This is the official blog for my little micro-bakery, Dawg House Bakery that I run out of my home. As I’m not a professionally-trained baker, I originally started this blog as a diary to document things I’ve learned and recipes I’ve developed. But it kind of took on a life of its own with folks from all over the world visiting the site. So welcome!
In my previous post, I talked about trusting in the process and how it takes time to develop the skills to create great bread. And in that post I mentioned that it was difficult to describe what to feel for when working with dough. So, after I wrote that I asked myself how I could effectively describe the feel of dough to someone who has no clue.
When we’re making bread, there are three times we touch the dough: During mixing, when building dough strength, and final shaping. Mixing doesn’t really count because all we’re doing is bringing the ingredients together, even if we’re doing it by hand. Though it is important because this is where we start forming gluten. But it’s the latter two stages where we directly manipulate work dough with our hands. In this first part, we’re going to cover building strength in the dough.
Before we get into techniques and developing a feel for dough, it’s important to understand the concept behind what we’re doing. I’m not going to get all sciency and will keep the discussion at a fairly high level. Here we go!
“Dough strength” is actually a bit of a misnomer. What we’re doing when we’re building strength is more akin to creating structure in the dough. Even though dough looks like a smooth, contiguous mass, it is composed of gluten strands. When we first mix the dough and the gluten strands start to form, they’re randomly arranged much like a pile of spaghetti as shown below.
When we work the dough (through kneading and folding) to build strength and structure in our dough, what we’re doing is arranging and aligning the gluten strands so they come togther in a much more organized fashion. To be clear, in the early stages with our first couple of folds, gluten strands are still forming while we are aligning the ones that have already formed. This is why we do several folds. We want to make sure that all the strands that are going to form are formed and we want them to be aligned.
Taking the spaghetti example a little further, we want to produce something like the following:
You see how the spaghetti in the picture above stands neatly together compared to the pile above? This is what we’re doing when we’re building dough strength. We’re arranging the strands of gluten so we can achieve a nice, neat pile. The ultimate shape we form our dough into will be determined by shaping. But that’ll be discussed in Part 2. So, to be a bit more precise, when we’re doing our stretching and folding, we’re getting the gluten to align to be able to be shaped. Another effect of folding is ensuring that our yeast and bacteria are distributed evenly throughout the dough mass.
Now that we’ve had a high-level discussion behind the purpose of folding, let’s get into feeling the dough when you do your folds to ensure that you’re doing it to maximum effect.
Getting a Feel for Your Dough
We’ve all seen and have probably made loaves that look like this:
Or have created severely mishapen loaves like this:
I look at these and laugh! And even though the first loaf didn’t rise much and the second loaf kind of went haywire, they share one thing in common: They weren’t folded properly. The results may have been different, but these are classic examples of improperly worked dough. I made those loaves many years ago and took pictures for posterity to remind me of what NOT to do.
When we work our dough, whether we do coil folds or stretches and folds, it’s much like twisting a rubber band on a windup airplane. As you wind the rubber band more and more, it gets harder and harder to wind until you get to a point where it won’t wind anymore without breaking.
And it’s in the process of folding where so many folks new to baking bread get it wrong. Remember my discussion how videos don’t communicate everything one needs to know? Proper folding and what you need to feel for are often missed in those videos. You see a baker fold their dough. They’ll stretch it up, then flip it over the center. Looks simple and it is. But I can guarantee you that half the beautiful loaves you see on the Internet aren’t folded properly, especially the boules.
Why? Because they’re perfectly round and the bottom inch or so of those loaves are almost flat, which means the dough expanded all the way out to the edges of the Dutch oven and the only way for those loaves to expand is up. But if you take that same dough and put it on a stone, they won’t rise nearly as high, often resulting in a loaf similar to the flat loaf above.
If you’ve read this blog you will know that I often mention that you should fold the dough until it no longer wants to be folded; that is, like the windup airplane example I used above, you want to work your dough until it resists. Most people never fold their dough enough, especially if they’re doing stretches and folds. Here are a couple of tips, not matter what folding technique you’re using:
Pick up the section of dough you’re stretching from the bottom of the dough mass, never from the top as you will only accomplish stretching the top portion of the dough.
