proofer at 84 degrees overnight.
2. Next morning I look at it and see where it has risen in the beaker. I'm looking for double or more. I repeat the first feeding: measuring out the same amount of flours and waters as I did the night before. Then I add "some" (same kind of amount as before, about a 1/4 cup) of the newly risen starter that had been rising happily in the proofer. I dump out the remaining unused starter (from the night before), refill the beaker with the NEW starter and put it back in the proofer. When it is doubled/tripled. Looks super bubbly I start the recipe.
So this means that I do TWO feedings of my cold starter before I make bread.
I'm still a beginner at this so others may offer better suggestions. I know that you should adjust the amount of starter for the time that you want it to be ready, but I'm not doing that yet. Soon!!!
I'm happy to answer any questions that I know the answer to! :-)
I also alway mark down on a piece of paper, the number of grams of my fed starter and the time. Sometimes I draw a line on the beaker with a sharpie. (though erasing it has destroyed some of the beakers original markers, sigh!)
Great. Really clear. Thanks so much. Looks like you maybe do an extra step more there, I'll try it.
The main thing is you want the starter to be very active and happy. La Brea feeds her starter three times before making bread.
My reading of your method is that you are in effect making two levains, a second from the first. Also using more than Robertson's 1tbs of starter each time The bread looks stupendous though, so it clearly works out. Amazing spring. Are you pleased with the flavour? Of all the loaves I've tried, this is the one I come back to over and over, it's delicious.
Yes, the flavor is awesome! I've had strangers (contractors) in my house taste it and say it is way better than the local farmers' market sourdoughs they buy. I've now made the standard country wheat, the rye, the olive with lemon zest and herbs, a couple of walnut ones, and some with whatever herbs I clip off from out my door: rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano. All have been amazing.
Ahh. Maybe. I just think I'm feeding it twice. Yep, I'm currently using maybe 20% of the starter, maybe? The taste is amazing. But I'm still learning.
these look just great. Congrats on getting a repeatable process down. That is one of the hallmarks of bakers who "know what they are doing".
My suggestion is to get another scale. One to stand on so that when you engulf all four of these, you'll be able to gauge the damage done ;-) .
Ha-ha! I freeze them and use them for various parties. Fortunately, I have a husband who weighs nothing and loves bread! I've been baking for fifty years, only not sourdoughs, so I do understand bread.
You did great. Those loaves look awesome and sure must taste great.
I really want a proofer.
it made all the difference for me.
Those look amazing! I really struggle to get consistency and had very mixed results...from good to bad...I also consider getting a proofer to make it more consistent especially in the winter. I don't want to promote any particular brands but the Brod & Taylor keeps coming up and seems to be highly recommended? Beautiful loaves!
Yes, that is the brand that I have. I like it as it folds up thin so it doesn't take too much room in my cabinet. It's very simple to use and works.
Thanks. Yes, since I got the proofer (and the bannetons, the cloche and been shaping twice :-) ), my sourdoughs come out the same every time, at least so far. I've probably done five bakes since I got it around Christmas. I've done the Tartine olive, a walnut, rye and plain country. I also did an olive from one of my other books and it was equally good.
I used to fail miserably with sourdoughs and couldn't understand. I'm a decent baker of breads.
My house in the winter is around 62 degrees. Doing ALL the things you're supposed to really helped. In particular, watching a video of someone shaping dough twice really got my attention.
Sounds very helpful piece of kit. Can you get 2 tartine boules ie full tartine recipe, in bannetons, in it at once?
Yes, but you have to stack them slightly.
Thanks for pic, really helpful.
That looks great...I saw that it also comes with a shelf but at extra piece to buy and looks like it is not really needed, if you stack the bannetons like in your picture.
I am in the process of reading Trevor J. Wilson's book and he has some amazing information about starters in there. So at the moment I try to get my starter to go on a regular 12 o-clock cycle being feed 8ish in the morning and evening. Once I think it is really regular and very active and reliable I shall put it in the fridge and do what you describe earlier in your post to avoid wastage and wake it up in the proofer like you do with feeds. I also find using rye in my starter really good and experiment with 25% rye and 75% white as Maurizio recommends on his Perfect Loaf blog as I find my starter does not get really active only on wholemeal or white..
Do you put the dough into the proofer during bulk fermentation and over night retard? I put a separate post out with a photo of loaf as I don't know where I go wrong whether I over-proof or not...I think I do but not sure whether is is that or just bad shaping and lack of tension. I think I will try the proofer, experiment with my starter to get that REALLY active and then see from there....thank you for your response!
I do put the dough in the proofer during the bulk fermentation but refrigerate overnight. Make sure that you shape twice, that made a difference for me. Here's the video that helped me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEG1BjWroT0
For my rye loaves I diluted the starter with half rye flour and half bread flour, then the next morning I fed it the same way, half rye and half bread flour. I was experimenting so this isn't the voice of a lot of experience. I was using a dark rye flour, as that was what I had. It behaved very well each time.
I made a realitavly cheap proofer out of a cooler, a temperature controller, and a heating element. So easy to set up and use, I even have two (one for proofing, and the other for storing my starters).
Yay, good for you!
The gringe on the boule on the far right in your picture looks more like a handle than an ear! WOW, how did that happen. You could carry that loaf home by the handle ;-)
That is some great looking breads.
Dan
Thanks!