[Closed] What do you think of my first sourdough loaf?

In my (obviously completely unbiased) opinion, it was delicious...

Looks good, but I'm no expert. I love the idea of sourdough but can't be bothered with the time investment. I've been perfecting baguettes in lockdown and enjoy them so much I haven't really felt like moving on from them.

Looks good, show us the crumb, please. I've just started again , after a long lay off, and it's taking a bit of getting back into.

My plan is for sourdough pizza bases

Sounds like you'll be needing a pizza oven...

Good effort, wTch the massive weight gain 😉

Looks great, well done, gives a huge sense of satisfaction.

In reality, it's no more work than normal bread, my pizza recipe takes more work than sourdough does.

No need for a pizza oven tp, I managed for years without one...

*They are way better though! 😆

Looks great. There was a sourdough thread on here last year with loads of photos, recipes and tips that's worth looking at.

It looks far too good for a first effort - hope it tastes as good too.

It has blisters on the crust which is good but it all depends on what’s going on inside!

Come on show us the crumb OP.

Blimey, that looks bloody good!👍

Looks pretty good but yeah we need a crumb shot. 🙂 Certainly looks a lot better than my first sourdough loaf.

This was my last effort

[img] [/img]

GF got given some sour dough for Xmas.

So far we've had 4 pizza nights and one attempt at making a loaf. Loaf looked great, but unfortunately she forgot the salt so the bread was a little bland.

Lots of faff keeping the dough going/fed, but it's not my department.

OP how did it taste?

That's the acid test surely

why is it glued to a wall 😕

great effort OP, and yes itd be good to see a crumb shot.

@grum, that looks about perfect, nice one.

Looks good from the outside! I am impressed. Unfortunately I don't have the patience to look after a sourdough starter, otherwise I would give it a go.

The inside of the loaf

the crumb

That's a success sproot!

Unfortunately I don’t have the patience to look after a sourdough starter, otherwise I would give it a go

Mine took 5 days to do at first, it now lives in the fridge, untouched for weeks at a time, take it out the day bfefore I want to us, let it warm up and give it a feed.

That's it.

We don't have a logburner but we do have a designated beer fridge so the starter (Vincent) is going to live in there. That should mean that I can get away with feeding him once a week.

Grum, your loaf looks professional which is the best accolade I can think of. I think mine has room for improvement but good for a first effort.

It was not labour intensive to make, it was more the time it took. I proved it overnight then folded and proved again for a further 4 hours then popped it in the le Creuset and baked it for 35 mins with the lid on and 15 with the lid off.

My mistake was using the wrong paper to line the pot, the paper stuck to the bottom of the loaf and is hard to peel off. On the plus side I did remember the salt (I often forget this for some reason)

show off. share your method @sprootlet?

I followed Betty Bakes no knead sourdough recipe on youtube. I made the starter over 6 days and used it when it floated in a bowl of water.

The other guy who was useful was pro cooks on youtube but I wanted to try the simplest way I could find.

Looks great inside too, nice one! I think the number one thing is getting the fermentation right - ie not under or over proved.

As NBITF says you can actually manage your starter using the fridge so it's really easy, I tend to just get it out and feed the night before baking too.

I like The Bread Code channel on YT, really useful for me.

Mine took 5 days to do at first, it now lives in the fridge, untouched for weeks at a time, take it out the day before I want to us, let it warm up and give it a feed. That’s it.

I might give it a go then. I didn't realise it would store in a fridge for so long.

is it bad after a couple of loafs (one good, two terrible) I've only used my starter to make sourdough crumpets?

Andy, my starter maybe just under a year old and get dumped and ignored in the fridge for months at a time. Drain off the hooch, even when it looks pretty grim, feed it and the starter is fine. It's when it actually goes mouldy it's dead I believe

Thanks, Z1ppy, I had no idea it could be so neglected. I was under the impression it needed weekly pampering!

A little bit different but here's my rosemary and seasalt focaccia

focaccia

Working from home lunch for the other half is this with parma ham, mozzarella, tomotoes and pesto (instead of butter).

