How to make sourdough bread...

[MBMorgan]

Just found a literal treasure trove of videos by the San Francisco Baking Institute on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo-...AuPqyi_p5ZxNGg

[Breadhead]

I've watched many of their videos before. They are a great source for bread making information.👍

[Breadhead]

Yesterday's loaf...

600 grams flour (bread flour 80%/whole wheat flour 20%)
420 grams water = 70% hydration
12 grams salt

I prefermented 1/2 of the flour with an equal amount of water with 4 grams of my starter for 14 hours.

Then I added the rest of the flour, water and salt and finished making the dough. All came out nicely.👍

[Breadhead]

Thank you Huskee 👍 When are you going to make a loaf of bread?🤔

[Huskee]

"One of these days" My wife made a loaf in our bread machine the other day, yummy. I know this is not like full-on homemade in the slightest, but at least it's better than storebought chain bread.

[Breadhead]

That's a step in the right direction Huskee . Store bought bread has additives to extend shelf life.😡 Making bread is much easier than you think it is. The learning curve is short really. Look how well the guys have done on their first attempts from this thread. Go for it.👍

[MBMorgan]

""One of these days" My wife made a loaf in our bread machine the other day, yummy. I know this is not like full-on homemade in the slightest, but at least it's better than storebought chain bread."

Huskee - there's nothing wrong with bread machine bread ... many moons ago, I adapted my wife's awesome honey wheat bread recipe for our (long departed) bread machine. It was great! When I saw your comment, I rummaged around, found the old recipe, and I'll be converting it to a sourdough (and yes Baker's Percentage) version shortly.

[Breadhead]

Cool... honey wheat.🤔 Post that recipe on here when you get it converted.👍 Please.

[chudzikb]

I would be in on that as well. love that type of bread.

[Breadhead]

Another prefermented loaf today...👍



700 grams bread flour
490 grams water
14 grams salt

Preferment:
350 grams bread flour
350 grams water
​​​​​​ 4 grams sourdough starter

I mixed it together and let it sit on the counter at room temperature for 16 hours...

At 10:00am this morning I added:
350 grams bread flour
140 grams water

I mixed it together to a shaggy mass and autolypsed it for 30 minutes. Then I added the 14 grams of salt while doing slap and folds. I just pulled it out of the BGE at 3:20pm. All came out well.👍

[Thunder77]

😎👍👌!!

[Thunder77]

Does the long preferment give it more tangy flavor, or just a more complex flavor?

[Breadhead]

Thunder77 ... the tang comes from your starter. If you have created a high acidic acid type starter, extended fermentation will help it some. If you have a mild starter nothing you do will give it the tang you desire.

[RonB]

That's a sweet looking loaf. (We still need a thumbs up emoticon...)

BTW - the shaping video for the link I posted in reply # 390 is now up.

[Breadhead]

RonB ... Like this? 👍 Or this? 👌 Or this?👎

[RonB]

Like # 1. I have emoticons bookmarked, but they don't work with v-bulletin.

[Breadhead]

I use the emoji's from my iPad keyboard.👍

[Breadhead]

Prefermenting your dough...

Lately I've been playing with this process just out of curiosity. It's supposed to add more complexity of flavor.

What ive found is it does improve the flavor of your bread some. I also found that it makes the process of dough mixing easier and very convenient.

I used 1/2 of the flour in my recipe plus an equal weight of water and mixed in 1% of the weight of the flour of my sourdough starter - at 6:00pm. I cover the vessel with a shower cap and let it sit on my countertop for 12 to 16 hours to ferment/develop - at about 72°.

The next day... at 10:00am I mixed in the other half of the flour plus enough water to get the hydration percentage I wanted. Today... I'm going to bake 2 loaves. Both prefermented overnight but when I added the remaining ingredients i made 1-70% hydration and other 1-75% hydration.

After you add the remaining ingredients let it autolyse for 30 minutes and then proceed with the slap & folds.

You guys might want to give this a try.🤔

[Thunder77]

I used 1/2 of the flour in my recipe plus an equal weight of water and mixed in 1% of the weight of the flour of my sourdough starter .
Could you please clarify this? 1% of the weight of the flour of my sourdough starter. I'm confused.

[Breadhead]

Thunder77 ...

350 grams of flour... divided by 100 = 3.5 grams.
350 grams of water
4 grams of sourdough starter... 1% of the weight of the flour would be 3.5 grams. I rounded it up to 4 grams because that's what came off my teaspoon.😎

Given enough time... that's enough starter.

[Thunder77]

I got it now. I guess I was foggy from the two glasses of wine 🍷 😬

[MBMorgan]

Prefermenting your dough...

