Anyone bakes their own Sourdough?

[wquiles]

I have been baking sourdough bread at home for a couple of years, but everything was "by eye", without measuring "exactly" anything. But I was never quite satisfied with the flavor - too dull. So I found this bread-making site, created a new starter following the pineapple juice method, and this time around I bought a kitchen scale and I am trying to be more consistent. While developing the new starter, I noticed inconsistencies temperature-wise, so I decided to make my DIY proofing box as well (right now works between 76-78F).



This is my current method:

- Thu afternoon, take starter (5oz) from fridge (getting the starter ready takes about 1-2 weeks - its own separate process!)

- Mix 1oz of starter, with 2oz water and 2oz flour - put in proofing box

- Mix 2oz of starter, with 4oz water and 4oz flour (this is the levain) - put in proofing box

- Friday mid morning, put starter back in fridge (at least 12h have passed)

- Around mid-day Friday, mix 17.5oz of flour with 8.8oz of water - let sit for 30min

- Mix flour with water with levian. At this point the mix is way too messy, and too wet for me to mix, so I add about 2oz of flour to get a more manageable consistency. I add the .35oz of salt at this point.

- Fold and let rest 30min - do this 4-5 times

- let rest until early evening for bulk fermentation 4-5h (in the proofing box)

- cut in two, shape, put in banneton, covered in air-tight plastic bag and store in fridge

- Sat morning, about 9am, bring oven and dutch oven to 500F - wait 30min after oven has reached temperature

- Once ready, transfer bread into dutch oven (on wax paper), put in oven (set to 450F), bake with lid on for 20min. Note that the bottom of my dutch oven has a small amount of flour and the bread goes on top of a piece of parchment paper - this helps the bottom get cooked but not quite totally burned.

- Remove lid, bake for another 20min

- Remove bread, place on cooling pad, wait at least 90min to 2 hours before cutting/eating



For some photos, this is while the bread is doing the bulk fermentation and I am doing the folds:



This is when I cut (above) in two, to start shaping:



This is one of the two loafs shaped, and ready to go into the fridge:



Scored, and ready for the first part of the baking - with the lid on:



This is how one of the two loafs looks like after the first bake portion with the lid on:



And after baking, these are the two loafs I got yesterday (Sat):


and



After 2 hours (so it is fully cooked internally), this is how it looks like:

 

[wquiles]

What is even more weird about me baking and eating bread is that I am on Keto diet. Been on it for a little bit over 5 years. This is my ONLY cheat meal - once a week, I get to eat my own bread. Of course, I put plenty of fats on mine when I eat bread: butter, cheese, and ham



Will

 

[Axman]

Looks great!
How much for shipping?

 

[Brad]

Weight is the only way I make bread.
I use my pellet grill for baking because it holds temp far better than my oven. With a pizza stone in place it never burns the bottom and I get very repeatable results.

 

[wquiles]

Yes! Now that I weight ingredients, everything is now very consistent and repeatable!

This is the bottom of my loafs - just barely burned a little. I just scrape this with a grater, and problem solved

 

[John]

We have done sourdough for years but I have recently gone in the opposite direction that you. I get the starter out of the fridge and feed it tbsp flour and warm water 1/2 tsp sugar about 3 in the afternoon. about 6:30 I remove a cup of starter, add to it 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup white flour, about 1 3/4 cup warm water. [our tap water is about 42 F] I mix that together and let it set overnight.
In the morning I add another cup each of WW and White flours and 2 cups of water, 2 teaspoons salt, and knead it until it is all incorporated and pulling away from the sides of the bowl, then 2 or 3 minutes more. Set it to form, loaves or rolls then let it rise another 60-90 minutes. Bake in a preheated 450 F oven for 20 minutes, turn the oven off and open the door. Pull it out after 5 minutes let it cool enough to eat.
I really like the simplicity of the 3 ingredient bread and I get a good crust, stiff but not burned and the inside isn't doughy. Our kitchen is in the high 60's in the winter and we don't do AC so summer temps run from mid 60's to mid 80's. Don't bake much when it's hot but we have a double oven, top is European and the smaller oven heats quickly without over heating the house.

