Sourdough bread

[Sandie]

After reading about sourdough, and it's benefits.. have decided to make my own. Got my started going and will attempt my first ever bread tomorrow.....
Wish me luck!

 

[christophe]

Hello @Sandie
Good luck, you will not need luck though...
Get the "best" flour you can first of all, doesn't have to be organic this and soil association that..but some brands off the supermarket shelves are just white fluff in a paper bag.
Not to promote or run others down, I have found Waitrose very strong canadian flour to be reliable ( it has a high protein content which means..potentiality..good gluten can be developed).
A decent starter is the next step, and if you were about to begin making loaves then you have this already I am guessing.
I mix by hand.. for the feel of when enough is enough. Tbf you'll never overmix by hand but you only need to do enough..it is a visual and texture thing which is hard to explain.
And then let nature do it's thing... time is what you have to work with and against. Temperature especially at the moment will speed everything up, too much in fact.. dough will prove in the fridge by the way..
Depends what you want the end result to be? I like lots of irregular holes so I do a bit of stretching and folding before the final shaping.
And then the oven... can ruin even the best prepared dough.. sorry to say most domestic ovens are not going to produce what you see in the shops without a lot of cheats.. you need hot, really hot, and humid.. without a fan going!
Flour, starter, time and bake in short.. with as many variables as you can imagine within those.. have fun.. it is still my favourite thing to make even if I can't really eat the end product these days!

 

[Sandie]

You sound like a pro!
I am looking forward to Bali g my first loaf.. I don't have any expectations of it being any good, so I can't be disappointed. My starter is I think good. Will take your advise about the heat at the moment.
When you say about ovens and humidity, should I put a bowl of water in the bottom?

 

[christophe]

A tip I got from Bath.. use a water spray bottle, the sort that you get from gardening places where you hold it in one hand and use the trigger to spray.
Give a good 5 or 6 sprays into the oven a minute before the bread goes in and same again when it goes in. A tray in the oven with water in it helps .. the water evaporates better than when it's in a bowl.
Hope it goes well.

 

[Sandie]

Thank you , I didn't do it last night as I realised I am on my own tonight so making bread will keep me out of mischief ....
I am going to make gazpacho as well. Just call me Delia !

 

[christophe]

Warm bread and cold soup.. sounds good to me!

 

[Sandie]

Christophe,
What recipe do you use for rye sourdough?

 

[christophe]

All my sourdoughs are flour water and salt..that's it!
100% rye is a bit tricky because it doesn't behave like wheat, it doesn't absorb water so well but you need a fair bit of water otherwise the end result is like a nice smelling brick..

Depends on your starter but I would make a mix of starter and wholemeal rye, let that get good and active then use 70/30 wheat to rye so you have a chance of handling it (working with rye is always sticky and very challenging ) you will have a rye flavoured loaf and you can change proportions next time..

Say 200g starter (I am picturing a mix of flour and water that has been allowed to ferment and has been refreshed regularly..)
150g wholemeal rye
Water.. I would be looking for a very loose dough..impossible to pick up with your hand but enough structure to capture gas, mix the hell out of this! Get lots of air into it ( in a bowl with a whisk or similar or your fingers or maybe a big fork)

Leave to show signs of good strong activity ( some hours possibly.. )


When it is going.. take 300g of it, add say 300g of wheat flour and 50g of rye.
Salt will depend on your own preferences.. I would personally go for around 5g in this, again you can add more or less when you try again. Salt seems to be more noticeable in sourdough.. it doesn't take much to be too much, and too little isn't a huge problem as the loaf will have loads of flavour anyway.

Water.. the starter mix will be a good amount of water but not nearly enough.. add water in 50g splashes (yes I weigh water!) You want a dough that comes together in a ball, looks a little coarse and rough but is wet and tacky on the surface.

Now use your muscles! Whatever mixing technique you use make sure there is lots of pushing dough away from you and folding back on itself.. streching lays the gluten into a better structure, folding back captures air. The dough will intially break but you will notice it becomes more pliable as you work it.. if it remains as a nasty fragile lump then flatten roughly with you hand, indent it with your fingers and splash water into the dents.. then more muscle..

You will be breathing hard if you are working the dough enough.. when it is pliable, stretches without snapping and feels and looks smooth you are done.

Cover it and let it do it's thing. There are lots and lots of books/video/photo instructions of how to shape and so on..
I woukd be leaving the dough for at least an hour then gently pushing it out and folding it back in a much gentler version of the mixing.. you should be feeling the air in the dough now, you worked hard to get it in so handle it gently to avoid forcing it all out again.

Depends again in what shape you want..use a proving basket etc etc.. to create your final shape. Whatever you are doing.. the dought is ready for the oven when you can make a dent with your finger gently pushing into the surface, when you take your finger away the dough fills in the dent slowly.. doesn't spring back but sort of reluctantly fills the dent in..

Then, oven. Hot, humid and for about 35 minutes but there are too many variables to give you a proper time.. go for the colour you want but it will take around 30-40 minutes to bake through.. if the colour is too much then it means a lower temp, possibly for a longer time.. it is one if the most variable stages.

Sorry for the essay.. you ask a baker how to make something, it's never a short answer I am afraid and I have made this as short as I possibly could!

 

[Sandie]

All my sourdoughs are flour water and salt..that's it!
100% rye is a bit tricky because it doesn't behave like wheat, it doesn't absorb water so well but you need a fair bit of water otherwise the end result is like a nice smelling brick..

