How to Make a Sourdough
This document will describe the steps involved in baking a sourdough bread. After reading this document, you should have a basic understanding of the process of baking a sourdough bread.
A sourdough bread is a type of bread that uses natural yeast and lactic acid bacteria to leaven the bread dough. Because it does not use baker's yeast (active dry yeast, instant yeast, etc), some special care must be taken to make sure the dough ferments and produces enough gas for the bread to rise.
Since this document will describe the recipe for a rustic, campagne style sourdough bread, some special care must be taken when baking the dough, which this document will also cover.
Preparing the Initial Starter
Before even attempting to bake anything, you will have to prepare the initial starter.
The starter is a mixture of flour and water with yeast and other bacteria added either by using natural microorganisms that are already present within the flour, or by separately cultivating a culture of microorganisms from ingredients such as fruits.
The most simple way is to take unbleached flour and the same amount of water, mix them and let them sit at room temperature (20~24 degrees celcius) for 2 to 3 days.
Start out by taking 50g of unbleached flour, and 50g of water. Mix them well so that there are no dry spots, and leave it in a container, lightly sealed (it is more desirable to have some amount of oxygen available to the mixture).
After 12 hours, add 25g of unbleached flour and 25g of water, and mix it well. Repeat this step every 12 hours for 2 to 3 days, until the mixture starts to form many small bubbles on the surface. If you have too much mixture in your container, you can safely discard some amount of the mixture before adding new flour and water. For example, when it's time to add new flour and water, you could first remove 50g of the mixture, then add the new ingredients. The total amount of the mixture left is not too important as it is always easy to create more later.
Once you have a mixture with enough bubbles -- that is, a starter with enough microorganisms that eat the flour and produce gas, your starter is ready. If you see mold or any other suspicious looking elements, you might want to start over and recreate your starter.
From then on you can take a portion of that starter to create more starters for each new dough that you create.
If you intend to keep on baking repeatedly, you can keep this initial starter in a container, and store it in your refrigerator indefinitely, as long as you keep feeding it regularly. Feeding consists of adding the same amount of flour and water at least once a week. As before, you can always discard extra starter mixture if you have too much of it.
Instructions to Bake One Campagne-style Sourdough Bread
Once you have your initial starter, you can start the baking process. This recipe will walk you through the steps required to bake a campagne style sourdough bread, and will take anywhere from 12 hours to 3 days to complete, depending on the weather and your equipment.
Ingredients
Here are the ingredients required to prepare the starter for this one sourdough:
- 20g starter (from your intiial starter batch)
- 40g flour (bleached)
- 40g water
And here are the ingredients required for the rest of the dough
- 500g flour (bleached)
- 370g water
- 10g salt
- 10g olive oil (optional)
- small amount of rice flour
While the whole recipe could be prepare using just a your bare hands, a bowl, and an oven, we assume that you already have the following equipment:
- a dutch oven
- cooking sheet / perchment
- scale
- dough scraper
- large bowl
- 2 pieces of cloth
- banneton (proofing basket)
- razor
Also, it is highly recommended that you purchase a stand mixer, unless you want to learn how to knead by yourself.
Preparing the Stater
Before doing anything, we need to create a fresh batch of starter mixture with very active microorganisms.
Some time before starting with the dough (the time varies depending on the weather), take 20g of initial starter that you have made previously, and mix it well with 40g of flour and 40g of water. As soon as the mixture is created, the microorganisms in the original starter will start to feed on the new flour, and will start multiplying.
The amount of time required for the starter to be ready greatly varies depending on the weather. During hot summers, it will probably only take an hour or two. On cold winter days, you will need to keep it in a temprate location, and may have to wait over night.
The starter will be ready when it has produced enough gas. To check, take one scoop of the starter, and drop it in a cup filled with water. If the starter floats, it is ready.
Performing "Autolyse"
Once the starter is ready, you can start working with the dought. However, our recipe calls for a dough with a high hydration level, which in turn means that the dough will be soggy and hard to handle.
To alleviate some of this, we can perform an extra step called "autolyse". While the name is fancy, this just means that you mix the flour and the water, and let it sit for about an hour.
When the flour is mixed with the water, it naturally starts to form gluten. Therefore simply leaving the dough sit for an hour allows us skip some portion of the kneading required.
This step maybe omitted, especially if you are using a stand mixer and not your bare hands to knead the dough. However, since it does save some work time, it is highly recommended either way.
Mixing, and Kneading the Dough
After performing autolyse, mix the dough and the starter in a bowl. Using either your hand or a stand mixer, mix the ingredients well so that they incorporate. It is recommended that you do not knead the dough initially. Instead, fold the dough onto itself, and merge the starter into the dough gradually.
Once the starter has been incorporated, start out by taking a pinch of the dough from one of the sides, and pull it up, then fold it onto the dough. Rotate the dough 90 degrees, and repeat the process 3 more times. This process is sometimes refered to as "stretch-and-fold".
While you are handling the dough, it is important to not pull so hard that the dough breaks. The goal is to create a mesh of gluten over each other, not to cut the mesh.
After this point, some recipes call to start the next step, bulk fermentation, and repeat the strech and fold process instead of kneading. This is a point of great debate, but this recipe recommends that you knead the dough as much as you can, until, preferrably, you have a smooth tone in the surface of the dough. This process is simplified if you can use a stand mixer: simply mix the dough using a dough hook until the dough is smooth.
