Let’s see.
I have butter.
And some potatoes.
2 Likes
7 Likes
They don’t sell Old Bay at Costco on your coast?
Instacart is offering delivery of Old Bay from 11 different stores to our CA address in 45 minutes or less.
4 Likes
Okay, I’m way behind on this thread (I think I’m up to post 200 or so), but I thought I’d contribute.
Tried a new flour for my sourdough. Not as much oven spring as I’d like, but it’s a mighty nice looking crumb:
10 Likes
I’ve never been able to get my loaves to burst open from scoring like that! What recipe and type of flours are you using, and can you talk about your scoring technique a little bit? 
1 Like
Nothing better than a good loaf of fresh 
!
Oooh buckle up my dude.
Ingredients (for two loaves)
150g 1:1 ripe starter
925g King Arthur bread flour
625 Luke warm water
25g Salt
Making the dough
So first off, I use King Arthur whole wheat in my starter, 1:1 ratio with water. I’ll take the starter out of the fridge in the morning and let it rise until it has at least doubled.
Around an hour before my starter seems like it will be ready, I do autolysis with the flour. This is just combining your water and flour together, which begins forming the gluten network. Water is needed for the glutenin and gliadin proteins to start forming bonds (H-bonds and disulfide bonds mostly), which begins forming the structural part of your dough. I generally let the autolysis go for at least an hour. All you have to do is just let the combined flour and water mixture sit in a bowl with a lid on.
Next, I add my starter and salt. I generally do 15% starter and 2.5% salt (numbers are relative to total amount of flour in dough). A note here, the more starter you use, the less structure your dough will have (and thus, less oven spring). This is because your dough gets too acidic and the gluten network gets attacked by the acids. Once the starter and salt are added, I knead with a kitchen aid mixer until the starter and salt are completely combined with the flour/water mix.
Gluten development
At this point, I let the dough sit in the bowl for about 30 minutes. Then I begin my gluten development activities. For this, I’ll take the dough out of the bowl and onto a flat surface (I use my countertops, they’re quartz). I don’t put flour down since I want the dough to somewhat stick to the surface. Next I spread the dough out flat by pushing it down and out, forming a big flat circle. Then, I pull the edges of the dough into the center to form a ball shape. Then I’ll form it into a boule shape and put it back into the bowl. I’ll do this again two more times, every 30-45 minutes. After the third time through, that’s when I’ll do the final shaping of my bread. I usually do boules but sometimes I’ll do batards if I’m not using a dutch oven.
Fermentation and scoring
Once shaped, I put the dough in a rice flour lined banneton with a plastic shower cap over the top. Then it goes into the fridge over night. Note that doing a cold ferment and baking the dough while it’s cold helps get that extra crispy crust with all the micro bubbles.
In the morning when I’m ready to bake, I’ll preheat my oven to 475F with a dutch oven inside (or if not using a dutch oven, I’ll use a baking steel and heat to 450F with a cast iron on the rack underneath the baking steel).
Once the oven is nice and hot, I’ll take the dough out of the banneton and onto parchment paper. I like to score my breads with just one straight line, slightly off center. When I score, I hold the blade almost parallel to the bread surface. You’re almost trying to cut a little fold/pocket into the dough, not make a deep verticle cut into it. This is what helps you get a nice pronounced ear.
Baking
Put the bread in the dutch oven and put into the oven to bake. I let it go 25 minutes in the dutch oven, then I’ll remove the lid and let it bake another 12-15 minutes, depending on the color of the crust that I’m seeing. Once that’s done, I’ll take it out and cool it on a rack.
Alternatively, if using a backing steel, put the bread and parchment paper on the steel (note that I trim the parchment paper to the edges of the loaf so it doesn’t burn). Then before closing the oven, I throw a handful of ice cubes in the cast iron that’s under the baking steel. This helps get a bunch of steam in the oven. Then I’ll bake for roughly 30ish minutes, again depending on how the crust looks.
5 Likes
I have heard lots of good things about theirs - they were impossible to get directly during the pandemic. The starter I was able to get was sad, I gave Generation 1 a funeral and kept some in case I wanted to try again. I need to get some of that King Arthur starter. 
Try this:
Great River Organic Milling, Lily White Bread Flour, All-Purpose, Organic, 25 Lb (Pack Of 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CTLAIH8
1 Like
Rye flour is really good for getting your starter going in the first place. I don’t like rye for regularly feeding it but it really helps a new or dying starter take off
1 Like
Thanks for all the info!
What does the crumb of your bread look like? I’ve never done a loaf w/ 68% hydration (my doughs have all been 75%+).
And did I miss something or do you only do one bulk ferment in the fridge and no other proofing??? Fascinating. I’ve always done two. I use the percentages for Ken Forkish’s overnight country blonde. The dough above was a bulk ferment for 20 hrs (!) at room temp (which, in my kitchen, is in the low 60s) and then 26 hrs in the fridge. One ferment would be so much easier. Maybe I’ll give it a try…
I used Central Milling Old World Bread flour for the first time w/ the loaf above. The stuff is really forgiving and is incredibly elastic.
I just prefer a lower hydration bread, the higher hydration stuff is too chewy for my taste but I’ve made up to 80% with that method. If I have a higher hydration, I’ll do more gluten development than what I listed.
I’m curious how much starter your recipe calls for, that is a long ferment! Mine would definitely over proof if I did two bulk ferments (with one being at room temp).
Ah! I LOVE the chew and the sourness. So perhaps I am doomed to relatively low rising bread. 
Off the top of my head, it’s 100–130gm of starter for 440 gm of flour + 342 gm of water. So WAY more than your recipe (and way more than a lot of recipes, actually).
I’m overdoing the ferment b/c it’s cold as heck in my kitchen. Forkish’s recipe calls for 12-15 hr ferment (and for nearly a TRIPLING of the dough), shape, 3-4 hr 2nd proof (use the poke test to see when it’s ready). It does freq overproof, and Forkish has apparently said that he likes to push dough to its limits. Wish I would’ve known that b/f I had tried the recipe (b/c, when it turns out, it’s so delicious). His recipe uses AP flour (!) + whole wheat + rye. I love the complexity the rye adds, but it just makes for SUCH a slack dough. So I’ve stopped doing that. The Central Mill flour seem to give me nearly all the complexity of flavor in one package.
I’ve almost always messed up the poke test, so I’ve more recently been using 50-100% rise from bulk ferment, shape, and then stick ti in the fridge for ~24 hrs b/f baking (but not for this last loaf).
2 Likes
I was already barely trying with dinner last night, but everything really fell apart when I got home and found that the taco shells I picked up had been reduced to shrapnel.
And somehow the packaging for the bagged lettuce I bought hid all of the limp, colorless fragments inside.
So I just threw all the shit into a bowl and called it good enough.
4 Likes