The Last Sourdough bread recipe you’ll ever need / The Bread Code
Hi everyone,
Here is my 8th rendition of ‘’the Last Sourdough bread recipe you’ll ever need’’ from The Bread Code (Hendrik Kleinwächter) since I started to bake sourdough bread again a month-ish ago.
https://blog.the-bread-code.io/recipe/2020/12/22/the-last-sourdough-recipe.html
After losing my sourdough-bread-baking-Mojo a few years ago (real life got in the way..), I serendipitously found it back about a month ago and quickly realized that It's not like riding a bicycle: I had to re-learn everything from scratch...
So I decided to use Hendrik‘s recipe as a base to re-learn the basics and from there started to explore different timings, hydrations, and flours.
I have a ridiculously huge amount of sourdough bread cookbooks, but sometimes a good-old youtube video is all you need to get yourself started as well as a fantastic baker's community like TFL!
I am pretty proud of today’s loaf: this is the very first time I’ve achieved such a beautiful (to my taste of course) even and open-but-not-too-much crumb as well as such a nice oven rise – The taste is very mild, imperceptibly sour (certainly due to the 2 feedings I gave my starter the day before) and surprisingly sweet.
Here’s the version I made today:
· 400g Strong white bread flour / Organic / 75%
· 100g whole wheat flour / Speerville organic / 25%
· 375g Water /75%
· 100g active sourdough starter /20% / 100% Whole rye flour – Fed twice the day before
· 11g salt (about 2%)
Autolyse 1h RT 19° (instead of overnight)
Mix and rest 15mn
Gentle kneading
6h45 Bulk at 25° / 3 coil folds during the 3 first hours / Until vol*50%
Shaping (really challenging but I somehow managed to shape this wobbly blob....)
1h proofing at RT then fridge at 2° for 15h
Baked in a Dutch oven at 240°C for 30 mn with the lid on + 3 ice cubes in the pot / then 15 mn without lid at 230°C
Devoured in no time 2h later during a very nice indoor picnic (Hello May??!!)
(I am French from France - It would have been a cardinal sin not to have some wine and cheese to accompany such a delicious bread)
I am really looking for constructive feedback, so please let me know what you think and most importantly what could be improved :-)
Cheers to you !!! / À votre santé!!
:-)
What kind of cheese is that, by the way?
Thank you!
Comté and emmental :-)
Beautiful loaf! Nice and plump.
I have not watched that video yet but I will tomorrow! Ironically the recipe and timing are very similar to my current standard recipe. But I can't match your results. Thanks for sharing and best wishes. Dave
Beautiful ear!!
I also think they look better than Hendrik's!
I had a read of his blog and the little table relating bulk rise to flour protein content caught my eye:
I imagine this will relate to European flours, btw. I've never seen a table like this before - interesting.
Lance
He also has a chart related to the hydration recommended in relation to the protein content of the flour, but unfortunately here in Canada where I live all the flours seem to invariably have 13.3% of protein..All-purpose, strong bread flour, whole wheat, Red Fife, Whole rye.... you name it...Really weird, especially as they CLEARLY all have different water-absorption properties!
So those charts might be more useful for people who have access to more specific flours in terms of their protein content, I guess
Also in Canada here, I think the nutrition information charts are unreliable because of rounding error. Almost all the flour says 4 g of protein per 30 g of flour, which gives the 13.3%. But when I’ve spoken to Anita’s Organic about their AP although the label says 4 G protein per 30 g of flour the protein is closer to 12% and not 13.3%. I wish the producers would be more specific and give actual percentage protein rather than rounded g per 30 g.
Benny
Have you contacted other companies to know the exact protein % of their flours ??
No I haven’t contacted any other producers of flour. I would say that I do get a sense that common bread flours are around 13% and AP around 12%. It’s this stupid g per 30 g serving size that screws everything up. They should know bread bakers really want to know exactly the protein % and not some number that is way off because of rounding. You should consider contacting the producer of the flours that you will be using long term. That is why I contacted Anita’s through Instagram because although I’m still getting used to their flour, I think I like it. It is fairly widely available and is organic.
Benny
I contacted the company from where I got a big 10lb bag of Strong organic bread flour (sold by my local organic food store) but I haven't heard back from them..it was at least a month ago if not more...
But thanks for letting me know about Anita's flours, that great to know! What type of flours from this brand do you use? What's the struggle?
I also have their whole Kamut which I quite like. My struggle is dialing in the right hydration, I was used to 80% hydration on my country loaf formula with the stronger bread flour, but had some overhydration issues when I switched to Anita’s AP. So I’ve dialed it down but need to find what is ideal again. I’m still trying to achieve a lacy crumb so needing to get hydration pretty high to do that.
Good to know, thanks! I'm trying to take notes on every single type of flour to have a better understanding of how they work.