When you stretch, make sure you stretch the dough to the point where you feel some resistance. And note that high-hydration dough requires you to stretch several times during a session. But never stretch to the point where the dough will tear. This takes some repetition to gain the intuition as to where the tearing point is in your stretch. But even if you tear the dough, don’t worry, just let it rest that the gluten strands will come back together.
Fold until the dough no longer wants to be stretched. A telltale is that when you pick up the dough from the bottom, most of the dough mass will come up. Most people see on videos that a baker may only do four folds in a session. What many don’t notice is just how far the baker stretches the dough. They may only require four total folds in one session.
The hints above apply mostly to standard artisan loaves like boules and batards. For bread made from super-slack dough like ciabatta or pan de cristal, you actually don’t want to work the dough too much because they’re so wet, plus you want to ensure that when you bake them you get a super-open crumb. But for other loaves, you need to make sure you’re stretching the dough sufficiently to get that rubber band effect.
Obviously, I’ve glossed over a lot of nuance in this discussion. But the point to this is that if you develop a feel for the dough especially in the strength and structure development phase, it’ll go a long way to improving the quality of your loaves.
Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, my wife and I (we were dating at the time) jumped on the self-help movement. You know, stuff like Tony Robbins’ “Personal Power.” We took seminars from a company called “Phoenix Seminars.” It was great. We learned a lot about ourselves and each other even though the company turned out to be pretty shady with “leaders” who weren’t credentialed counselors or trainers. The company ultimately failed and the last I saw of the president of the former company was on late-night TV where she was hawking some product in an infomercial.
Did any of it work? Yes and no. Yes, from the standpoint that we learned several techniques of effective communication and self-motivation, and no, as the programs were purposely designed to keep you coming back for more; that is, paying more money to get to the next level. That said, it wasn’t a scam. I met some great folks that I keep in touch with and as I mentioned above, I learned some great things.
In particular, we learned some great trigger phrases that have helped us even to this day. One of those phrases was “trust in the processs.” When we’re learning new things, oftentimes we feel that things don’t make sense. In our confusion we get discouraged and frustrated, feeling as if we’re not making progress.
A good example of this is the following clip from the movie, “The Karate Kid” with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. In the scene, Jaden expresses his frustration at having to pick up his jacket, put it on, take it off, then hang it up day after day, thousands of times. His frustration grows to the point where he wants to quit. Then Jackie Chan demonstrates that the process had meaning after all.
The learning process takes time and that can be frustrating as well. And in the fast-paced, instant gratification world we live in today, many expect to get great results in a very short period of time. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say something like, “I followed everything step on this _________ (TikTok, InstaGram, etc.) video, and I just can’t get the same results.”
Speaking of videos, they’re great. I’ve learned lots from watching videos. But as instructive as they are, what they can’t teach you is feel. That is something that can only be learned through direct experience. Some video bakers like Martin Philip with King Arthur are excellent at describing what to feel for when you’re working with dough. But until you actually feel what it is being described, you won’t truly know it. That’s the challenge I have myself as a writer. I do my best to illustrate and describe how to work with dough, but there’s only so much I can do.
But despite that, don’t be discouraged. Remember, learning any skill is a process. Trust in it and you’ll eventually be successful!
In an online forum I have been a member of for several years, I’ve noticed certain trends in the questions asked. A few years ago, there were lots of questions about shaping techniques. And of course, there are the under- versus overproofed questions. But lately, I’ve noticed several questions regarding gummy crumbs and tough crust.
Lots of people jumped in and offered their opinions, and that’s great! But as with any hobby-based forum, there’s a lot of misinformation. For instance, in one thread, a person asked if the baker they used diastatic malt because they claimed that diastatic malt can cause a gummy crumb. I rolled my eyes when I saw that. I’ve used diastatic malt for years and have never gotten a gummy crumb. Softer, yes, but gummy? No way.
Others suggested lengthening bulk fermentation. Still others suggested shortening it. Some suggested doing more folds, while others suggested doing fewer folds. Holy shit!
For one post in particular, the picture the poster shared showed a nicely developed crumb. Upon inspection, it was ever so slightly underproofed as evidenced by the tighter bottom relative to the rest of the crumb. But it was close enough to be negligible. But indeed, the crumb seemed a little moist.
To be clear, the crumb was mostly airy, with a nice distribution of holes of diverse sizes, so gluten development wasn’t the issue (even though some suggested it was). In fact, in most of the posts I’ve seen on this subject, the crumbs of the loaves were mostly fine.
So, what might cause a gummy crumb? In all my years of baking, a gummy crumb is due to baking not being finished; specifically, not allowing enough time in the oven for the loaf to fully burn off the excess moisture from the dough.
Weather can have a lot to do with it. In summer months, when it tends to be drier, evaporation isn’t a problem. But when the weather turns and the temperature drops and the relative humidity increases, evaporation must be handled differently.
Irrespective of the weather, how does one fix a gummy crumb? Here are a couple of suggestions:
Bake at a lower temperature and a little longer. I know this seems unintuitive, but especially if you use a Dutch oven to bake your bread, sometimes the hot temperature (usu. around 475°F) doesn’t allow the crumb to get to a temperature that will evaporate the excess moisture. Then when you remove the lid and finally drop the oven temperature, the crust will brown, and the loaf will appear to be finished on the outside, but the crumb hasn’t had enough time to fully expel the moisture. By dropping the temperature of your oven to 450°F and lengthening the time with the lid on to 25-27 minutes as opposed to 20 minutes, you’ll slow the bake a bit but allow the insides to come up to temperature.
Remember, that first phase of baking with the lid on is where you’re trapping the evaporation of the water in the dough. You will still get a nice rise at the slightly lower temperature, and your crumb will have more time to get up to temperature. This also has the added advantage of slowing crust formation, allowing your loaf to really expand! It’s also why I’m a big proponent of adding a few ice chips underneath my parchment paper to keep the crust moist. The longer I can delay crust setting, the better chance my loaf has to expand from the inside (read: more open crumb).
After you remove the loaf from the Dutch oven, turn off your oven, then place the loaf right back on the rack for 15-20 minutes with the door slightly ajar. This is a process that Chad Robertson describes in his book “Tartine Bread” as curing, using the residual heat of the oven to help finish the bread. This does a final set of the crust but also serves to get that last bit of moisture out of the dough. I often do this with my sourdough loaves in the wintertime when the relative humidity is significantly higher than in the summer.
Finally, if you don’t have an instant read thermometer, do yourself a favor and get one. They’re less than $20. Why get one? Simply because to get a better feel for the doneness of a loaf, you need to take its internal temperature which should be no less than 195°F. You can’t simply rely on the color of the crust. It may look done on the outside, but until you take the internal temperature, you won’t know for certain.
Pan de Cristal right out of the oven! OMG I’m excited!
Yesterday, I tried to make Pane di Altamura. I failed horribly. I’m still getting used to my new oven and I’m not sure what happened, but the crust set too early, and the crumb came out extremely dense. Plus, my Semolina flour is pretty old and the crumb was brown instead of yellow. Ugh! The bread tasted okay, but its density was just too much. I ended up throwing out the loaves (and no, they wouldn’t have made good croutons).
After I threw out the loaves I was understandably a bit distraught and disappointed. I hate wasting things, especially food. But these loaves were heavy hunks of cooked dough. I told myself right then and there that I needed a win.
So, this morning as I was brooding over yesterday’s fail and figuring out what I wanted to bake, I ran across a video on YouTube by Martin Philip of King Arthur and his demonstration on making Pan de Cristal. I had never made it before, but I had made plenty of high hydration ciabatta (>90% hydration) and knew how to handle that wet of a dough. I decided to make it.
I just pulled the loaves out of the oven, and I am a happy man! They turned out beautifully, with a gorgeous, thin, golden-brown almost chestnut crust. Each of the loaves are feather-light, which is how they’re supposed to be. And that means that they got plenty of rise. The smallest loaf in the top-left corner of the picture didn’t expand as much as I had to manipulate it on my baking sheet to reposition it. But its crust still came out nice and airy.
As for how they taste, in a word, they’re incredible. The olive oil that’s used to grease the casserole pan I used for coil folds infused into the dough, giving it a subtly sweet and nutty flavor. I just ate half of the smallest loaf with some butter. But this bread would go great for dipping into olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Well, I got my win for the day. I needed it after my previous fiasco!
When I’m pinched for time and want baguettes, I turn to Baguettes de Tradition that are a same-day baguette that I learned how to make a few years ago from reading Jeffrey Hamelman’s book, “Bread.” This simple baguette recipe only requires a few hours from mix to bake and is perfect for when I want baguettes for dinner. My only complaint about these is that since they’re baked on the same day, they don’t have nearly the amount of flavor as when I use the Pointage en Bac method of slow rising the dough overnight. Still, they’re perfect for dipping or using as sandwhich loaves.
This afternoon I was trying to figure out what I wanted for dinner and remembered that I had some BBQ pulled pork in the freezer, then realized that I didn’t have any sandwich loaves. Not that I needed an excuse to bake some bread, I thought I’d make some baguettes.
At first, I was going to make Baguettes de Tradition, but then I also remembered the starter in my fridge and that I had just fed it a few days ago! So, I pulled it out and it looked like it had peaked, but only recently. What luck! I was excited because I knew that the starter would add tons of flavor to the dough! And yes, I used it right out of the fridge but dissolved it in 90°F to wake it up. Here’s the formula and recipe:
Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
76%
Salt
2.00%
Yeast
0.25%
Total %
177.33%
Final Dough
Bread Flour
154g
Kamut Flour
205g
AP Flour
564g
Water
666g
Salt
21g
Yeast
2g
Unfed Starter (weight is 20% of the total flour)
205g
Total Yield
1818 6 X 300g Baguettes
It can be a little dicey using unfed starter. My experience is that it should not be so old where it smells cheesy and sour. At that point, it’s very acidic and the bacteria have essentially taken over. A telltale is that’s it’s fine to use if the level of the starter in my container is still well above the original line and hasn’t subsided all the way back and the starter itself is still bubbly. That means there’s still plenty of yeast activity.
I used a flour blend that was as follows:
Flour from the starter
10.00%
Bread Flour
15.00%
Kamut Flour
20.00%
AP Flour
55.00%
Total %
100.00%
I used a tiny bit of commercial yeast to boost the yeast activity as I want to favor rising. With the amount of starter I use, there’s going to be plenty of flavor. But you can certainly skip it.
Using a sourdough starter alters my normal process for Baguette de Tradition because I follow the Tartine Basic Country Loaf process which includes a fermentolyse and a bassinage when I add the salt. Here’s the process:
Mix. Sift then thoroughly mix the flour in a large bowl and set aside. In another bowl, measure out the starter then add all but 50g of water and break up the starter till it’s completely dissolved. If you’re using starter fresh out of the fridge, make sure the water temperature is warm (85°F-90°F). Mix the flour and the liquid until everything is together and forms a shaggy mass.
Autolyse. Since we’ve included the starter, it’s colloquially called “fermentolyse.” Rest the mixture for 30 minutes to an hour.
Yeast, and Salted Bassinage. Sprinkle the yeast all over the top of the mixture. Dissolve the salt in the reserved water, then pour it over the top of the dough (make sure you use a spatula to get all the salt). Using your hands or a mixer on low spead, fold the new ingredients into the dough until they are fully incorporated.
Bulk Fermentation. You can transfer the dough to another container for bulk fermentation or just let it sit in the mixing bowl. During the first hour, fold the dough three times, every 20 minutes, then let the dough bulk ferment to about 75% expansion. With baguettes, you don’t want to go to double and in fact, you want to bake them just a little short of fully fermented. I know it sounds a little bass-ackwards, but this was a technique I learned about from the baker who won the annual Best Baguette in Paris. He claimed the slightly under-fermented dough springs better in the oven.
To letter-fold, pull sides of the piece and
Divide and Pre-Shape. Once bulk fermentation is complete, pour out the dough onto a lightly flour workspace. Pull it into a rough rectangle, then divide the dough into six even pieces. The recipe here calls for the pieces to be 300g. Letter-fold the pieces and roll them up like a jelly roll. Bench rest for 15 minutes.
Shape and Final Fermentation. Shape the pieces into long logs, then transfer to a couch or baguette pan for final fermentation. Poke test the loaves and if the indent comes up and immediately, it’s too soon. If it comes up slowly, but a small indent remains, then they’re ready to bake.
Bake. Score the baguettes then bake at 450°F. Bake with steam the first 10 minutes, then remove the steaming containers and bake until the crust is a deep golden brown. Mine took about 22 minutes to get to that point.
Cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting. Or you can do the Chad Robertson way and just cut it fresh out of the oven. 🙂
Now that I’m back to baking on a regular basis, I realized something after my last bake of sourdough baguettes: I’m really rusty! It’s not that the baguettes turned out bad; in fact, they turned out pretty good, though I do have to say that my scoring technique needs some practice. But where I was really rusty was in dough and starter development.
