



I was gifted sourdough baking equipment and starter for Christmas and took at a stab at my first loaf this week. On Monday I fed the starter out of the fridge a 1:1:1 ratio. After 12 hrs I fed again 1:1:1 (but didn’t remove all but what I needed for the recipe so I ended up with a lot of extra starter that is now in my fridge waiting to being pizza dough or pancakes.) The starter was super active after the second feeding and passed the float test so I started my dough. The recipe I used is
-125g levain
-350g lukewarm spring water
-500g bread flour
-10g salt
I let this ferment an hour covered at room temp after mixing then I started 4 sets of stretch and folds with 30 min covered breaks in between. After the 4th set I covered the dough and let it bulk ferment on my counter. It was getting late and my oven had very little residual heat from dinner so I put it in the oven to speed things up, it took about 3.5hrs to double in size. I then shaped the boule and put it in a floured banneton which I covered and put in the fridge for 14 hrs. When it was time to bake I preheated my Dutch oven in the oven at 450°F for about 30 min, then baked my loaf for 30 min covered and another 15 uncovered. We ate this bread with homemade chili tonight and I’m so happy with the look, texture, and taste. I really hope this isn’t just beginners luck and that I can replicate and improve on this quality moving forward! I really want to make a loaf with inclusions but I haven’t even begun looking into that yet.
by fullygrowntuna

4 Comments
Amazing job for a first try! Congrats!
Very nice!
Looks great! I’m curious about the scoring, how’d you do so well on your first loaf? I’ve tried several times with much less luck
Glorious! I’ll pay good money for that!