Alba, superb, I'll grab a couple of those instead!
Mine was fairly wet tw, I found a spray bottle with water in it helped, spray hands and surface before folding.
Only used flour for the final shaping.
Same here re the wetness - bannetonA are good and baking inside a casserole pot makes a difference too.
Oh yeah, wetting your hands under the tap before you handle the dough makes it so much easier.
It rose beautifully, I slit the top and dusted it. Happy days.
Came back a couple of hours later and it had continued to rise and flopped over the top of the tin. I've desperately scooped it back in but it got all deflated and now looks a right mess. It's also going to have to take its chance in the oven with the roast potatoes.
I'm concerned.
Timidwheeler
Take the dough out of the tin, reshape into a loaf and let it prove (rise) again. It's what you do when you over-prove a loaf.
Keep an eye on it this time.
Cheers but too late. It's in the oven. We're having sausages for dinner and need bread to go with it.
You will have a perfectly formed house brick when it comes out of the oven
Lol. I think you may be right but it might make nice breakfast toast. Sounds dense on top, a bit hollower round the sides and bottom.
It'll still taste very nice. If you had enough you could build a small extension.
Keep on at it and you'll get the hang of this bread baking.
My first go well well.
You’ve got me worried now.
I used less water than the recipe suggested.
Any the recipe call for a long rise and prove.
I gave it 24 hours rise in the (warm) airing cupboard followed by 4 hour prove by the back door (cool) and then in the fridge for 3o minutes before transferring to a preheated baking sheet.
Worked well.
Next time the oven will be slightly cooler for slightly longer.
Don't be worried, it was actually lovely. Biggest issue was we didn't let it cool fully in the middle. However for a 50% wholemeal loaf if was perfectly airy.
That looks like victory snatched from the jaws of defeat TW!
I gave it 24 hours rise in the (warm) airing cupboard followed by 4 hour prove by the back door (cool) and then in the fridge for 3o minutes before transferring to a preheated baking sheet.
I'm a bit confused about this... Usually you do a rise for a shorter time in a warm place, followed by a longer time in cool/cold place. 24 hours is a long time in a warm place, I would have expected the dough to have completed exploded by that point. I'm not sure what 30 minutes in the fridge is doing either. If I've proved mine in the fridge/cool garage (usually overnight, or about 16 or 24 hours), I'll leave it for an hour or two to come up to room temperature before it goes in the oven (though not sure that's really necessary). Cooling it down before it goes in the oven just seems odd. I'm not trying to criticise by the way - just interested in different methods. If it works, then that's all there is to it!
That dough I thought I'd ****ed by forgetting to stretch and fold turned out surprisingly well:
The tin loaf was a present for the friend who gave me a 16kg bag of flour last week. He's started a bagel company, and he's challenged me to have a go at making a sourdough bagel. I've separated a chunk from my next batch of dough to try, and it's currently proving in the fridge til tomorrow morning. I think shaping will be tricky with 75% hydration dough, but hopefully using some flour to shape it will sort that out without ruining it.
Aye, I'm a beginner but pretty sure the long prove is supposed to be done dans le frigo.
They look really good Northwind. The only flour Tesco had today was spelt. Anyone tried spelt sourdough? I've got some white bread flour left so I might try a 50/50 loaf first but I think I'm going to have to feed the starter semolina flour again. It seemed happy enough last time.
feed the starter semolina flour again
Good shout, I've loads of that.
It’s an American bread book I’ve got and the long warm rise seemed to work.
It might not next time.
The 30 minutes in the fridge is supposedly to stabilise the dough (I think that means to stop it pancaking).
Spelt is a great bread flour in the breadmaker.
Ought to be good for sourdough.
when i tried spelt i was told itd struggle to rise much, and that proved to be the case. it tends to 'splodge' out rather than rise well, so i think its better to use it just as a percentage of the whole amount of flour, maybe less than 50%.
you may get away with it a bit more if you shape and bake in a pan/dish/breadmaker rather than freeform.
tastes nice tho if you can get a good loaf.