First of all, I let my starter go too long without feeding it, and even though I revived it and it doubled in less than four hours, part of me knew that it wasn’t very strong but I made dough with it anyway. It took forever to ferment! We’re talking 12 hours at room temperature on a warm day where were my kitchen was 80°F for most of the day! That was concerning to me because I knew that that length of time would favor bacteria and protease enzymes and would lower the pH of my dough.
And it did. By the time the dough doubled (I shouldn’t have waited so long), it was sour. And though it still had a bit of structure, I could tell from its extreme extensibility that it was at the very edge of being ruined. From a flavor perspective, that might’ve seemed like a good thing, but I knew that I’d have some challenges in handling the dough. So, instead of giving a couple of hours to final fermentation, I only let it happen for 20 minutes. And it’s a good thing I did because the loaves were seriously slack sitting in the baguette pan.
After I finished baking them, I got the feeling that I dodged a bullet. That is never a good feeling. I didn’t have the confidence that I normally have after a good bake. I knew there were problems and though the end result turned out reasonably good, I knew I could do so much better. I needed to up my game. But instead of trying to make drastic changes in my methods and processes, I instead decided to go back to basics. And that meant going back to the Tartine Basic Country Bread.
The result of going back to the basics!
So, a couple of evenings ago, I opened up the “Tartine Bread” book, and re-read (probably for the 100th time) the section on Basic Country Bread (aka Pain de Campagne). To me, that section isn’t just a step-by-step guide. It’s a repeatable process that all of Tartine’s bread are based. Chad Robertson often refers back to the Basic Country Bread throughout the book, emphasizing that his recipes are merely riffs on the original process.
Every time I read it, it puts me in the proper mindset for baking sourdough, bringing me back to and reminding me of the fundamentals and especially the things I need to be aware of and watch for. And even though I’ve internalized that knowledge over the years, doing that review helps me re-organize my thoughts.
What I found myself doing in my previous bakes was overthinking the process and second-guessing myself. I had so many conflicting thoughts bouncing around in my head! Did I shape it properly? Was bulk fermentation long enough? Was my hydration too much? Quite frankly, it was rather unsettling. But in going back to the basics, I slowed down and focused on methodically executing the steps. And lo and behold, my loaves turned out amazing!
What better way to enjoy some sourdough than with Croque Monsieur!
And that’s the lesson I wanted to share here. In this day and age where we’re all online and practically any information we want is just a mouse click away, it’s easy to get inundated and overwhelmed by the sheer mass of information out there. And with bread, there are so many diverse types of bread recipes that it’s easy to get distracted jumping from one recipe to another. And for many home bakers I’ve met, they often get frustrated when their bread doesn’t turn out as they expect. Some have shared with me that they gave up baking entirely.
For instance, I once worked with a friend who was discouraged with her baking. She shared with me that all the bread she makes never comes out how it looks in the pictures. I told her to take a step back and master just one type of bread and to learn the ins and outs of the process for that single bread.
I shared that when I started baking seriously, I only did yeasted loaves; not because I didn’t know how to make sourdough. I wanted to learn how to work with dough and to develop a feel for it. This is because so much of working with dough is tactile by nature. I figured that no matter what type of leavening agent I used, dough is dough.
And though I shared my recent experience here, it’s not the first time I’ve gone back to basics. I’ve done this very thing several times over the years. So, as the title says, when in doubt, go back to the basics!
When I bake certain bread, especially Italian bread, the recipes often call for a stiff preferment. Though they usually call for making a stiff biga from commercial yeast, I like going the traditional route and make my preferment from a natural starter. Unfortunately, all my starters have a hydration of 100%. So, I need to do some conversion.
Though the conversion involves a bit of arithmetic, it’s not as difficult as it may seem on the surface. In fact, you have all the information you need. But the trick to doing the conversion is that you must work backwards.
Okay… Let’s suppose the recipe you’re working with requires creating a stiff starter that’s 200g with a hydration of 50%. What we first must do is determine the total flour and the total water of the target starter. To do that, we first calculate the total flour. That’s easily achieved by the following equation:
Total Starter Weight / (1 + Starter Hydration) = Total Flour
Pluggin in the numbers, that’s:
200 / (1 + 50%) = 133
From there, the total water of your target starter will be 200 – 133 or 67.
