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April 3, 2012 - 4:55pm
Isand66's picture
Isand66

San Francisco Style Sourdough 4.5 adapted from Dave Synder

After reading about Dave's never-ending quest to create the perfect San Francisco Sourdough bread I felt it was time to give his latest recipe a whirl.  I have never been to SF so I don't know exactly what the final bread should taste like other than by his description.

I tried very hard to follow his exact recipe but alas my string of good luck continued and my refrigerator decided to mimic an oven.  I was forced to let the bulk ferment dough rest in my mini beer/assorted alcohol refrigerator instead of the shaped loaves.  I let the dough bulk ferment over night and the next afternoon while I waited for my refrigerator to be fixed I let the dough rest at room temperature for a couple of hours.  I then formed the loaves into Boules and let them rise in their bannetons inside my oven with a bowl of hot water for 3.5 hours.

The dough was nice an elastic and puffed up very nicely.  Unfortunately I didn't realize that the risen loaves would be too big to fit in my oven at the same time.  I had to adjust the loaves while the oven was nice and hot and subsequently one of the loaves was hanging off the baking stone for a few minutes causing it to sag slightly.

The final result was an excellent crust and a nice open and light crumb.  I did however discover the first loaf I cut into had a mysterious hole running through a big part of the bread, almost like someone or thing was trying to dig its way to China.

Overall the bread turned out excellent.  I would have expected it to be slightly more sour though and I'm not sure why it was so mild.  It could be due to the fairly new converted starter I used.  I turned my 65% AP starter to Dave's multi flour starter at 50% so maybe it wasn't mature enough.

You can find Dave's recipe  here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27982/san-franciscostyle-sourdough-bread-two-ways-3252012.

Thanks again Dan for an excellent recipe!

April 3, 2012 - 10:49am
jamesjr54's picture
jamesjr54

Seeded Loaf

Top: The boule

Bottom: A sloppy turkey and jack w/mayo and dijon on seeded sourdough

Made a modified sourdough (with 1/8 tsp active dry yeast for timing) with toasted sesame, poppy and sunflower seeds. Came out great. Thanks to TFL'er Jay and the "The Basic Problem with my sourdough" thread contributors for guidance on my starter.

Formula

Levain:

102 g KAF AP

108 G water

43 g 100% hydration starter

5 g Rye

Fermented overnight (12 hrs minimum) at room temp.

Final dough:

417 g KAP AP

100 g Whole Wheat flour

310 g water

All of the levain (258 g)

1/8 tsp active dry yeast

13 g salt

20 g each sunflower, poppy and sesame seeds, toasted and cooled

Comes out to ~70% hydration, but feels wetter to me.

Mix all but salt, seeds and yeast. Autolyses 1 hr. Add salt, seeds (cooled) and yeast. Knead 10-12 minutes until moderately developed. Ferment 2-3 hours w/2 S&Fs.

Divide and preshape for 2 boules. Rest 20-25 minutes. Shape as boules. Proof for 90-120 minutes (watch the dough, not the clock ;-)).

Preheat oven 500F for 30 last 30 minutes of proof. 

Bake in cast iron covered dutch oven 20 mins covered; 20 minutes uncovered until 190F internal. (I use a parchment paper "sling" to load the dough, which I remove for the last 10 minutes.)

 

 

April 3, 2012 - 6:41am
Syd's picture
Syd

San Francisco Style Sourdough


 

Leaven

  • 20g starter @ 100% hydration
  • 100g water
  • 15g light rye flour*
  • 85g all purpose flour

Ferment @ 29C (84F) for 9 hrs. 

 Sponge

  • All of the leaven
  • 250g water
  • 250g bread flour  (12.4% protein)

 Allow to sponge @ 28C (82F) for 3 hours.

