My first loaf! She isn't the prettiest on the outside as I think my scoring may not have been deep enough, but I'm so proud of the inside. I was holding my breath when cutting her in half 🤣
Here's the recipe I used:
150g starter, add 300ml of water. Stir until milky and frothy. Add 500g flour and 10 g salt. I then left it to rest for an hour before doing 4 stretch and folds every half an hour for 2 hours. It was then left covered to proof for 3 hours, before scoring and cooking for 25 minutes with the lid on, 25 with the lid off. Ice was added to produce steam, three ice cubes to be exact.
Next time I think I will add a bit more flour, or keep trying recipes until I find the one for me. I found my dough was very sticky and it made it very hard to shape and score.
by silentwraith2405
3 Comments
This is, overall, a pretty low hydration (dry) dough for sourdough — 65%. A lot of recipes are over 70% but they can go much higher.
If you are finding it sticky, make sure to wet your hands before handling it. That should help. Also, in general, quick , confident moves tend to get you stuck less. As you do stretch n folds (you might also want to try out coil folds), it *should* gain strength and become smoother and less sticky.
Everybody has sticky dough this week! Maybe the heat/humidity since that is not a high hydration recipe.
Your loaf looks beautiful inside & out. Quite well done!
I wouldn’t add more flour because the hydration is already pretty low. Instead, try to build more gluten. Sometimes the usual four sets of stretch and folds aren’t enough.
First, try an autolyse— mix just the flour and water and let it sit for 1-2 hours. Then knead in the starter and salt. This allows the flour and water to develop gluten before the starter gets to it.
I also like doing some bench kneading after mixing everything. Search YouTube for tutorials on the following methods: slap and fold, lamination, rubaud mixing. I do any combination of those for about 10 minutes in addition to the stretch and folds. It makes a really big difference.