I’ve been making sourdough since the pandemy like many of us. I love it. But sheesh it’s a lot of work…last night I decided to try an experiment after seeing numerous social media posts saying ‘who needs to do stretch and folds – just let it ride!’ So, last night I mixed my dough, did one hour of autolyse, then added salt and did one stretch and fold. Then I left it on my counter over night for 10 hours (midnight to 10am)…a lo and behold, dough was more than doubled, bubbly and strong. I did a lamination and added my inclusions. Shaped and tossed in the fridge for another few hours as I wasn’t ready to bake, and frankly, I wanted to see how far I could push it.
What the heck guys….why and how have I been doing 3 hours of jumping up every 30 mins and pulling and folding and coiling folding and so on?!
Details – kitchen temp around 60-65 overnight.
FYI I forgot to score it as I was so excited to get this baby cooking so I did a quick attempt at a score when I took the lid off at 25 mins. So it’s not the best looking bake but who cares!
Recipe was –
150g strong starter at its peak
350g warm tap water
12.5g salt mixed into 25g hot tap water
500g bread flour.
Inclusions Tillamook Sharp Cheddar and Everything But The Bagel seasoning
Why are we all doing stretch / coil folds at regular intervals if this works? More reliable maybe? Would love to hear if anyone else is making it way easier on themselves?!
by Aibrean2013
15 Comments
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I’m inspired!! It looks yummy
Wow!
You basically ended up doing a no-knead recipe!
With a long enough bulk the activity of the gas rising will mix and align all the gluten. And then you did enough further strengthening with a lamination for shaping.
More stretch and folds are primarily as insurance to align the gluten for people not doing as strong of a shaping or weaker flour.
I do this all the time. Mix the dough with a stick. Once the kitchen is cleaned up and everything is put away I usually do one round of S&F and a coil fold and let it be till the appropriate rise has happened. Let the starter do the work.
Edit – Nice loaf!
Don’t discount the effect of that lamination had the next day! I replaced my usual 6 sets of stretch and folds with 2 laminations and it’s stronger.
Yeh the recipes I follow ask for 3 folds max. Most just 1 or 2 required.
I’m jelly. I follow every step given on the recipe and I still get flat loaves. 🤦♂️ but yours looks fantastic and yummy. Keep it up. I need to get to that stage.
It’s all about doing what’s necessary. If it’s a ridiculously wet dough, you’re gonna need all the help you can get. If it’s not, and the flour is strong, it shouldn’t make a huge difference. Of course it also helps to have a proofing basket that keeps it nice and tall. If it’s a small dough in a big bowl, I’d probably tighten it up a lot more.
Maybe were all over doing it. Its been a while since I tried a no knead recipe
I have a recipe where I only do a shaping after 5 hours, then another shaping 5 hours later and into fridge for 12 hours.
So you mixed the dough for autolyse (flour and water) and then added the salt and starter together after the hour? Or did you mix water starter and flour all together and then add salt after the hour
It’s so beautiful 😍
Ooo I’m gonna try this. I hate having to stop what I’m doing every 20-30 min to go do stretch and folds.
There are really two ways to develop gluten: kneading, and hydration. You have a very high hydration dough, so you don’t need to do much kneading/stretching to get it to the point you want.