 Main Dough 

  • All of the sponge
  • 65g water
  • 250g bread flour (12.4% protein)

 Autolyse for 20 mins.  Now add:

  • 10g salt

Knead until gluten moderately to well developed.  You need to have the gluten fairly well developed because the bulk ferment is very short. One hour bulk with folds at 20 and 40 mins respectively.  Pre-shape.  Rest 5.  Shape. Place in cloth-lined banneton.  Three-quarter proof.(About 1.5 hours).  Retard in fridge for 7 - 9 hours.  Remove from fridge and allow to final proof (about 1 hour).

Pre-heat oven to 230C (450F).  Slash.  Load onto baking stone.  Immediately reduce heat to 205C (400F), convection off.  Bake for 20 mins with steam.  Remove steaming appartatus when the top of the bread starts to show signs of colour.   Reduce heat to 190C (375F), convection on.  Bake a further 25- 30 mins.  (You might have to experiment with baking temps/times.  I baked this at a lower temp than I usually do for my regular sourdoughs. You don't want to have a deeply caramelized crust like for that of a miche, but rather a reddish-brown crust with nice blistering).  

Notes

  • hydration is 69%
  • for the leaven build I use a very light rye with all the bran removed (for all practical purposes, this is an all-white loaf)
  • this loaf improves with flavour on the second day and gets sourer

Taste

 
It has a distinct but, what I would categorize as, mild sour flavour.  This was my third attempt at this recipe and was the least sour of the three.  This could be, in part, due to the fact that the weather was slightly cooler and the temperatures were slightly lower than the temperatures when I first formulated this recipe. It could also be due to the fact that I changed the composition of flours.  Despite the open looking nature of the crumb shot, it was actually quite firm to the bite.  This is undoubtedly the result of the high protein flour.  The crust was chewy, too.

 

Previous attempts


On my first attempt I used 11.4% protein flour for both the sponge and the main dough.  I also gave it a 50 min autolyse and added 3g of diastatic malt.  The main dough was very sour tasting and got sticky quickly.  I attribute this to too much enzymatic activity and the enzymes breaking down the gluten.  The resultant loaf had a rather low profile and a moderate to strong sour flavour. 

On my second attempt I considered using the same flour but lowering the hydration to counter some of the stickiness. Instead, I kept the hydration the same and used a higher protein flour for the main dough. The result was similar to the first attempt although the main dough wasn't as sticky.  The profile was still rather low, though. 

For this try, I ditched the diastatic malt, reduced the autolyse to 20 mins and used a 12.4% protein level flour for both the sponge and the main dough.  This resulted in the best profile but the mildest flavour of the three.  

I want to work on this one a little more. For my next attempt I want to keep everything the same but let it proof for only an hour in the bannetton, then give it double the time (about 16 hours) in the fridge. I am hoping this will get me where I want to be:  a moderately sour, chewy loaf with a reddish-brown, blistered crust.  

Finally, a different angled view of the whole boule (and a gratuitous crumb shot)  for Varda, lest she again accuse me of minimalism (or was it brevity)? :)

Syd

April 3, 2012 - 6:12am
hansjoakim's picture
hansjoakim

Signs of spring

It is finally getting a bit warmer here, but nights and mornings are still bitterly cold. We have winds from north, and they chill you to the bone if you're not well packed in. The weather has been beautiful the last couple of days, with clear blue skies and some warmth coming from the sun. Still, things don't thaw up before lunch time, and summer is clearly still a few months away.

I live next to a farmer, and he has kept sheep the entire winter on a small patch of grass just next to our house. By the looks of it, they're enjoying the sun just as much as us two-legged ones are. I love the view these days, here a photograph from Saturday, taken while I was waiting for a loaf to finish baking...:

Just this morning, I noticed what I guess must be the first lamb of the season on the farm - a cute and fragile newborn that's been tumbling around next to his mother all day today. I feel this is truly a wonderful time of year - bursting with vibrant colours and scents, and there are signs of life, birth and re-birth everywhere. It all feels so much more intense these first few weeks after the long, dreadful winter.

Although I try to spend as much time out in the sun as I possibly can, the cold, frostbitten weekend mornings are still excellent for dough handling and bread baking. I've baked two multigrain rye loaves this weekend; the first, the boule below, was an improvised 50% sourdough rye, with some flaxseeds, sunflower seeds and rolled oats added to it. The hydration was a bit over 90%, so this loaf has kept fresh for several days, just improving in flavour.