Now that we have our target numbers, we need to specify how much mother we want to be part of the new starter as a percentage of the total flour in the new starter. For this discussion, let’s say we’ll use 15%. Since any ingredient that goes into a dough is a percentage of the total flour of the dough, the original starter we’ll need is:
Total New Starter Flour * % Amount of Mother = Mother Weight Needed -or-
133 * 15% = 20g
Since we know that the hydration of the mother starter is 100%, we can simply divide the amount of mother starter we need by 2 to get both the amounts of flour and water in the mother starter. So…
This calculation is important because the flour and water of the mother contribute to the total flour and water of the new starter, so we must factor that in. So, to get the amount of extra flour and water we need to create the 200g starter, we simply subtract the mother flour and water from the new starter total flour and water respectively:
Extra Flour we’ll need: 133 – 10 = 123
Extra Water we’ll need: 67 – 10 = 57
So, our new 50% hydration preferment will consist of the following:
20g Mother Starter 123g Flour 57g Water
And those added up will be 200g.
See? Not so hard. And the cool thing about this is that it also works in reverse when you want to convert from a stiff starter to a liquid starter!
But to make it easy, I created a simple calculator in a Google Sheet that you can use. You can use it there, but I recommend copying the sheet to one in your own account because others might use it at the same time and you’ll end up stepping on each other.
Pain de Campagne or literally “country bread,” originated in France going back to medieval times. Baked in communal ovens and meant to last for several days or even weeks, it was made from a blend of different flour, usually white, wheat, and rye, and always fermented with a natural starter. It was literally the daily bread of common folk.
But with the introduction of commercial yeast, the making of the traditional country bread declined in favor of the convenience commercial yeast brought with it. Baguettes and other types of bread took precedence over the lowly country bread. But in the 1970s, naturally fermented bread saw a renaissance among home bakers, not just in France, but all over the world.
The Tartine Basic Country Loaf formula from “Tartine Bread” by Chad Robertson
Then Chad Robertson published “Tartine Bread” in 2010, and it transformed bread baking across the US, providing the inspiration for both professional and home bakers to return to their roots and rediscover the beauty of artisan bread baking. His in-depth discussion of his Basic Country Loaf (which is simpy Pain de Campagne) captured the care and passion that went into creating a finely crafted loaf of bread.
But at least for me, Tartine Bread wasn’t just a recipe book. It articulated and affirmed a belief I had formulated since I made my first loaf of bread over 40 years ago: that making bread by hand was so much more than mixing ingredients to produce a loaf. It was a lifestyle choice. Like Jeff Spicoli said in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Surfing’s not a sport, it’s a way of life, it’s no hobby.” So it goes with baking artisan bread.
Think about the time and devotion to the task that making even a single loaf requires. Think of the investment of time and resources spent on developing the skills to consistently produce bread. There’s nothing casual about it, even for someone who wants to casually make a loaf or two. I think this is where most people new to baking artisan bread get discouraged. They peruse online forums and read books like “Tartine Bread” and think, “Holy s$%t! That takes dedication. Maybe it’s more than I’m willing – or able – to commit!”
Of course, one can take a casual approach to baking and still make delicious bread. For thirty years, my only aim with baking bread was to create something delicious with little attention paid to aesthetics. My family and friends loved the taste of my bread and that was all that mattered to me. But when I started baking in earnest, I had an archetype in mind that I wanted to aspire to.
And to get to that point meant going down a lot of rabbit holes, experimenting with different techniques and ingredients, taking courses, researching the science behind yeast and bacterial metabolism, and most importantly, baking a lot of bread to hone my skills as a baker. And I realize that I’ve gone off on a tangent. But as the title of this entry says, at least for me, making Pain de Campagne is so much more than just making country bread.
Speaking of experimenting, the beauty of Pain de Campagne lies in its roots where it was produced out of necessity. As I mentioned above, different blends of flour were used, white flour for structure, wheat for taste, and rye to boost fermentation. I have no idea what the ratios were, but I imagine they varied based on what was on hand. Plus, considering that recipes and starters were handed down from generation to generation, I’d imagine that the makeup of the loaves varied considerably from bake to bake. And that variability is why country bread is such a great bread to learn to bake sourdough with. It’s easy to experiment with different things.
