Recipe: 500g flour, 72% hydration, 2.3% salt, 17% starter. Mix, 30 minute autolyse, knead, rest another 30 minutes, then 2 Stretch and folds and 2 coil folds with 30 minute intervals. Bulk ferment out to 12 hours since mix on counter. Shape. Cold proof for 12 hours. 450F, lid on Dutch oven, for 25 minutes then 400F, lid off, for 15. Cool. Eat.
So, based on a fair number of Internet opinions, I did a bunch of things "Wrong" here. And I want to just say that it's ok. For everyone out there that is tracking things to the minute or waiting until your starter exactly peaks or the bulk ferment is exactly 65% increased…I'm here to say chill. Bread is more forgiving that you are giving it credit for. As a species, we would have never made it past the agrarian phase if bread was super hard to make. We had bread before most written languages existed. We had bread before we had the concept of zero.
What will really make a difference is the quality of the flour, getting your hydration right, and having a good starter. And relaxing a bit – remember, this should be fun.
Pic 1 – this is two 500g loaves (the left one has 120g of cheese in it as well) after their final coil fold. 2200 local. The temperature in the kitchen is about 75 but the heat is turned down to 65.
Pic 2 – 0645 the next morning and the temperature is 65. It has…more than tripled in size. It pushed the lids off the Cambros. By all measures, this should be over proofed. Nope. Not tacky at all, shaped like a dream. Put in the banneton and into the fridge.
Pic 3 – End of the cold proof and it did in fact rise in the banneton.
Pic 4 – Pre scoring, holding its shape.
Pic 5 – On the cooling rack.
Pic 6 – With its cheesey brother (which I dropped on the stove while transferring to the Dutch oven – didn't even phase it despite having a massive dent).
Pic 7 – Crumb shot the day after.
So, why they photojournal? Because I should have screwed up my bread four different times if you believe all the precise hype out there. I didn't wait to add the salt or the starter. I added too much starter (aiming for 15%), too much salt (aiming for 2%). I way "over proofed" as at an average temperature of 70F, the Sourdough Journey says 75% increase, not 225% increase. I even dropped the cheese loaf onto the stove and just picked it up (well, I swore first), put it back on the parchment, put it in the Dutch Oven, called it some names, and then shoved it in the oven. It was going to rise or not – nothing I could do about it. It rose, it was fine.
The part that I've found does matter is my flour. I found a consistent blend from Ardent mills – Kyrol. High gluten content. I've been able to make 100% hydration Pan Crystal with it but 72% in the winter seems to be the sweet spot for a sourdough loaf. I try to not vary that at all. As for my starter, almost 6 years of TLC and I can leave it in the fridge for weeks and it springs right back up. Did I use pineapple or rye flour or anything to develop it? Nope. Regular unbleached flour with tap water. Still use tap water but now I use my Kyrol. If I'm feeling fancy, I add 10% of KAF whole wheat bread flour but most of the time, I forget. What hydration is it? About 100% maybe 105%? It varies. I know what it feels like even if I do use a scale to measure everything out. Sometimes a little extra water gets in. It's fine.
My tip? Good flour and a strong starter are what you need the most. Everything else is just technique and practice. I estimate I've baked 300 loaves of bread in the past 6 years, nearly weekly and sometimes more than one per week (like the brothers shown here). That's a lot of practice. Some weren't pretty but they were always tasty (except for the one time I forgot salt – JFC, I'll never forget that again). And I watched a lot of technique tutorials on shaping and kneading and the like but I'm a giant nerd and I enjoyed the hell out of it.
Please, if this seems difficult, keep going, keep baking, maybe try a lower hydration or a better flour or both until you get the process down. Overproofed? Focaccia. Underproofed? Throw it in the fridge until after work – either it's proofed or it's focaccia – either will be tasty.
Find one recipe and stick with it – there is no magic recipe and timetable that will always work the first time and the simpler the recipe, the better – especially at the beginning. My recipe has 4 things in it; 5 if you count the cheese in the brother loaf. But the base is just 4 things. Nothing fancy, just mix it all together and let it sit. Then knead. Then let it sit. Repeat 4 more times. Forget about it. Shape it at some point. Fridge it. Bake it.
