Making Sourdough Bread!

hey all how’s it going it’s Nick here sodifferent kind of video today so todaywe’re talking about sourdough bread soyou know a few weeks go into the storecould not find yeast people seem to bestockpiling it I like sourdough bread Itried making it many years ago withoutsuccess but thought I would try it againso what I have here is my starter ok thestarter is really easy to make it’sreally just water and flour right youget a whole wheat flour work well for meit’s got natural yeast on it so you canculture that but it takes about a weekok so I’ll do a separate video on thatmaybe but um but here’s my starter Itook it out of the fridge this morningdrain out all but about a cup of it andthen added 3/4 cup whole wheat flouralmost a cup of very hot water and it’sturned into this this very you knowthick almost batter like material andwhat I’m gonna do is I’m going to youknow I mix that all up and I’m justgonna scrape off the edges of it cleaninside right I’m gonna put the cover onthis I’m not going to screw it down okI’m just putting it on there loosely sowe’ll come back and we’ll check this ina few hours now what should happen isthis should you know start to foam upand get bubbly and very soft and lightas it rises over the next several hourswhen that happens I’m gonna take anothercup of this put it back in therefrigerator and let that sit as my mybase starter the other cup I’m going totake I’m going to turn that intosourdough bread will mix up some doughknead it really well put it into a loaflet it rise twice bake it we should havesome good breads so I’m so I’m justgonna let this sit here for a few hourswe’ll check back on it later on todayalrightall right so just a quick look here sowhen I started this morning at 7:30 thatwas four hours ago we were sitting righthere and you can see this as risen upand if you look inside you know there’sbubbles and it’s all foamy and that’s apretty light liquid so yeah so this isdoing well so another few hours I willgo ahead and I’ll separate it intoanother instead of starter and the restI’ll put it into a bread dough and we’llmix that up later on this afternoonall right so let’s see what we got hereso I have my sourdough starter and thatis nice and foamy it’s grown quite a bitin volume so here’s what I’m gonna doI’m gonna take this and I’m going to mixit down all right because it’s mostly alot of air in hereso I’ll stir it up really well until itcomes back down to the volume that itstarted with and it’s got lots of bubbleaction going on and and all kinds ofgood things and it’s still a fairly youknow loose batter which is good so I’mgonna take that and I’m going toactually measure out some of this so I’mgonna measure out a cup then I’m gonnause for making bread all right sothere’s you know about a cup of mystarter and the rest of this probablygot you know a reasonable amount left inhere to sift feed and turn into the nextbatch of starter so I’m gonna feed thatright now and I like using wheat flourit seems to I don’t know maybe it hasmore wild East to it I don’t know but[Music]then I keep my whole wheat flour in thefreezer because it’s got I think moreoils in it or something so we can gorancid after a while so I don’t know Ifreeze it maybe it doesn’t do anythingbut that’s what I donow the recipes I found for the say touse a cup of flour and about half a cupof water to me that’s making the reallythick batter so I’m gonna do 3/4 cupthat should be goodwe knowthreads and I’m just going to put thelid on here I’m going to screw it on alittle bit I’m not going to torque itdown that goes back in the fridge andthat’ll sit there till next week allright we’re ready to make our batter usea wooden bowl and I’m going to dump mystarter into here and most of them gonnado this by hand but when I start offit’s gonna be a very wet dough so I’mgonna use my spoon alright so we’regonna mix in here we’re going to mixflour and salt I’m gonna put thesetogether separatelyand I’m gonna do about three cups offlour I’m going to end up doing a lotmore than that but to start we’ll justdo something there anything that putsthem out here and we’ll come back to thebed needed all right now I want twoteaspoons salt and salt is something butI am going to measure pretty exactlybecause the amount of salt goes into thechemistry of the whole thing you’retrying to not just modulate the flavorof the bread but you’re also tinkeringaround with the growth rate of the yeastwhen the salt will cut down that growthrate but too much salt will cut it toofar and it’ll make your bread salty ifwe want that to be pretty carefullycontrolled and I’m just gonna mix thistogetheryoutill it awake all right so that’s that’sgonna get mixed more as we need and suchbut that’s a good starting approximationall right so we also need twotablespoons of olive oil and I thinkthat one the measurements aren’t assuper critical don’t measure it outanyway but this is just you know addingsome fat to it so that it doesn’t dryout as soon as it hits the air and sonow I’ve got this and this is going tobe really wet to begin with I’m justtrying to get it together enough to getmy hands in there and start kneadingedgeoh yeah and we need a cup of hot waterI’m going to make this so hot that it’sactually kind of painful to keep myfingers in thereso about three cups of flour 2 tsp salt2 tablespoons olive oil a cup of hotwater and you get this batter that isway too wet to need right it reallyisn’t holding something together so I’mjust gonna start adding some flour inhere and this is very much a buddy feelkind of thing I’m not gonna measureexact cups or ounces of liquid basicallygonna keep putting in flour until itfeels right and when you put in flourtypically the batter dough will turn dryfor a little bit more you mix it thewetter it will get see right now I’mgetting some cohesion but as I mix it alittle more it starts to turn more intothis kind of flat hard to work with massso INGOs more flourand we’ll mix alright so now it’s it’sholding itself together that looks likesomething I could need let’s keep mixingedge as it absorbs the flower let’s seeif it goes back to being too sticky andyeah see now it’s it’s it’s sticking tothe sides it’s becoming a very kind ofsticky beheader so I gotta get moreflour hereI think that’s gonna be in some wayoutside the standard recipe now whichsays 2 and 3/4 cups flour probably intoabout my fifth maybe heading towards mysixth Cup that’s okay we’re doing thisby feel okay so now I’m getting a lot ofresistance this is starting to feel goodI’m feeling it probably got too muchflour