I couldn't agree more. I've basically settled on prefermenting as my standard technique. Not only is flavor improved, but it also fits my "schedule" (in quotes due to the fact that I'm retired and don't really have one ) better ... two short days of baking are much more pleasant than one long day.

[Breadhead]

That's what I'm thinking too. It's just easier! Now I'm going to preferment and then after final shaping I'm going to put it in the fridge to delay the final rise/fermentation.😘 You have the same exact schedule as I do.👌

[Thunder77]

My first not a boule loaf. It is absolutely delicious! Not quite as open crumb as I like, but I did cheat on this loaf. 😬

[Breadhead]

Nice... remember how you did that. I call that good toast bread. Butter & jam tends to leak out of the big holes of open and airy loaves. Plus... when your loaf doesn't turn out just right you can always say, I was making toast bread. What was your cheat?

[Thunder77]

My cheat was my bread machine. 😬 I let it do the initial mixing, then stopped it for the autolyse. After that I let it do the work of the initial kneading. I then followed it with stretch and folds.

[Thunder77]

It was probably the initial work in the bread machine that made the crumb more dense. I will use that method again when I want toast bread. 😎

[RonB]

A very nice looking batard Thunder77 . You crumb might be a bit more open if you scored almost parallel to the long axis instead of across it. Here's a video that explains it better than I can. He's scoring a bagette, but it's the same principle.

[Thunder77]

RonB, I agree with you. I noticed that loaf tore along the long axis in a couple spots. I will watch that video.

[Breadhead]

Scoring a batard... 1 long cut with your lame at a 35° angle. You want to create a flap not a crevice.

[Thunder77]

Showoff!! 😜

[Breadhead]

Learning to score/dock my dough properly was very difficult for me. After not getting nice ears for a long time I watched a video about scoring your dough and the guy said the angle of your knife is very important because "you want to create a flap, not a crevice. That was what I needed to hear.

[Breadhead]

Today's loaf...

600 grams flour = 100%
450 grams water = 75% hydration
12 grams salt = 2%

preferment for 16 hours

300 grams flour
300 grams water
4 grams sourdough starter

i mixed in the remainder of the ingredients and then folded the dough, no slap and folds. Then I final shaped it and let it final proof while I preheated the BGE. This was a very tasty loaf of sourdough bread👍

[MBMorgan]

Today's loaf...

Clearly, great minds think similarly:

500 g flour = 100%
375 g water = 75%
11 g salt = 2%

Divided my 200 g starter into two equal 100 g portions the evening before. One portion was simply fed and put back on the counter for another day. The other portion was fed enough to make a 500 g poolish (125 g bread flour, 125 g whole wheat, and 250 g water) for baking. Allowed to preferment for 16 hours.

Yesterday, I added in the remaining 250 g of bread flour, 125 g water at 105 deg., salt, and 3/8 tsp commercial yeast to give it a bit of a kick.

Too sticky for slap and fold, so I used a bench bucket for mixing and folding. Bulk fermented for about 3 hours then shaped and proofed in the banneton for another hour.

Baked at 475 deg for 30 minutes in the covered DO then another 15 minutes uncovered. You may notice that I baked seam side up again ... I like the rustic look.

Sourdough tanginess really came through thanks to the addition of more whole wheat flour (125 g) this time. This is definitely a keeper:

[Breadhead]

Nice... the preferment is brilliant, plus much easier. I love the dark color crust too.👍

[MBMorgan]

Breadhead - thanks! I'm pretty much sold on preferment, too. Now for my next challenge, I translated my wife's old honey-wheat bread recipe into baker's %... would you believe it's 112% hydration??? I think that one will need a mixer bowl.

[Breadhead]

MBMorgan ... can you post that honey-Wheat formula? At 112% hydration it will be like a pancake batter. Wheat flour absorbs more water than bread flour and wheat bread is always pretty dense. There must be lots of fat in it too.

[RonB]

That's a great looking boule MBMorgan

[MBMorgan]

Thanks, Ron ... taste-wise it's one of my favorites so far.

[Breadhead]

Football lunch with a great loaf of sourdough bread. Slice the bread thin. Shave the turkey breast thin. Slice the tomatoes thin. Put lettuce in freezer for 10 minutes before using, so it's crisp. Munster cheese is great with turkey. Some mayo and light on the mustard. Mmmmmmmm.😜

[Thunder77]

Two very enthusiastic thumbs up!! 👍 👍

[Breadhead]

A batard... Prefermented, 75% hydration. Baked in the BGE with the SS mixing bowl for steam.