Once the kneading is done, add the salt. When you add the salt, it is sometimes easier to add a drizzle of water so it's easier for the salt to be mixed. Also it is crucial that you do not forget to add the salt, as otherwise you will end up with a bread with an extremely dissappoing taste.
Knead the dough further until the salt is fully incorporated.
Bulk Fermentation
With the dough kneaded, place the dough back in a bowl or a container. Optionally, coat the sides of your container with olive oil before placing the dough in it, both to prevent the dough from sticking, and to add some extra flavor.
Lightly seal the container using a wet piece of cloth. You may use plastic wraps as well, but applying some extra moisture helps during the next step, which is called the bulk fermentation.
In the bulk fermentation step, the goal is to have the microorganisms multiply within the entire dough, and let them produce gas. This gas in turn creates small rooms within the dough, thanks to the gluten network that you have created during the kneading process. Without the glutain network, the gases escape far more easily, and you end up with a more dense dough (or a very flat dough).
Just like when you were cultivating the microorganisms for your starter, it is important to watch out for the temprature during the bulk fermentation stage. The yeast and other bacteria are most active when the temperature is around 20 to 24 degrees celcius. During the summer, make sure to keep the dough in an air-conditioned room. During the winter, try to find a relatively warm place to keep the dough. However, it is okay to keep the dough at a lower temperature than the recommended one, as long as it's reasonable for a human being -- the microorganisms will be slower to reproduce, but they will still be there, working and producing gas.
The duration for the bulk fermentation stage varies, but in general it should take anywhere from 3 to 24 hours. The bulk fermentation can be considered done when the dough size increases to around twice the orignal dough size.
Every 2 to 3 hours, perform another around of stretch and fold while you let the dough ferment.
Pre-shaping, and Secondary Fermentation
When the dough size has increased to the desired level, you will now shape the dough. This step is called "pre"-shaping because the dough is further shaped during the time it is rested afterwards, as well as the "coupe"ing (i.e. cutting the dough) at the next stage.
Prepare your basket, and place a piece of cloth on it. Dust the cloth using rice flour. Rice flour is not mandatory, but it is recommended that you use flour that absorbs less water than wheat flour (such as rye flour).
Prepare a smooth surface to work on. You will need a space of around 80cm by 60cm. Lightly dust the surface with rice flour. Do NOT dust the surface heavily, as you will need the dough to stick to the surface a bit.
Take the dough out of the bowl and place it gently over the dusted surface. Use a dough scraper to easily move the dough out of the bowl.
Dust your fingers lightly, and stretch the dough to a roughly rectangular shape, keeping the same dusted side down, touching the surface.
Place the rectangular shaped dough on the surface, and fold the right and left sides onto the center of the dough. Then stich the dough at the center, by pulling the dough from each side towards the center, pinching them togher to form a bond. This step is performed to stitch the dough together, but it also serves as to create tension in the outer surface of the dough.
Once the center is stiched, you should have a long, stick like dough. Starting from the end that is close your body, roll the dough towards the other end, creating a "roll".
Using your dough scraper, push the dough from one side to the other. The dough should be sticking just slightly to your working surface, resisting to move. While the dough resists and you keep pushing, you will notice that the dough folds over itself at the bottom, where it is sticking to the working suface. This pulls the surface of the dough, and creates tension, which is what we want.
Repeat the above process from other sides, and this should create a round dough with tension at the surface. When you have a round dough, use your dough scraper to lift the dough, and place your dough gently onto the basket, upside down (the seem that used to be at the bottom of your dough should now be facing upwards).
Place a piece of moist cloth over it, and let it rest for an hour. If you can, you might want to rest the dough in the refrigerator.
Shaping, and Baking
After the dough has rested, take your dutch oven, and place it in the oven without the top lid. Preheat the oven up to 290 degrees celcius.
When the oven is ready, take the dough out from the basket, and place it over a perchment that is large enough for your bread. To take the dough out, simply place the perchment over the dough while it's still in the basket, and simply flip it upside down.
Place the dough and the perchment onto a surface. Take your razor, and cut the dough at its surface, straight through the center. This incision is called the "coupe", and there are various ornamental decorations you could do with it, but in this sample we're just using the simplest form. The incision does not need to be too deep, but it could go for 5mm to 1cm. This coupe acts a release for the vapors that will form within the dough. This way the vapors know exactly where to escape from. Without it, they will try to escape from whereever they can, thereby creating holou es and cracks in your dough at random locations.
Take the dutch oven out of the oven carefully, and place the dough and the perchment inside it. Put the lid on the dutch oven, and put the dutch oven back into the oven. It is important to keep the lid, as we would like the vapors that come out of the dough to be available during the initial baking phase. By providing moisture, the bread crust does not harden too quickly, thereby allowing the dough to expand and rise.
Bake for 20 minutes at 290 degrees celcius. After the time has passed, remove the lid, and lower the temperature to 230 degrees celcius. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the crust is brown to your liking.
Once the baking is done, remove the bread from the oven, and let it cool completely. DO NOT attempt to cut it while it is hot, as there are still hot vapors in the bread, which you want to retain inside the bread.
After it has been cooled, you can slice it and enjoy it. Toast the slices if you would like. Try to consume the bread within approximately 3 days. Also, try to cover the sides that you cut/sliced using plastic wrap while preserving, to avoid the moisture from escaping.
...and enjoy your sourdough!