Happy baking y'all.
by Nuclear_Smith
14 Comments
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Excellent post and I love your attitude! I know that for some people, the fun of baking (sourdough or whatever else) lies in honing in on precise changes in search of the perfect loaf, and more power to anyone in this category! But for me, the fun comes more from learning techniques with the aim of seeing how intuitive and adaptive I can get and still be more or less in the zone.
“We had bread before we had the concept of zero.”
Great post!!
I’m trying to make peace with imperfection. My bread turns out great but my dough is so freaking sticky every single time. I’m trying to just relax and roll with it, and just get better at shaping sticky ass dough 😂
Maybe you’ve been baking a lot longer than I have, or have been on bread related websites and forums more than me, but I’ve never seen anyone say that anything is a hard rule. Recommendations, sure. Even recommendations that are strongly advised to follow, but never any rules. It’s almost like there is need to rebel against some imagined grand authority by saying that you don’t need to follow all the rules. Because I can swear I’ve seen this exact post more than a few times before! 😄 bread looks nice anyways, and it’s great that you’ve found a method that works well for you! 👌
Omg where did you buy these tubs ??
I can totally agree with high quality flour being one of the most important parts. When I first started off last year I made like 10 failed attempts with some random off the shelf flour.
Then I ordered some quality Manitoba flour and since then everything has been working like a charm.
Today I made my loaves with 80% hydration and didn’t add the salt and the final 10% of water till after an hour of autolyze. The dough was nicer to handle. I found just a touch of water in my hand kept the dough from sticking. I may have folded and coiled a few too many to get the salt and water to combine, but after The bulk fermentation on my 73f heater floor at 4hrs exactly a poised and beautifully doubled dough that felt actively lighter and nicely moldable shaped well. I don’t have a fancy banneton or anything so I use a 12” square of parchment on an 8” plate and center my shaped dough then sort of craddle the dough with parchment and cover with a med-deep 6-7” mixing bowl over the top to hold a round loaf and stack in The fridge. This nicely transfers into the Dutch oven the next morning. In the past my process was to add the salt to all my water and starter before even adding the flour and my loaves always tasted amazing and baked so/so with a so/so+ oven spring. Hopefully we get a great oven spring now that the salt didn’t get to touch the starter directly and I fed the starter a little more diligently what felt like the proper period prior to making the dough, it seamed more perky than some of my past bakes!! lol this process is such a trip, I just love a slice toasted with butter regardless the outcome. Same on my starter, it was three – four months ago I plunged into the simple process of mixing standard filtered well water with flour and let it sit in the counter in a jar! It’s now a thriving culture of bliss. So easy.
All you need is strong starter and 14% protein flour. Got it.
What is your source for the Kyrol?
This post is literally what I’m finding is true while I’m starting my sourdough journey, also I wanna see the cheesy ones inside (crumb ) 😭, thinking about doing a coffee hydrated, sugar and cinnamon loaf for my first inclusion. Am I crazy?
I started baking with a sourdough starter more than 10 years ago, it was already fairly popular in my country but not yet a social media trend. There was way less easily accessible knowledge, especially in the handy way of videos that show you exactly how to handle things. And I admit, coming back to bread making after some long break, I learned a lot of small new stuff from the internet that literally exploded in bread related content.
But at the same time it’s confusing. I’ve seen enough world and bread to know there is no one recipe, no one method, no only one expected result. Not doing this or that, or doing something else completely is not wrong, it’s not an error. but when everyone says “you have to…” At some point you get the feeling “what if I’m wrong”?
I see ppl struggle, fight with difficult sticky dough, having issues judging their fermentation and whatnot. Go find an easier recipe, silly! Go LESS water, not more. Feel it, make it work FOR you.
Bread making is a lifeskill. It can be your hobby, but it is a lifeskill. And a thing that should be possible to be executed daily with your minimum attention, just general awareness. That’s how I see it.
Cheers!
I’m so lazy with my bread making now. I love it. This is almost exactly how I make my loaves.
Yeah, but it doesn’t have holes big enough for all the honey to drip through
Edit: /s
This post is gold