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recipes:other:sourdough_bread

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Sourdough Bread

Hydration

When baking sourdough bread, it's important to know the hydration (ratio of water to flour) of your final dough. It should be around 70 - 75%. That's a pretty wet dough, but this will guarantee a good rise and plenty of bubbles in the bread.

Hydration = Water [volume in ml]/ Flour [weight in grams] * 100

Starter

bubbly sourdough starter Mix 75g wholemeal wheat flour with 90ml of water. Let sit for 24 hours, add another 50g of flour and 60ml of water. Do this for a week. If it gets too much, just remove the excess. You want to end up with 300g of starter or so. This starter will have a 120% hydration (60/50*100).

You can keep your starter in the fridge when you aren't using it.

12 hours prior to baking, feed your starter again, with lukewarm water + flour. Don't remove more than 3/4 of the starter for baking. When done, put back into the fridge, or feed again straight away if you want to bake the next day.

The Dough

dough after 2 hours initial rise

Loaf weightStarterwhite flourwatersalt
750g150ml365g235ml7g
1kg200ml500g300ml10g

Using your 120% hydration starter, the above quantities give you a 71% hydration dough.

Mix your starter with the strong white flour and the salt and knead for 5 minutes until you have a stretchy, fairly wet dough. You can do that on a low setting in a mixer.

in the proving basketLet prove for 1 hour - I just leave it in the mixing bowl and cover it in cling film.

Pat down the dough, fold over, shape and put into your proving basket. Make sure that your proving basket is well floured, and that you also flour the outside of your loaf. Otherwise, it will stick to the proving basket and you won't be able to get it out without making a dog's breakfast out of it.

Let prove for another 3 to 12 hours in the proving basket. Proving time depends on the temperature, so this can vary wildly. As long as you don't overprove, you're fine. You want to see a volume increase of at least 100% before baking.

After the second proving, you should have a dough which is quite springy, e.g. when you slightly press it with a finger, the dough springs back almost all the distance it was pressed down. If the dough collapses where you press it down, you have over-proved it. You can still bake it, but it will be slightly gummy and sticky.

Baking

Ready to go into the oven nice texture with lots of bubbles Preheat your oven to 230 degrees, and put a baking tray at the bottom of the oven. Best use a baking stone that you preheat with the oven. When the oven is hot, take out the baking stone, and turn out the dough from the proving basket onto the baking stone. Make some deep cuts with a very sharp knife into the top of the bread (lateral, longitudinal, at an angle, however you like it…) so that it can rise easily, pour 150ml of water into your hot baking tray, and put the baking stone with the dough on it back into the oven.

If you don't have a baking stone, no problem, just use a normal baking tray and a bit of baking paper on top of it to keep the bread from sticking.

Bake for 30 minutes (don't take it out too early - sourdough bread has a fairly dark colour when baked), and let it sit for at least 20 minutes to cool down on a rack before cutting into it. You might want to turn it 180 degrees half way through if your oven doesn't heat evenly, and also re-fill some water into the baking tray at the bottom if that's evaporated.

A 750g loaf

3 stage sourdough

For better results, try making your sourdough in three stages. The starter is the same as described above, so there is no change there. But instead of making the final dough directly with the starter, we will have an intermediate starter (poolish).

Start off with 50ml of sourdough starter, 200g of wholegrain rye or spelt flour, and 220ml of water. Mix, and let sit for 8 to 12 hours, depending on room temperature. This first dough, the poolish, will ferment thoroughly, and taste fairly sour when that's done.

Now mix in 215g of strong white flour, 7 grams of salt, and 65ml of water. Knead, form, and let prove for 90 minutes. Then bake at 230 degrees for 30 minutes.

Variations

Spelt, Rye and Wheat Bread

A healthier, very tasty alternative… use wholegrain spelt and rye flour, and a strong white wheat flour.

  1. 165g strong white flour
  2. 100g wholegrain spelt (Vollkorndinkelmehl)
  3. 100g wholegrain rye flour
  4. 150ml wholegrain wheat starter
  5. 235ml water
  6. 7g salt

Recycling your old stale bread

You can recycle your old stale bread! Dry it out completely (best cut it into little cubes for that), and then mix 1:3 with boiling water. Then add all the salt you would otherwise add to your dough. This mixture is called the “Brühstück”. Mix thoroughly, and let sit for 2 - 10 hours (if longer, put it into the fridge), and add to your dough. Don't forget not to put the salt into the dough, as it's already in your “Brühstück”.

70% Wholegrain Organic Sourdough Bread

Starter Dough

Mix 200g organic wholegrain rye flour with 220ml 40 degree warm water, and add a tablespoon of your sourdough starter. Let sit for 12 to 24 hours, until you have a bubbly starter.

Main Dough

Now add 150g strong white flour, 100g wholegrain rye flour, 10g salt and 120ml of water at 40 degrees. Mix until you have a fairly wet dough. Put into your baking tin, and let prove for 4 to 6 hours. Bake at 230 degrees for 5 minutes, lower the temperature to 190, and bake for a further 40 minutes.

Flax seed and mixed seed rye bread

It doesn't get much healthier. I use milled flax seed, as your body can't digest whole flax seed.

Starter Dough

Mix 300g wholegrain rye flour, 60g milled flax seed, 1 good tbsp sourdough starter and 370ml lukewarm water. Let stand for 8 to 14 hours, depending on temperature, until you have a nicely risen (twice the volume) starter.

Main Dough

Now add 120g wholegrain rye flour, 240g strong white wheat flour, 80g mixed seeds, 15g salt and 240ml lukewarm water. Knead (best done in the mixer), and put into a 1kg loaf tin. Let rise for a good hour, then bake at 230 degrees falling to 190 for 55 minutes.

Simple White Tartine Sourdough

Ingredients

  • 375g strong white flour
  • 250g sourdough starter (I make my starter with wholegrain rye flour)
  • 8g salt
  • 200ml water (more or less depending on flour)

Depending on how hydrated your sourdough starter is, you might have to vary the amount of water you add. You want a hydration of around 75%.

Method

Combine flour, starter, salt and water just until there is no more dry flour left, and and let them autolyse for 30 minutes. This means you just let the mixed up ingredients sit.

Dough after 3 hours of foldingThen mix up the ingredients until they are properly combined, and fold three times every half hour for 3 hours. Then let rest for 2 hours. The photo on the right shows the dough after three hours of folding every 30 minutes.

Take out of your bowl and put onto floured surface. Fold another three times, shape into a tight round, and cover it with a bowl for 30 minutes bench rest.

Fold once more, shape again.

But into your proving basket with the seam up, pre-heat the oven to 230 degrees, and let the dough sit for a final rise of 30 minute whilst the oven is heating up.

Turn out of the proving basket onto your baking tray and score the top with a sharp knife.

Bake at 230 degrees for 15 minutes, then lower to 180 degrees for another 30 minutes.

recipes/other/sourdough_bread.1538823931.txt.gz · Last modified: 2018/10/06 13:05 by christian