 

The second loaf was one of my old favourites: Hamelman's flaxseed rye from the Modern Baking website. I baked this regularly before, and I can't believe it's been over a year since I last tasted a sample of this one (shame on me). High time to get everything together in the mixing bowl (clockwise from top: old bread + flaxseed soaker, rye sourdough, bread flour and whole rye flour)!

Usually I scale and bake these formulas as roughly 1.2 kg loaves (they keep so well, one might as well bake a large one while at it), but this time I settled for a smaller 800 gram batard. The dough comes together quickly, and is easy to work with.

I was very happy with the result; a bread with a deep, full-bodied rye flavour, and a crisp crust. The good thing about smaller loaves, is that you can bake them more often ;-)

 Have a wonderful Easter everyone!

Edit: Below is a copy of the formula for the flax seed rye bread above. Hamelman's original recipe in Modern Baking can be found here.

April 2, 2012 - 9:42pm
jdchurchill's picture
jdchurchill

30% whole wheat sourdough 4-1-12

ayo tfl-ers

dig my bread this week.  twas a good week:

is this photo too big?  i changed the dimensions to (800X535) what size do you guys make your pictures for this type of stuff?

and i know all you bread-nerds dig the crumb shots so here you go:

and even closer up:

omg its so nice and soft.  i am so pleased.  i think lately i have not been letting the final proof go long enough so this one went about 8hrs, but i probably could've gone even longer.   maybe this week i will try the same recipe, but do final proof for closer to 12 hrs.  anybody has an opinion about this?  ok guys thanks for looking and reading, take care.  -jdc

April 2, 2012 - 5:45pm
dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Dabrownman Butchers Sweetbird’s Lovely Buckwheat, Apple and Apple Cider, Buckwheat Groat Bread with Insane Thoughts and Deeds

Had to make a couple of changes to Sweetbird’s hugely fantastic, far better than magnificent, Buckwheat Bread recipe that can be found here:

 http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27784/buckwheatpear-sourdough-pear-hard-cider#comments

 First off we, my apprentice and I, used aWashingtonstate hard apple cider called Spire.  It was their mountain apple draft variety and used 245 g in the dough instead of 230.  We also; did not use any cider in the SD levain and used the excess apple water squeezed from the re-hydrated dried apples and frozen fermented apples from the YW plus some water.  Also used Whole Rye and WW with the Buckwheat in the first SD levain build since our starter had them and we think these grains make better bread when used in levains.   I wanted to taste the cider so I drank 90 g just to make sure it wasn’t spoiled or otherwise not up to the task at hand.

 My apprentice, bless her heart, substituted an Apple / Orange Yeast Water levain instead of SAF instant yeast since we don’t stock any commercial yeasts in the pantry, autolysed 1 hour instead of 30 minutes, sprouted the buckwheat groats instead of scalding them (after making red and 2 white malts she’s into sprouting it seems) and then put them all inside since she reasoned enough stuff would be hanging out in the end anyway.

Because the mix – ins were so wet (compared to sweetbird’s), I added 30 g of BW and 30 g of BF to them and let it autolyse while the dough was doing the same thing, added chopped pistachio nuts and chopped cooked buckwheat soba noodles, added fermented apple pieces saved when refreshing the YW that were previously frozen, re-hydrated the dried apples in apple juice.

 My apprentice also cut the salt to 10 g from 11 since the pistachios seemed salty to her when tasted for poison and she was a little bloaty this morning, added 15 g home made white diastatic malt to the vital wheat gluten, and finally, subbed bread flour for the AP which birdsong recommended doing after her bake.