Nice work on the crumb shot.

That’s the acid test surely

Chapeau

@sproots - I see you are using Nextcloud, I use it also for addresses and calendar and backing up/ syncing phone stuff.

I got a loaf on the go right now, maybe I will post some pics later when it is ovenned.

Thread resurrection.

I've been making a loaf a week and did make some pizza bases which did not go to plan
Top tips are : an entire loaf of rye flour will give you a brick instead of a loaf of bread.

This is part white flour and part multiseeded flour. Really pleased with the slash, hope the inside is as good as the outside

I'll try again on the pizza bases - I used a you tube of a guy called Patrick Ryan, it looked easy but mine did not look anything like his, mine seemed to have no structure at all

technical delay in the link .......

I use this one, has been very successful for me

https://foodgeek.dk/en/sourdough-pizza-recipe/#wprm-recipe-container-34829

Seeing as this seems to be a general sourdough thread now..... 😛

My best rise so far

[img] [/img]

Rye is different. Here is a nice nearly 100% wholemeal rye loaf - quite dense but luscious. You don't need the yeast kicker but it helps. Above about 20% rye content it stops being possible to develop gluten in the usual way because of the sticky. And rye doesn't have much gluten it is the sticky which holds the bubbles up. Everyday rye loaves would have 20-30% wheat to get a lighter crumb. Spelt goes well with eye try 20% each wholemeal rye and spelt in a loaf for flavour.

My best rise so far

@grum, i dont think its possible to get a better looking loaf, congratulations <golfersclap> 👏👏👏</golfersclap>

@sprootlet

This recipe has worked well for me as a pizza dough base Ooni sourdough.

You can leave it for an overnight prove, or just do it in a day with no fridge time and a warm room.

OK, I'm not going to try and compete with Grum's awesome looking loaf.

Thanks for the advice on the rye flour, I did use it again but 450g ordinary and 50g rye (much better).

Thanks for the link on the pizza bases, if I'm honest the pizza bases are the reason I started using sourdough

It's still to warm to cut so no crumb photos as yet

Loaf

Thanks peeps! It's taken a lot of nerding out and practice - it's been my lockdown obsession. I still can't get it quite as good as that consistently but I'm reliably happy with my bread now. I have dreams of starting up a little micro-bakery/coffee takeout at some point, we shall see.

That's looking great sprootlet. Looks like good oven spring and crust. Definitely a lot better than I managed at first.

BTW I always used to leave mine to cool completely and impatiently wait for an hour or two, but then in the Tartine book he says he likes to cut it open almost straight away and enjoy the 'custardy' crumb. Seems to go against the received wisdom but I've not noticed any ill effects - I do leave it to cool for at least 10-15 mins though - just so I can cut it ok mainly.

the crumb

More importantly it tastes great !

Looks lovely. What are the bits in it, some kind of whole grains?

I'm waiting for a starter to mature before I can bake, might have to leave it until tomorrow now.

There’s a good sourdough pizza recipe by gozney on you tube. Very minimal work and good results.

Thanks for the pizza bases advice, I'll be trying one on Friday for sure

The bits in it are because I used Sainsburys wholegrain seeded bread - 100g and 400g of white bread flour. The seeded flour is really nice but after my rye flour disaster I thought it prudent to do a mix at first.

With your bread looking that good Grum, do you use the Bakers % for your hydration and if so what kind of level of hydration are you using? I'm managing about 330ml of water and 100g of starter per 500g bread flour. I did try more water in one loaf but it stuck to the tea towel when I turned it out (and it kind of melted all over the place too)

So if your starter is 50/50 water/flour your mix is 66% hydration I think?

I tend to use around 80-85% hydration these days but I've built up to that slowly. To do the super high hydration you need everything to go right.

One of the main things is that it doesn't have much strength so will easily just go splat when you turn it out - you need to get the strength-building and shaping just right. Doing a final prove in the fridge for 12 hours + helps firm it up as well.