Hello and happy holidays everyone! I’ve been on a long and often frustrating journey trying to learn sourdough baking. Being a bit of a control freak, that mostly meant dissecting every piece of information, then testing and controlling for a ton of variables through real-world A/B and A/B/C tests.
Along the way I learned (and unlearned) quite a lot, so if I can spare someone a bit of the trial-and-error I went through, why not. Plus, I like taking photos, so I figured a mix of useful information and some nice pics might be welcome here.
A bit of background: a dimwit with trouble letting things go. Told you it was a bit.
I’ll cover the breads thoroughly in future posts. I just need to organize everything and write it out, all while navigating the holiday season (and panettone).
by MarkosBreadLab
20 Comments
Wow all of these look amazing!! Great job!
WHERE IS THE NSFW TAG?! HUBBA HUBBA.
Jokes aside tho, those are perfect and I’m drooling and I want to eat them all. 😍
[removed]
I appreciate that you called out what you had to unlearn too. There’s so much noise in every hobby I’m a part of. I find a lot of overlap between my ceramics and baking hobbies where it almost feels people add complexity for the sake of selling you their credibility.
That said, I’m curious in your journey what are the most important things that have helped you arrive at such aesthetic and delicious looking bread
For me, I’ve just focused on 3 pillars
Maintain a healthy starter – I fridge my starter but I bake twice a week for my micro bakery and just do 2 “bulk up” feeds before it goes into my bulk dough. I also use my sous video to keep the starter at 75F which also helps me create my own schedule
Build gluten and dough strength upfront – I invested in the ooni halo pro mixer for this. I also fresh mill my flour so a longer autolyse and gentle mixing is key
Nail bulk fermentation
You are such a great baker and photographer! I’d buy a coffee table book with these in it.
Very cool
Why this post has been removed by Mods before?
What is pic 9? Panettone?
Mmm flavor webs
masterpiece.
Very tartine-like holiness, well Google misspell of course wholelyness But it is at the temple of bread after all so holiness is good enough to. All those crevices to catch that pate or sweet butter and give me some marmalade thick cut or I can just eat it plain. Looks awesome
And how many years in the photography hobby? 😜
I can’t stop looking at 4 and 10 but they’re all incredible. Looking forward to your future posts!
GORG. yes please give us the nitty gritty on how to achieve that crumb! Mine come out much tighter which im thinking might be shaping or stretch and fold???
beautiful photos – I make good bread but don’t take great photos of it
How do you manage the sourdough starter? Temperatures, feeding ratios, and time. How do you store it? Free-standing, tied, in water? Do you give it a “bath”? Tell us a little about your management, because the products are immensely spectacular! Congratulations!
What’s the hydration on the first two pics? It looks close to 90%? What’s your go-to hydration for your normal, everyday loaf?
Absolutely beautiful crumbs!
What’s the recipe for the second image/bread?
People, learn to recognize advertisements so you know when people are trying to sell you something. And apparently this sub needs a self promotion flair now.