Depends on your starter but I would make a mix of starter and wholemeal rye, let that get good and active then use 70/30 wheat to rye so you have a chance of handling it (working with rye is always sticky and very challenging ) you will have a rye flavoured loaf and you can change proportions next time..

Say 200g starter (I am picturing a mix of flour and water that has been allowed to ferment and has been refreshed regularly..)
150g wholemeal rye
Water.. I would be looking for a very loose dough..impossible to pick up with your hand but enough structure to capture gas, mix the hell out of this! Get lots of air into it ( in a bowl with a whisk or similar or your fingers or maybe a big fork)

Leave to show signs of good strong activity ( some hours possibly.. )


When it is going.. take 300g of it, add say 300g of wheat flour and 50g of rye.
Salt will depend on your own preferences.. I would personally go for around 5g in this, again you can add more or less when you try again. Salt seems to be more noticeable in sourdough.. it doesn't take much to be too much, and too little isn't a huge problem as the loaf will have loads of flavour anyway.

Water.. the starter mix will be a good amount of water but not nearly enough.. add water in 50g splashes (yes I weigh water!) You want a dough that comes together in a ball, looks a little coarse and rough but is wet and tacky on the surface.

Now use your muscles! Whatever mixing technique you use make sure there is lots of pushing dough away from you and folding back on itself.. streching lays the gluten into a better structure, folding back captures air. The dough will intially break but you will notice it becomes more pliable as you work it.. if it remains as a nasty fragile lump then flatten roughly with you hand, indent it with your fingers and splash water into the dents.. then more muscle..

You will be breathing hard if you are working the dough enough.. when it is pliable, stretches without snapping and feels and looks smooth you are done.

Cover it and let it do it's thing. There are lots and lots of books/video/photo instructions of how to shape and so on..
I woukd be leaving the dough for at least an hour then gently pushing it out and folding it back in a much gentler version of the mixing.. you should be feeling the air in the dough now, you worked hard to get it in so handle it gently to avoid forcing it all out again.

Depends again in what shape you want..use a proving basket etc etc.. to create your final shape. Whatever you are doing.. the dought is ready for the oven when you can make a dent with your finger gently pushing into the surface, when you take your finger away the dough fills in the dent slowly.. doesn't spring back but sort of reluctantly fills the dent in..

Then, oven. Hot, humid and for about 35 minutes but there are too many variables to give you a proper time.. go for the colour you want but it will take around 30-40 minutes to bake through.. if the colour is too much then it means a lower temp, possibly for a longer time.. it is one if the most variable stages.

Sorry for the essay.. you ask a baker how to make something, it's never a short answer I am afraid and I have made this as short as I possibly could!

Thank you for this. Unfortunately my loaf was a brick . But I will try again. On a plus, my gazpacho was amazing!
Thank you once again x

 

[christophe]

Well you could have cubed the bread and added it into the soup as croutons .. never mind, sourdough is a bit tricky until you have a feel for it. A brick means not enough water and/or not enough activity from the starter... how was the dough to handle and mix? Initially it will stick like crazy to your hands but it becomes more manageable as you work it, then gets to be very good to handle after it has been rested and folded a couple of times. Give it another go.. one other thing if you were using a lot of wholemeal, it takes up water quite slowly.. it can decieve you into thinking you have enough but then you discover it wasn't quite what you thought..

 

[Sandie]

Well you could have cubed the bread and added it into the soup as croutons .. never mind, sourdough is a bit tricky until you have a feel for it. A brick means not enough water and/or not enough activity from the starter... how was the dough to handle and mix? Initially it will stick like crazy to your hands but it becomes more manageable as you work it, then gets to be very good to handle after it has been rested and folded a couple of times. Give it another go.. one other thing if you were using a lot of wholemeal, it takes up water quite slowly.. it can decieve you into thinking you have enough but then you discover it wasn't quite what you thought..

Hi
Thank you for your advice, sorry about the late reply, was away for work.
I will try again with making bread.. I won't let it beat me!

 

[Vicsetter]

I don't like to burst your bubble, but you are nopt making sourdough bread. A sourdough starter takes 5 days to produce with continuous feed of flour, and there is only natural airborn yeasts involved. Google for the method, can't say I have ever succeeded in keeping a starter alive for very long.

 

[christophe]

Can't see anything where Sandie says that she isn't using a refreshed starter...most of the yeasts in it come from what was on the plant, so it is the flour that makes the difference. My starter is about 8 years old now, it keeps going through holidays and lazy periods, up to 3 weeks between feeds. The French aren't allowed to call it sourdough if a fridge is used at any part of the process but my starter lives in the fridge.. a nieghbour to the insulin pens..

 

[Drummer]

Sigh - I used to make my own bread - go rather good at it, though I do say so myself.
Now I can't eat it, though I do make crackers using Lidl's milled mixed seeds - it is purple due to the psyllium husk flour, but as it is the only baked thing I can eat I just have to make do.

 

[Sandie]

I used a starter, his name is Samson ( i read that you have to name and talk nicely to it..) he lives in the fridge next to the champagne that I can't drink anymore hey ho

 

[christophe]

Name it?? Well, if it works then why not...
What is the champagne called...? !

 

[Sandie]

I wish the champagne was called Roger (Pol) . . but it's not .. just plain ol bubbles