Thanks timidwheeler.
I tried some spelt a couple of weeks ago when I was starting to run out of wheat flour. It doesn't have as much gluten as normal wheat so it's more difficult to get that structure that holds the gas produced by the fermentation in and allows it to rise. I wouldn't use it any more than 50% of the mix certainly.
Here's the ones I tried (2nd and 3rd pics):
I've got some more, and I'm nearly out of wholemeal and rye, and need to keep some for starter feed, so I might try some more white and spelt loaves.
Here’s my latest effort
Can you use Instagram to postinages?
Can you use Instagram to postinages?
Yes, just paste the link in, the forum software does everything else.
I said before that I'd share the series of Facebook posts I did showing how I do my sourdough, so here they are. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a guide, much less a recipe, but all the details are there, should you want to recreate it, though I picked the wrong loaf to document as it didn't turn out great. With normal wheat flour it would have looked a lot better.
https://www.facebook.com/leftfootleashed/posts/10221783676280419
https://www.facebook.com/leftfootleashed/posts/10221784042369571
https://www.facebook.com/leftfootleashed/posts/10221801803013576
Hope these links work.
My first attempt following the beard and bun method from YouTube. Cooked in a lecruset casserole pot
I’ll try and post images from Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_UkTFwn9EX_wCTlBcYBSG3F6X8WmGbipsDxdE0/?igshid=193wj4j6v9ko7
Is your account private?
Looks awesome RD! is that a mix of white and rye?
I’ll try again as I think my account was set to private.
I give up
Needs more heat Albanach
Is that from the Scotland the bread Banneton Alba?
Needs more heat Albanach
im assuming thats the pic before it went in the oven?
(or was that sarcasm, hard to tell with no smiley 😉 )
@sadex yes both the round banneton and the oval from Scotland the Bread. I hope everyone else can flock right to see the finished loaf?
Ah yes sorry, hadn't twigged you could do that.
Look great Albanach! Proper airy crumb that.
Looks awesome RD! is that a mix of white and rye?
325g strong white, 50g wholemeal
ok lets see if i can make a success of it this time, my starters looking promising. id like a bit of advice please.....
as mentioned earlier in this thread im following 'bake with jacks' method this time, purely for the 'no waste' element of it. the idea being 4 days worth of 25g rye flour/25g water will lead to 200g starter, dont throw half away.
ive done 3 days, last fed yesterday lunchtime, got up this morning and it looks a lot more like a starter should be, bit bubbly and increased in volume. it was just a thick shaggy mess when i left it.
im a little surprised at how it looks this morning as thats maybe 18hrs after feeding it, id have thought even if it was spot on then itd be at its best mebbes 6 hrs after feeding and have died down by now.....
so one more feed today? or...... should i wait for the last feed until im about 6 hrs or so from making a loaf, which may be in a couple of days or so. and if so should i keep it in the fridge now until that time?
im going to be an infrequent baker, maybe one loaf a week, so how best can i keep this starter healthy?
thanks
If I’m reading this right you are one 25g flour/25g water feed away from making a loaf? If so, I’d leave in fridge until the night before you start - so for a Monday bake, take starter out fridge in Sat night feed starter and leave in counter. Sunday mix ingredients and follow folds etc and prove overnight in fridge on Sunday then bake on Monday.
After you’ve added your starter and left the scrapings just pop this in the fridge and pull it out when you next plan on baking and add the necessary amount of flour/water. If it’s been a while it may need a couple of feeds to get going again but you should have a fair idea of the activity at that stage
im going to be an infrequent baker, maybe one loaf a week, so how best can i keep this starter healthy?
He does a 'scrapings method' as Alba pointed out to me earlier in this thread, have a wee watch of that.
I don't find waste starter to be a problem, even when I'm not baking regularly. Not sure what the method you refer to is (maybe splitting it into two and feeding both halves? That would work) but this is what I do...
