Simple sourdough - a work in progress
I'm a simple person and I'm driven by simple hopes and desires. So while I may drool over the pictures of impossibly gorgeous pastries that get posted with alarming regularity on this site, I have no inclination to emulate those bakers. All I want is to master bread with essentially three ingredients: flour, water, and salt. And that's not so simple. For the last several weeks I've been cranking out alarming quantities of the stuff and slowly tweaking the few parameters available when the ingredient list is so short: dough hydration, starter hydration, and percentage of flour in the starter. (Oh and also mix of flour and proofing strategies.) I finally put together a decent spreadsheet to help me with this tinkering. And now I can just put in the hydrations, and percentage starter (and flour mix of course) and I'm off to the races. While I started down this road with Hamelman's formulae, I find I'm unwilling to go back to that right now, as I find I prefer higher hydrations and starter percentages.
The first loaf baked after 1.5 hours final proof. The second which retarded overnight, had a bit more spring.
Basic Sourdough bread | baked on Jan 17, 18, 2011 | ||||
Starter | 67% starter | first feeding | second feeding | total | |
starter seed | 245 | plus 3.5 hrs | plus 12 hrs | ||
Heckers | 138 | 50 | 45 | 233 | 94% |
Hodgson's Mill Rye | 2 | 5 | 7 | 3% | |
spelt | 7 | 7 | 3% | ||
water | 98 | 35 | 32 | 165 | |
hydration | 67% | ||||
total grams | 412 | ||||
Final dough | Starter | percents | |||
Bob's Red Mill White | 500 | Heckers | 124 | ||
Hodgson's Mill Rye | 30 | HM | 3.7 | ||
KA White whole wheat | 70 | spelt | 3.7 | ||
water | 439 | 88 | 72% | ||
total starter / flour in starter | 219 | 132 | |||
salt | 13 | 1.8% | |||
hydration of starter | 67% | ||||
baker's % of starter | 18% | ||||
Estimated pounds of bread | 2.53 | ||||
Mix flour and water | plus 30 minutes | ||||
Mix salt and starter | plus 50 minutes | ||||
Stretch and fold | plus 35 minutes | ||||
Stretch and fold | plus 65 minutes | ||||
Cut and preshape | plus 30 minutes | ||||
Shape and place seam side up in brotforms. Cover with plastic Heat cup of water for 2 minutes in microwave. Place one in microwave, other in back of refrigerator wrapped in a towel | plus 45 minutes | ||||
Turn oven to 500 w. stone | plus 15 minutes | ||||
Remove basket from microwave and place next to stove - put loaf pans plus towels in oven | plus 30 minutes | ||||
Turn heat down to 450 slash and place loaf in oven | plus 15 minutes | ||||
Remove steam pans | plus 15 minutes | ||||
Place loaf on rack | |||||
After 19 hours remove second loaf from refrigerator, and preheat oven, stone, towels and bake as above. |
Second loaf:
Slices from first loaf: