How to make sourdough bread...

[MBMorgan]

Hmmm... Mr Forkish & Chef Jacob both call for lots of grams of flour to be wasted.😡 Both of them use huge quantities of flour and water to build a new starter/levain. I really don't get it.🙈

Ken Forkish on the Field Blend #2 recipe wants you to use 100 grams of your regular starter/levain to develop the levain/starter for this dough. He adjusted the flour content some and the hydration content some, but if you go by the FINAL DOUGH recipe and the bakers percentage, where it says the starter/levain is 20% of the weight of the flour... everything gets easier. If I were going to make that dough I would treat the LEVAIN on page 159 as a pre-ferment. I would reduce everything by 50%.

• Mature, active levain 50g
• White flour 200g
• Whole wheat flour 50g
• Water 200g

That way... I'm only going to throw away 140g of levain.

Keep your FINAL DOUGH recipe and the bakers percentage exactly the same and keep your Levain at 20% of the weight of the flour and all is exactly as Mr Forkish suggested.

I have no idea why he made his pre-ferment/Levain, as he calls it, so huge.

I recently spent some time reverse-engineering the Forkish Levain and discovered that all he really does is this:

• Starting the Levain:
  • For the first 4 days, maintain a 100% hydration Poolish using only WW flour. Dump 75% each day and feed.
  • On day 5, dump 85% and then introduce white BF so that the BF/WW flour ratio is 80/20. Adjust hydration to 82%.
• Maintaining the Levain:
  • Every day, dump 90% then feed with an 80/20 mix of BF/WW. Maintain 82% hydration.

The spreadsheet spells it all out ... AND ... in rows 28 - 35 shows how to start and maintain a much more manageable 200 gram Forkish-style Levain:

[Ptrbve]

I made my first sourdough bread about a month ago. I was happy with it. However it was beginners luck. My next few tasted good but did not rise correctly or look as good. I have used the starter for ciabatta also and been pleased. It makes a great pizza! Tonights sourdough tastes great and is my best looking and springing (in my opinion,
anyway). Thank you Breadhead.
Still room for improvement, though!

[scottranda]

I've had my bread issues recently. Deflation! This week, I had some issues where I started it the night before, but forgot I was going to be gone the whole day. So, the next morning, I woke up, put in the rest of the ingredients (minus the salt) and had a 9 hour autolyse in the fridge (slow things down). Then, I added salt, I formed the dough and shaped it and put it in my banneton for an overnight. Woke up and the yeast must've been active bc the dough rose a decent amount in the fridge. I was afraid of overproofing, so without it passing the poke test (and the dough cold), I put it in the oven. Deflation. My ego too.

Anything I should've done differently? I was really thrown off by not being home to make the bread. I did my best given the circumstances.

[Willy]

scottranda I have been doing my SD overnight in the fridge--straight after mixing (with salt!), kneading, and doing stretch and folds. I have come to think (YMMV!!!!) that the "secret" is to use cold water and never let the yeast have a chance to get started. It's the bacteria and the natural enzymes in the flour, not the yeast, that make most of the flavors. I observe that once my dough is beginning to rise well, refrigeration temperatures will not be able to slow it down enough to last overnight without over-proofing. Now, once morning comes and I take the cold dough out of the fridge, it will take hours for it to start to rise again. I have even put the covered dough bowl out in the late morning sun to kick-start it--at which point it WILL take off quickly once warmed.

If I do the pre-ferment at room temperature and then try to refrigerate the formed loaf (in banneton), the refrigerated loaf will have over-risen by AM. Also, I am most definitely not concerned about salt inhibiting the rise. Salt will (I read) slow things down (sometimes a good thing), but it WILL NOT stop the rise. I do not see any difference between slowing the initial rise or the final rise. The microbes are chewing sugars and producing tasty byproducts the whole time and they cannot tell if the dough has risen once or twice. I am convinced (well, almost) that the total fermentation time is all that really matters.

Again, YMMV. Happy bread baking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Breadhead]

I just cancelled my Pit Club account. Someone ought to takeover control of this thread. The best person for that duty would be Mbmorgan in my opinion. I'm quite pleased all of you guys enjoyed this thread and love making bread like I do.

[Thunder77]

A tribute to Breadhead. I have been busy the last two weekends, and unable to make bread. Also, I really haven't had the heart to bake since losing our mentor. But my family has been clamoring for bread, so I baked today.

[RonB]

That's a great lookin' boule Thunder77

[scottranda]

My bread never has the "flaps" when I score and bake it. Am I scoring wrong or not shaping perfectly? Sometimes I have high hopes it will have the nice ears, but just bleeds open after I bake it.

[Thunder77]

Try using your scoring blade at an angle to the bread, not straight into it. Also, Right before I put the bread in the banneton to proof, I use my bench knife to make some really tight tension pulls, so that the top of the boule almost, but not quite tears. And the steam phase is important, of course.

[Pequod]

A tribute to Breadhead. I have been busy the last two weekends, and unable to make bread. Also, I really haven't had the heart to bake since losing our mentor. But my family has been clamoring for bread, so I baked today.

Nice boule! So...I don't think Breadhead is gone. Looky here.

[Potkettleblack]

A bit of work in process. MIL in town tomorrow, so making Forkish's walnut bread. Interesting to work the dough with all the nuts in it. Can really feel the pincers method working to distribute them evenly.

[Potkettleblack]

First loaf is out of the oven on the cooling rack. This is the bowl one. The one in is the baneton loaf.

[Potkettleblack]

The two loaves and a cutaway of the baneton loaf. This worked great. Dunno about the walnuts, but I was much happier with my boule forming technique and the whole process. This had the best flavor of any bread I've made. I think King Arthur has really come of age.

[Michael Brinton]

https://aeon.co/essays/time-to-bake-...ourdough-bread thought you guys would enjoy this...

[Breadhead]

Great article. I relate to this paragraph...

More directly, there’s the time it takes to make the individual loaf — the mixing, fermenting, kneading, proving, proving again, shaping, rising and final introduction to the oven. If you’re making sourdough and start at 7am, you can have bread just about ready — still cooling — in time to accompany supper. When you are in a relationship with time, you are in some sense meditating; the repetitive physical process of kneading (or, for the Lepard-ite, kneading and reshaping, kneading and reshaping) leaves your mind wonderfully uncluttered and attentive. You are working at the loaf’s pace, and you draw from it exactly the satisfaction that fishermen draw from fishing.

Touching and feeling dough with my eyes closed I can feel where the dough is... it's talking to me. Sometimes it says give me more work, kneading. Sometimes it says not now, take your hands off of me, I need time to relax.

Once you understand your dough's message to you, you are on the edge of becoming a Master bread maker. Once you can make every loaf and every type of loaf look truly beautiful... you ARE a Master bread maker.🤗

I aspire to become a Master bread maker because it makes me feel good. I like to make it much more than I like to eat it. I find it easy to give my loaves away. I've thought of opening a stand at the Hermosa Beach farmers market to sell it but that would make it a job.😡