One thing I’m experimenting with right now is a technique I learned from a blog post called, “Don’t Be a Bread Hostage” by Martin Philip of King Arthur describing how he used unfed starter – or discard – right out of the fridge as opposed to building a levain. He learned the technique from a friend of his and in this video, says that is how he makes his sourdough at home.
I was a little incredulous about this when I first read it, but it makes a lot of sense. Even if a starter is way past its peak, it doesn’t mean that the yeast has died. It’s just dormant until it’s introduced to a new source of food. Normally we wake up the yeast in a culture by creating a levain, then using the levain at the peak of the yeast’s activity. All we’re doing with a levain is introducing a food source.
When we use a starter right out of the fridge, and mix it into a dough, all we’re doing is introducing the yeast to a new food source. So, instead of waiting for the yeast to wake up and get to peak activity, we just let it wake up within the final dough. What I found with this technique is that bulk fermentation is much slower than if I use a peaked levain – lasting from twelve to sixteen hours. But the advantage of this is that I just mix everything together, do three folds every fifteen minutes in the first forty-five minutes, then let the dough rise until it has doubled.1
Here are the formula and final dough:
Yield: 2 X 1 kilo loaves
Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
80%
Salt
2.00%
Starter will be 10% of total flour
Final Dough
Bread Flour (I recommend at least 12% protein content)
Mix. Mix all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, including the salt. In a separate bowl, dissolve the starter into all the water, then add to the dry ingredients and mix until you form a shaggy mass with no large lumps. If you used a stand mixer mix your dough, transfer the dough to a suitable container.
Bulk Fermentation. Overnight. In the first 45 minutes, do three sets of stretch and folds every fifteen minutes. Don’t freak out when you’re folding the dough, especially with the first set. This is a high-hydration dough. By the third fold, the dough will have developed a lot of strength – you will feel it.2
Divide and Pre-shape. Once the dough has almost doubled (see footnote below), pour it out onto a well-floured work surface. This is a high-hydration dough, so you don’t want it to be sticking. Divide into two equal pieces about a kilogram each and pre-shape into boules. Place the boules seam side down, sprinkle a little flour on top of each, then cover them with a tea towel and let them bench rest for 15-20 minutes.
Shape and Final Fermentation. Shape the boules into whatever shape you want then place them in bannetons. Cover them and put them into the fridge for 8-12 hours. My advice is to check them at six hours to see how they’re progressing. When you do the poke test, the dough shouldn’t spring back too quickly, and the indentation shouldn’t fade all the way.
Bake. Bake at 450°F for 20 minutes with steam (if using a Dutch oven, cook covered for 20 minutes), remove steaming container or uncover if using a Dutch oven, then bake for another 20-25 minutes uncovered or until the crust is a deep golden brown. Personally, I take it to brown as I like a well-caramelized crust. Cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting (though it’s better to let the bread cool for a couple of hours.
In Martin Philip’s video, he mentioned letting the dough double. But if you use a very mature starter, be VERY careful to monitor the progress of your dough because a mature starter is highly acidic, and acid will break down gluten. The first time I used this technique, I let the dough get to double and it was overproofed! Also, he mentioned that he let his dough go for 12 hours. Bear in mind that that’s just a guideline. Expansion is more important. I’ve learned to check at about 8 hours, and I will divide and shape when the dough reaches about 70%-75% expansion just to be safe. ↩︎
If the dough hasn’t done much by the time you wake up, don’t worry. Give it another stretch and fold to move the yeast to a new food source. You will soon see progress. ↩︎
A couple of days ago I shared that I got a new oven and in the few days I’ve had it, it has been incredible. So much more capable than my previous oven (even when it was working), I couldn’t be happier with it. BUT it has also meant that I must figure it out it; not how to use it, but the best way(s) to bake bread with it.
For instance, what level should I place the rack? With my first bake, I placed my stone on the middle level. The loaves turned out great, but the crust looked a little dry when I took them out. Did the circulation fan turn on? Did I have enough steam?
Speaking of steam, even though this oven has a steam function, it doesn’t have a separate reservoir and steam generator. You’re supposed to put water on the bottom of the oven. I know, not much different from baking with a regular oven, but the advantage of this new oven over my old one is that this new one can handle high moisture levels; something my old oven couldn’t and the baking cavity finally cracked.
