mag3.14's blog

Inspired by Syd's gorgeous-looking SFSD, I decided to give his interpretation of Josh's Super Sour SFSD a shot. Our house is still quite cool, so I used Josh's recommendations for the levain build (60% starter), and was able to proof the dough at room temperature for several hours, with very little activity.

Like Syd's, mine came out very flavourful, but not particularly sour. The crumb is incredibly fluffy, though lacking any sizable holes. The crust was very crackly ::happy sigh:: and had a strong, toasty flavour. Despite spending over 24 hours in the fridge for the final retard, I'm not getting the sort of blistering shown in photos on the site. I'm more curious than disappointed about that.

As a "no knead" graduate, I'm used to making high hydration, slack doughs, slumped into loaves which are only vaguely "boule" shaped. Tasty enough, full of "rustic charm", but definitely not pretty.

I want pretty. So I've picked up some banneton, and am training myself to use more flour than seems right, on the understanding that stiffer dough will be easier for a beginner to shape.

And so, this is a slightly stiffer version of Saus' "San Francisco Sourdough Bread". The formula calls for 69% hydration; this is 63%.

I star­ted with .75 ounces of liquid rye starter (100% hydra­tion), and built it up to a 7 ounce stiff white starter (approx­im­ately 50% hydra­tion) in 2 feed­ings over 24 hours. The levain accounts for 20% of the total flour in the final dough.

The final dough I let proof overnight on the counter. First lesson: last week was cool enough to do that; this week is not! Behold the slashed tire:

Also, I'm not as clever as one might wish, at dumping dough into a pot. More practice is required. (Oh, the pain!)

A bit of oven spring helped to re-inflate that tire, sort of, but it still came out a slumpy, wrinkly thing that only a mother could love. And slightly overbaked. And tasty.

So tasty.

Learning lessons should always be so good!