 So, not much at all really major changed in the scheme of things we call bread.  We agree with sweetbrird that the dough needs 2 S & F sessions at 40 and 80 minutes and another to pre-shape at 2 hours.  Do a quick S & F to form into a ball.  Drag the skin tight and put into your large floured benetton.  Place into a plastic bag and let it final proof for at least an hour or so.  You can get your oven ready at 500 F with your steaming method in place while it proofs.  My final proof was 1 ½ hours about twice as long as sweetbird’s and it was not over proofed.

 The bread was turned out onto parchment on a peel and slashed with my patented ‘angry face with really nasty eyes design,’ steamed for 20 minutes at 430 F, then the steam was removed.  The bread then baked on the stone for about another 45 minutes until it reached 203 F and then left in oven for 12 minutes with the door ajar and oven off.

Will post the recipe later if somone wants it.  This boule finished weight was 1,305 g.

April 1, 2012 - 2:47pm
varda's picture
varda

High Hydration Miche with Sifted Whole Wheat Flour

The other day I posted on preliminary miche attempts.   Due to problems with handling high hydration dough, the results were fairly disreputable.   The nice crumb did give me hope that I was on the right track.   Today I tried again, taking extra care not to fumble the dough.   While the dough throughout had the consistency of a water balloon I handled with care and got a better result.  This has a crispy crust and complex flavor which I don't really know how to describe, but it is definitely memorable.    It is made with 40% hand-sifted whole wheat flour, which I think I'm safe in describing as 90% extraction and the rest AP and Bread Flour.    For a simple formula - predominantly wheat - this bread achieves flavor that I usually can only coax out of multigrains and/or added ingredients.    I think it's all about the fermentation which is aided by the high hydration.  

I picked a difficult bread to try out a crescent moon score, but here it is:

Formula and method:

Starter

 

4:45 PM

9:15 PM

 

 

 

 

 

Seed

28

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KAAP

15

 

120

135

 

 

 

 

KABF

 

47

 

47

 

 

 

 

Dark Rye

1

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

Whole Rye

 

3

5

8

5%

 

 

 

Water

12

34

145

191

100%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

382

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final

Starter

Total

Percent

 

 

 

 

Hi Ex

303

 

303

41%

 

 

 

 

KAAP

150

96

246

33%

 

 

 

 

KABF

150

33

183

25%

 

 

 

 

Whole Rye

 

6

6

1%

 

 

 

 

Dark Rye

 

1

1

0%

 

 

 

 

Water

480

135

615

83%

 

 

 

 

Salt

14

 

14

1.9%

 

 

 

 

Starter

270

 

 

18%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1367

 

 

 

 

 

Starter factor

0.7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave starter overnight after second feed for 10 hours 45 minutes before using

Sift Whole Foods Whole Wheat flour to around 90% extraction

Autolyse flour and water for 45 minutes

Mix in salt and starter for 20 minutes at KA Speed 1, 20 minutes KA Speed 2

Dough should cohere into a loose ball by end of mix

Do a quick stretch and fold in bowl right after

BF for 3 hours

Stretch and fold in bowl

BF for 30 minutes

Stretch and fold on counter by pulling out in all directions flat (around 2.5 ft diameter)

and then folding into center

BF for 30 minutes

Remove from bowl and preshape into a loose ball

Rest 15 minutes

Shape into a ball by loosely turning corners into the center

Dough is very squashy like a water balloon

Place seam side up into a basket covered with tightly woven well-floured cotton cloth

Proof for 1 hour 40 minutes until dough starts to lose spring

Very gently turn dough onto peel with wheat bran under parchment paper

Slide onto stone

Bake with steam at 450F for 20 minutes, without steam for 35 minutes

Leave in oven for 5 minutes with door closed and heat off to finish

April 1, 2012 - 10:57am
dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Getting Ready for Tomorrow's Sweetbird Buckwheat Apple SD Bake with Buckwheat SD Pancakes Today

Was getting ready for tomorrow's Sweetbird Buckwheat and Apple SD Bread bake and for once was organized enough to pinch off some of the buckwheat starter and make some lovely SD pancakes for breakfast.  I took 30 g of refreshed buckwheat starter and added;  60 G of bread flour, 60 g of buckwheat flour and 120 g of milk.  After mixing I let it stand on the counter for 1 hour and then in the fridge overnight for 8 hours.  This morning I took it out of the fridge and let it stand on the counter for 1 hour before mixing in 1 tsp of honey, a large pinch of salt,  1/2 of a large beaten egg, 1/16 tsp each baking powder and baking soda.  You forget how much you like SD buckwheat pancakes when you don't have them for years and years.  This recipe made 2 nice sized pancakes.