I can see that the fan at the back is going to be problematic. This is probably the culprit behind the dry crust. I will need to find a way to divert the airflow, or move the loaves to either side of the fan so they’re out of the direct path of fan. With my old oven, I draped a sheet of heavy duty foil over the fan area. It didn’t complete block the fan, but it did help to block the direct airflow. But what I think I might end up doing is using a thin metal sheet or some other heat tolerant material that can lean against the back of the oven without completely covering the vents. Since it will be at an angle, it will divert the airflow down. I think that’ll also help bring steam up from the bottom.
Another thing I must figure out is using my baking stone with this oven.
Ah! The things we do for our bread! Figuring our tools out is half the fun!
Yesterday afternoon, my family was enjoying subs that my kids made from the baguettes I had baked the day before. I asked them how they liked the bread and they all said it was great. But one of my daughters asked said, “Dad, we love your baguettes, but can you make a real sour loaf like you used to?” Of course I agreed because any excuse to bake some bread is fine with me.
So, last night, I worked out my formula, then fed my starter in preparation for making the dough early this morning. While I was reviewing the formula, I thought of numerous ways to make bread sourer. But I have a tried-and-true method that will ensure my bread comes out sour. Actually, it’s a combination of things. Here they are:
First, I use mature, unfed starter straight out of my fridge that has hooch formed. I mix the hooch back into the starter, measure out what I need for my recipe, then I feed the starter and put it back into the fridge. I know, it seems counterintuitive, but at the stage I use it, even though there’s still live yeast in the culture, the bacteria have taken over.
Second, the starter is made entirely from whole grain flour or at a minimum T85 flour that still has a substantial amount of germ and husk in it. That’s where the little beasties (bacteria) reside. I will sometimes use a mature rye levain – and always past its peak.
Thirdly, I make a flour blend that is at least 20% whole grain flour. Today I used unsifted 100% organic whole grain Kamut™ flour. In addition to introducing bacteria, it adds a nice nutty component to the flavor profile along with a tiny bit of sweetness. Yum!
I also use a more standard hydration of 70%. This is a little low for the flour that I use which has high protein content. But the lower hydration promotes anerobic metabolism which favors the bacteria.
Next, I use significantly less starter than I normally would for other loaves. Usually, the amount of starter I use is 20% of the total flour, but when I want sourer bread, I reduce the amount down to 12%. This lower amount of starter lengthens fermentation time forcing the yeast to compete more with the bacteria during bulk fermentation. This also promotes bacterial fermentation over yeast fermentation.
Then finally I do a long final fermentation in the fridge for a minimum of twelve hours. This slows down the yeast but lets the bacteria continue doing their thing. Importantly, I didn’t want to completely stop yeast production because it was already slow to start with. So I turned up my fridge temp to 42°F (don’t worry, I have a small dedicated fridge for cold fermentation.
With the smaller amount of starter, bulk fermentation is SLOW. I mixed my dough at 7am this morning and didn’t shape until 6pm! And it was a hot day today. That got me a little worried because with my kitchen ambient temperature at 85°F, I thought it would speed up yeast fermentation. But it looks like there was enough competition from the bacteria to attenuate the yeast activity even at that temperature.
With a lower hydration dough combined with the different ways to promote bacterial fermentation, I had to be extra gentle with shaping. Normally I don’t have a problem degassing the dough because I tend to make loaves that favor yeast production. But with such low yeast activity, I handled the dough much gentler to avoid popping as few bubbles as possible.
This may seem complicated because I explained each item, but it’s not. Here’s everything I talked about in summary:
Use unfed starter
Use a whole grain flour starter
Use a flour blend that includes some whole grain flour
Use a lower hydration (68%-70%) to promote anerobic metabolism
Use less starter
Do final fermentation in the fridge for at least twelve hours
As I said, it’s not complicated. You can even skip some of these things. But from experience, I know doing those things above will create a sour loaf of bread!
How Sour Is Sour?
All that said, my technique above favors lactic acid production rather than acetic acid production. Lactic acid is sour, but it doesn’t have a bite, like acetic acid. The loaf above is high in lactic acid. Its sourness comes off as nutty and fruity as opposed to vinegary. I prefer this kind of sourness because there’s a complexity in the flavor profile. If I want a tangier loaf, I’d use a stiff starter that favors acetic acid production, but I’d use a bit more than a liquid starter.
The Dawg House! 