 

[wquiles]

Nice. There are basically endless variations to make sourdough bread. I want to try making baguettes - crusty french baguettes but with sourdough starter. Somethning perhaps like this:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19830/36-hours-sourdough-baguette-everything-i-know-one-bread

 

[Brad]

Will, take a look at King Arthur Flour’s website. They tend to have some good recipes.

 

[wquiles]

Thank you Brad - will definitely take a look

 

[fiver]

the thing about bread is every region and sub region will have their own flavors and twists.
the real sour dough bread from san Francisco is from the natural yeasts in the air there.
replicating is just flavoring not really replicating.
once you've had natural air yeast sourdough made in the kitchen window in San Fran. your ruined and can easily tell the difference.
only problem there is... even the altitude in town can make a difference in the flavor.

 

[wquiles]

Yup, well said. Even "if" I were to start with a true SF starter, every time I feed my starter and put in the proofing box (which in my case is once a week), it is exposed to "my" kitchen air, so after a couple of generations it will stop being SF starter, and it will be unique to where I live. It becomes "Will's Texas sourdough bread starter"

A recent tip I learned for maintaining the starter is to add a "pinch" of organic rye flour and a "pinch" of organic whole wheat flour when refreshing the starter. Been doing that for the last month - bread is coming out amazing:





Ann, and I forgot to link to the article of how I got my most current starter:
Part 1
Part 2

 

[358156 hp]

That was quite a read. I've been doing "no knead" whole wheat for a while now but I'm backing down from it at the moment. I tend to generate far more bread than I'm willing to try eating. I will return to it once I get a few things worked out, but I'm tired of thinking about it for the moment. My bread always turned out good, but I haven't found the taste I'm looking for.

 

[fiver]

your water might be the issue.

our only redeeming bread making feature here is the hard water.

 

[wquiles]

The water might be part of it, but it could also be that you might need longer fermentation times.

After a couple of years of the same problem (not enough flavor/taste), I got the advice to try the longer fermentation times. Both the 4-5 hour fast bulk fermentation on the proofing box (78F), and the overnight slow fermentation in the fridge until morning bake time is what did it for me. I know have the famous "taste" of sourdough bread once a week

 

[358156 hp]

The version of "no knead" I'm working with generally proofs for a minimum of 12 hours. I have added brown sugar to my ingredients to try making the bread a bit lighter. Whole wheat usually results in a rather dense loaf. 50/50 white & whole wheat is lighter, but still really chewy. Since I've taken to milling my own wheat berries for flour I'm trying to make whole wheat work the way I want it to. I recently bought some hard white spring wheat in an attempt to fine-tune the texture a bit, my normal wheat is hard red winter wheat.

I've been using bottled (not distilled) water for my bread making, and not the bargain basement type. Since no knead bread uses only a small amount of yeast I think I may try bumping that up a bit as well. The dough rises beautifully, so I don't think there are any issues there. One other observation, my bread browns nicely in the oven, but doesn't toast well in the toaster. That part has me flummoxed.

 

[fiver]

that is odd.
chewy is gluten,, maybe over working the dough?
a lot of the time just folding it under so you get a good even skin on the dough is enough.
maybe bake time too, some breads also like [or need] a little higher initial heat to kill off the yeast before finish baking.

 

[358156 hp]

No knead bread is basically made by stirring the ingredients together and letting everything proof a minimum of 8 hours. I don't even touch the dough with my hands, and the only working of the dough is a quick degas & a bit of a stir just before the dough goes into the pan to proof for a final hour before baking. Here's a good video of the process:

My recipe is similar, and my dough and finished bread looks exactly like his, right down to the compactness of the air pockets in the finished bread. I'm thinking about increasing my final proof time about an additional half-hour.

 

[fiver]

as bread dough sits it will create it's own Gluten.
it takes about 12 hrs. for it to form, but it does so without kneading.

 

[358156 hp]

We'll see how this round works out. I gave it slightly more yeast, I'm up to a half teaspoon, a slightly longer initial proof (12 hours), then a longer (1 hour) final proof before baking. It's in the oven now.

The additional yeast with the longer initial proof greatly increased the final volume of the dough, perhaps 25% more. That's what I was hoping for. Perhaps the yeast is running out of gas (literally) too early at the 1/4 tsp level.

 

[Rally]

You guys are sure making me hungry!!