I've been chatting with Jacob at Stellaculinary.com. I told him I wanted to do whatever I had to do to improve my sourdough game and learn to make as good a loaf of sourdough bread I possibly can. His response to me was to quit following all of the recipes you see online. He said most of those recipes are written for beginning bakers that have few skills and even less patience. He said that when he try's to publish a sourdough recipe that will really produce a great loaf of bread... People say oh my, that's to complicated and it takes way to long.
His contention is that the least amount of starter you use in your dough the better your results will be. He says high volume bakeries use a high % of starter or yeast because they need a quick rise and fast proofing to maximize production. He says the really well informed artisan baker's use as little starter as their schedule will allow to give their customers a quality loaf of bread that they can't get anywhere else.
My normal sourdough recipe I had been using for years was...
500 grams of bread flour
200 grams of starter... Which I keep at 100% hydration,
300 grams of water
12 grams of salt
This recipe is a 66.66% hydration loaf.
I've used that same recipe to create some awesome loaves... But I wanted to try what he said would give me much better bread. He knows I am a BBQ guy and so is he, at home. He said look... Reducing your starter takes exactly the same amount of hands on labor/time as it does to make a fast rising dough, so you are spending the same amount of labor and getting a lower quality product. Then he said... Low starter content causes a slow rise and a longer proofing time, NO Extra labor! It's a planning to wait step. Then here is what he said to me pushed me to decide I have to try this. He said... Just think of a low starter content with a slow fermentation and a slow proofing process as a low and slow cook of a pork butt. He said there is very little labor to either... You do the prep work and wait a long time. He said a really good loaf of sourdough bread take about the same amount of time as a big pork but... 12 to 16 hours.
So... I mixed up a batch of dough with just 100 grams of starter. I added 50 grams of bread flour and 50 grams of water to my normal recipe and left the salt at 12 grams. Remember my starter is at 100% hydration so by eliminating that 100 grams of starter I had to add flour and water to keep the recipe the same.
550g of bread flour
100g of starter
350g of water
12g of salt
That's the same recipe as the one above but less starter.
That boule took 15 hours from the time I starter mixing it until it was out of the oven... My BGE. The first rise was 8 hours. Then I added the salt and did 4 stretch and folds 30 minutes apart. Then I did final shaping with a few tension tugs and put it in the banneton. The final rise and proofing took about 4 hours. Baking time about 30 minutes.
The end result was a profoundly different loaf of bread than I had been baking for years. The crumb was open and much softer than my normal loaves. I liked it.
So... I decided I was going to reduce my stater again. Last night I mixed a batch of dough that was...
575g of bread flour
375g of water
50g of starter
12g of salt
Again I added equal amounts of flour and water I took away from the recipe when I removed that 50 grams of starter. This loaf took a little longer than the 100 grams of starter loaf but not to much. L
So... For you sourdough baker's out there in BBQ land, that need something to do during your loooong Low and Slow pork butt or Brisket cooks, give it a try. You wil like it.
Here's a picture of the 100 gram loaf..
His contention is that the least amount of starter you use in your dough the better your results will be. He says high volume bakeries use a high % of starter or yeast because they need a quick rise and fast proofing to maximize production. He says the really well informed artisan baker's use as little starter as their schedule will allow to give their customers a quality loaf of bread that they can't get anywhere else.
My normal sourdough recipe I had been using for years was...
500 grams of bread flour
200 grams of starter... Which I keep at 100% hydration,
300 grams of water
12 grams of salt
This recipe is a 66.66% hydration loaf.
I've used that same recipe to create some awesome loaves... But I wanted to try what he said would give me much better bread. He knows I am a BBQ guy and so is he, at home. He said look... Reducing your starter takes exactly the same amount of hands on labor/time as it does to make a fast rising dough, so you are spending the same amount of labor and getting a lower quality product. Then he said... Low starter content causes a slow rise and a longer proofing time, NO Extra labor! It's a planning to wait step. Then here is what he said to me pushed me to decide I have to try this. He said... Just think of a low starter content with a slow fermentation and a slow proofing process as a low and slow cook of a pork butt. He said there is very little labor to either... You do the prep work and wait a long time. He said a really good loaf of sourdough bread take about the same amount of time as a big pork but... 12 to 16 hours.
So... I mixed up a batch of dough with just 100 grams of starter. I added 50 grams of bread flour and 50 grams of water to my normal recipe and left the salt at 12 grams. Remember my starter is at 100% hydration so by eliminating that 100 grams of starter I had to add flour and water to keep the recipe the same.
550g of bread flour
100g of starter
350g of water
12g of salt
That's the same recipe as the one above but less starter.
That boule took 15 hours from the time I starter mixing it until it was out of the oven... My BGE. The first rise was 8 hours. Then I added the salt and did 4 stretch and folds 30 minutes apart. Then I did final shaping with a few tension tugs and put it in the banneton. The final rise and proofing took about 4 hours. Baking time about 30 minutes.
The end result was a profoundly different loaf of bread than I had been baking for years. The crumb was open and much softer than my normal loaves. I liked it.
So... I decided I was going to reduce my stater again. Last night I mixed a batch of dough that was...
575g of bread flour
375g of water
50g of starter
12g of salt
Again I added equal amounts of flour and water I took away from the recipe when I removed that 50 grams of starter. This loaf took a little longer than the 100 grams of starter loaf but not to much. L
So... For you sourdough baker's out there in BBQ land, that need something to do during your loooong Low and Slow pork butt or Brisket cooks, give it a try. You wil like it.
Here's a picture of the 100 gram loaf..
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