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San Francisco Sourdough has always been a sort of holy grail for me, based entirely on its reputation. I have only previously tasted my own few attempts to bake it, drawn from the many SFSD recipes available online and in books and I have judged the results  to have varied between "OK" and "not too bad", so I was delighted to see David Snyder's blog entry on 7th March 2019 and his SFSD formula which is fairly closely derived from that of the original bakers. I had to try it.

Yesterday was one of our favorite days of the year- St Paddy’s Day.  Even though part of my family came from Cork - the home of Beamish Beer and where Jameson’s rule, everyone can be Irish for a day.  They say that God created Guinness so that the Irish wouldn’t take over the world but for one day they do!  I hope all of you enjoyed the day as an Irishman won the Player’s Golf Championship – Rory MclIroy.  If an Irish American couldn’t win it, at least an Irishman did …… he is only 29 years old and going into the golf hall of fame for sure!

OK… Can we all forget about the crust and focus on the crumb instead? I was hoping that the weak dough would gain some strength itself with time… Yet it didn’t. Oops…

50/50 Red Fife & Spelt Walnuts SD

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

150g      50%       Whole red fife flour

I tried Mike Giraudo's recipe, posted by dmsnyder.  It was as follows

• 250g starter (60% hydration)
• 600g water
• 1000g flour
• 20g salt

Makes two 875g loafs

 Mix all ingredients 2 minutes on low speed until mixed, then mix 9 more minutes on next level speed. Then a quick stretch and fold, rest dough 30 mins, then stretch and fold one more time. 

 Then cover and let dough rest for about 8 hours at room temp. 

Our Sourdough Bread Baking Project was a resounding success!!

No story! Just needed to use up some of my stash! ?

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Seed Soaker

50 g Sesame seeds (I used half black and half white)

30 g Amaranth seeds

30 g Millet seeds

70 Sunflower seeds

30 g Buckwheat groats

175 g room temperature water

30 g plain yogurt

Main dough

600 g strong baker’s unbleached flour

150 g high extraction Selkirk flour (175 g berries)

150 g high extraction Red Fife flour (175 g berries)

It has just become clear to me that extraction rates of flour are not always comparable.

When someone says that straight flour (white flour, AP flour, whatever) is about 72% extraction, that means 72% of the whole grain was kept as flour.  28% was tossed out as animal feed, including the bran, germ, and some wasted endosperm.

I think I have finally achieved what I wanted to do for about the three years that I have been sourdoughing. I think I have achieved the oven spring I wanted, and by all means yall be the judge. 

I took the very same recipe that I had for my third attempt with two notable differences. 

I made this seeded multigrain a few days back.  I consider it a success but I would make changes next time.   It was light and soft (short from the oil) but not at all sour, and I'm not sure the tiny hard seeds are even digestible. Next time I might sprout and/or grind the seeds first, and use less oil (it was too shortened).

Preferment:

Hi David, I decided to try this bread as per the recipe you posted as per Ann Rogers. I halved the recipe to make one boule. And I stuck to all purpose for this bread. I made a stiff starter (probably around 62%) - which I think fermented a bit too long in my oven with the light on - about 12 hours, however, I went for it. It went into the fridge for about 12 hours, baked at 475 F in my Staub DO lid on for 20 minutes, then lid off, dropped the temp to 450F with convection on for 12 minutes. I'll send a crumb shot when it cools. 

Here is a 2nd shot of the bread, cooling....