My starter lives in the fridge... when I want to make a levain, I'll get it out early evening, leave it a couple of hours to warm up (not sure if that's totally necessary), "discard"* roughly half of it, and feed it, usually 50g flour + 50g water.
When it's ready, I'll take some to build a levain and put it back in the fridge. Then it's good til the next time I want bake. If it's left for more than a week, I might being it out and feed it, just to make sure it comes back to life when I want to use it, but it should last a while longer.
*Except I don't chuck it away, I add it to another jam jar I've got in the fridge. When that's full, which takes a couple of weeks at least, I'll mix it into pancakes, or mix it half and half with flour and make flatbreads, or something.
If I’m reading this right you are one 25g flour/25g water feed away from making a loaf?
correct, 150g in there at present.
so for a Monday bake, take starter out fridge in Sat night feed starter and leave in counter. Sunday mix ingredients and follow folds etc and prove overnight in fridge on Sunday then bake on Monday.
see thats what im confused about, i always thought a starter would be at its bubbliest around 6hrs after feeding in a warm place. if thats right, a feed saturday night would see it at its best in the early hours wouldnt it? and in the morning itd be well on its way down? or am i wrong there?
He does a ‘scrapings method’ as Alba pointed out to me earlier in this thread, have a wee watch of that.
i did watch it and thought it made sense, ive mebbes got confused somewhere so ill watch it again.
Not sure what the method you refer to is (maybe splitting it into two and feeding both halves?
no, its the 'bake with jack' method linked to in my earlier post.
When it’s ready,
so when do you find yours is ready? 6hrs or so?
My starter lives in the fridge… when I want to make a levain, I’ll get it out early evening, leave it a couple of hours to warm up (not sure if that’s totally necessary), “discard”* roughly half of it, and feed it, usually 50g flour + 50g water.
When it’s ready, I’ll take some to build a levain and put it back in the fridge. Then it’s good til the next time I want bake. If it’s left for more than a week, I might being it out and feed it, just to make sure it comes back to life when I want to use it, but it should last a while longer.
ok, i think i need to understand this a bit better.....
so you think youll want to bake a loaf next day. you take out your cold starter and leave out a couple of hours to warm up. got that. then you take some to 'make a levain'? dont understand this bit, so ill guess.....
you take 50g of it and mix 25g/25g fresh flour/water with it to make a new 100g starter? then it goes back in the fridge til next day (which is the day youd decided to bake). but then itll be cold. and identical to the other cold starter you built this one from? so whats the point?
sorry, if you can spare the time id be interested in a bit more info and your timings up to baking.....
The bake with Jack beginner sourdough (on his page, not the video) has a step by step run through, have a look. I'm planning on using this method until I get a fair grasp on what works best for me, then I'm for branching out a bit and trying other methods.
Anyhoo, Sourdough Pizza tonight! took starter out the fridge yesterday, fed 30g rye flour, 30g water, it flew up, started the mix this morning, just gonna do the folding part of it, then when it comes to when I'd normally go for the overnight prove, I'll be making the pizza with it instead.
Pics to follow....
see thats what im confused about, i always thought a starter would be at its bubbliest around 6hrs after feeding in a warm place. if thats right, a feed saturday night would see it at its best in the early hours wouldnt it? and in the morning itd be well on its way down? or am i wrong there?
I'm not sure but I normally take mine out of the fridge and feed mine up at 10pm with 100g wholemeal or rye flour and 100g cold tap water and put it on the kitchen counter - when I wake up its bubbly and risen so it's good to go.
so when do you find yours is ready? 6hrs or so?
It normally sits for 8-10 hours and I've never had an issue.
Last night before bed I took my 250gm starter out the fridge. I stirred in 125grm flour and 125grm tepid water. I then put half back in the fridge and half in a tub on the bookshelf.
This morning I added flour (half white and half spelt), water, sugar and salt. Kneaded it and plonked it in a tub.
Its sat in the warm all afternoon and I have just dusted it and snipped it.
I'm going to give it another hour or so before I bake it. I will actually keep an eye on it this time.
I'll let you know how I get on.