 

 

April 1, 2012 - 10:51am
Salilah's picture
Salilah

Sicilian Bread

In the middle of March, we had a long weekend / short week in Sicily - great fun!

Varied breads - we had two completely different Pane Nero de Castelvetrano (one from a baker in Marsala, one from a supermarket in Sciacca) and one Pugliese I think (well, it looked like it) from a baker in Sciacca

This is the pugliese - well, 3/4 of it, with the supermarket Pane Nero behind it...  It was my favourite bread - light, yellowy, great crust, I loved the shape (Chris said why didn't I do a square bread - but it won't work very well in La Cloche!)...  Excellent toasted, drizzled with olive oil and with fresh tomatoes on top (+ garlic rubbed if wanted)

This is the supermarket Pane Nero - a long oblong, I guess baked in a pan.  Sesame seeds on the top.  Chris liked this one the best - it tasted like a good wholemeal, it was brown, quite a rich complex taste but boring crumb (well, I thought so)

The crumb shot of the two breads!  I must admit I looked at the Pugliese one and thought "My pugliese looks quite a lot like that!" which was very exciting <grin>

Now I really thought I had a photo of the other bread - but I can't see it!  It was a boule shape, it wasn't a very dark crust, whitish crumb, quite a nice taste but to be honest, nothing special, and we tended to go back to our own favourites for breakfast...

So I'll leave you with another photo instead - the ruins at Selinunte

April 1, 2012 - 10:32am
Salilah's picture
Salilah

SFSD in Cambridge...

I decided this week to have a go at the most recent (?) SF Sourdough posted by DMSnyder (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27892/my-san-francisco-sourdough-quest-take-4)

Must admit that the timing on this was the most difficult - I couldn't work out how to get all these 16 and 20 hour chunks in!

Ended up with the following timings:
* Starter refresh - should be 16h then overnight fridge, I did around 11 hours then overnight 11h in fridge, then 2 hours out
* stiff levain - should be 16h room temperature - I mixed this around 10am and put in the fridge at 9pm (didn't fancy getting up in the middle of the night); out again Sat around lunchtime
* mixed dough and autolyse for 2 hours
* added salt, levain, ferment should be 3.5-4h, mine was around 4 hours
* should prove for 1-2h, then cold retard overnight - I ran out of time again, so shaped and into the fridge straight away for overnight 15 hours (we were trying to get a repeater router to work ,so the bread had to wait!)
* should be 3h final proof warm & humid - mine was in the airing cupboard so very warm, only 2h and it was seriously well over the top of the banneton!

30mins on 240C in La Cloche, then 20m at 220C...  Lots of singing when it came out, cracked crust, darker than I usually do...

Pictures (sorry for delay, my phone ran out of charge!!)

Views inside the kitchen - poor lighting but gives an idea

Did I mention it sung?  Really chunky cracks:

And a view of the crumb (really must stop using phone for these!)

I decided to try some natural light this morning - but no table outside as yet, it's too early!  So - I put the bread on the car <grin>

Gives a better idea of the colour - as I said, darker than I usually do

The crumb - shows quite a deep crust

And a crumb closeup:

(sorry re shadows and a bit gritty)

Final pic - on the sundial, as a change from the car:

Taste - very nice, I agree with a previous comment on David's blog about a "cool mouth feel".  My only slight disappointment was that it was not sour at all - despite all the long rests in the fridge - I think probably I need to leave the levain / stiff levain out longer?  But a good looking, tasty loaf, and enjoyable to try this with these stages.  I'll try again, but need to think about timing...

S

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