I’m not going to put that back inthe flour container but I don’t want tohave to deal with it in the pan okay sonow I’m going to take this and I’m goingto dump it out onto my kneading surfaceI’m gonna fill this with water cuz I’mgonna renew that bowlwell partially fill it all right now I’mjust going to go to town and startkneading this batter all right so how dowe do this well it may stick a lot atfirst that’s okayat first I’m just really mixing I’m justtrying to get enough flour incorporateit into this so that it feels like breaddough as opposed to something stickythat should be handled by a mixerinstead of hands but the way I’mincorporating the flour is is I’mkneading the dough right and this iswhat I ultimately be doing for about 10or 15 minutes and it’s a process ofstretching the strands of gluten atleast this is you know what I learnedfrom reading books years ago about thisso I’m pushing down which stretches thedough out and then I fold it over andthey turn to 90 degreespush down fold it over turn 90 degreesand just keep doing thatyouall right so it’s starting to feel likea pretty good pretty good though youknow if I poke it it doesn’t bounce backtoo much when it’s well needed it shouldhave you know a lot of resiliency if youpoke it it should spring back when it’srisen and you poke catch play see focusstays poked alright that’s how you knowthat it’s a good point it’s done reasonthen rising done risen right but whenyou’re kneading it and you’re trying toget it to the point where you’re readyto set it out to rise you’d like it tobe a very firm dough like be one thatyou poke in it Springsyoudifferent surface but this one has agood camera angle so I’m reaching alittle and this is feeling nice and firmI’m pretty happy with thatand so the plan is I’m gonna coat thiswith oil put it in a bowl cover it witha slightly damp towel and leave itovernight to rise and in the morning itshould be larger should be risen at thatpoint I will punch it down knead it fora minuteshape it into the loaf I want which willbe you know pretty much like this shapejust around blow and I’ll leave it to doa second rising first rising is gonna goovernight second rising will betypically a few hours but I’m gonna cookthis after classes tomorrowso probably about 3:00 in the afternoonso if I punch it down in the morningthat’ll actually give it a few hours fora second rising so that should make anice fluffy loafI kind of feel like I could add moreflour to this but I don’t want to overdoit I’m still figuring it out this is apretty springy dough I’m gonna leave itat that for now let me go ahead and putit in my bowl all right so I have mybowl which has been miraculously cleanedand I’m going to take my pop it in thereand I’m going to coat it with olive oilolive oil makes everything betterso pretty generous covering and I’mgonna get my hands in there and cover itI’m gonna lift it cover the bottom andthis is you know partially so it doesn’tstick to the ball too badly but it’smainly on top so it doesn’t dry out asmuch as it might you got good coating ofolive oil up there I’m just going to putit in the bowl hereand then I’m gonna cover it with aslightly damp toe so this is one ofthese coated 19 side effectsI stopped using paper towels for themost part and they use bought so I gotsome cloth napkins now I knew that usingpaper towels of napkins was wasteful butwhen this whole pandemic started Icouldn’t find paper towels at the storeall paper products were sort of beingstockpiled by people so I decided wellyou know I should probably not befilling up the landfill with used deadtrees so yeah you have to wash thenapkins that’s got its own ecologicalfootprint but seems somehow a littleless wasteful so I’m gonna try this outI don’t want this dripping okay but it’snice and wet just to sort of trap insome moisture give my yeast a nice warmenvironment and that’s it I’m just gonnaleave this on the counter where we’ll beunperturbed overnight and we’ll take alook at it in the morning all rightlet’s look at what it is right now itshould be much larger and filling in thebowl by morning so we’ll check back inwith that in a few hourshey good morning all right let’s seewhat we got all right so I’ve raised mydough in the oven the oven is off rightdon’t do this if there’s a chancesomeone might preheat the oven not aproblem here here’s what the dough cameout like right so nice and risen I don’teven need to test this right but if Ipoke it it stays poked right that’s agood sign that it’s it’s well risen it’sready to go through the second meetingso punch it downokay punching it releases the air andthen I’m just gonna knead it a littlebit okay now it’s you know it wascovered in olive oil it’s it’s not verysticky right now so I’m just kneading itdown and basically taking the majorairports out of it I’m turning it backinto that really firm dough and I’m onlygonna need it for you know about aminute it’s really just kind of gettingit back to where we started and now I’mgonna shave it right and I’m just gonnado a loaf like that I’m gonna kind ofyou know pinch the bottom a little bitjust to kind of seal up where where Imade that last fold and this is prettymuch itokay so I’m going to put a little moreolive oil on herethat puts them on the bowl as wellso just trimming that coating the bottomof the bowl coating the bottom of thebread just you know it doesn’t have tobe like saturated it’s just giving it alittle additional protection againstdrying outand you know there’s a shape in mylittle you’re gonna put it in here andI’m going to recover it and put it backin a draught free place which for me isthe oven and I’m just gonna leave itthere for a few hours so it’s nineo’clock right now so we’re twenty fiveand a half hours since I started thisyesterday morning and I’ll probablyleave it here until I’m done teaching atabout 3:00 and at 3:00 I’ll go ahead andbake it but what I’m gonna do is I’mgoing to take it out of here in a fewhours going to put it on a baking panand I’m going to glaze it and I’m gonnado an egg white and water glaze withthis now different glazes give youdifferent types of crust if I do amelted butter it’ll come out very softlike sort of traditional white bread oryou know like hot dogs but if I if I dojust straight water it will come outkind of crunchy so an egg white andwater glaze will come out pretty Hardykind of chewy it’s it’s a nice crust fora sourdough bread I think so so I’lltake it out of here in a couple of hoursand I’ll move it to a pan okay andthat’ll start glazing it and I’ll cutsome patterns on the top just to make itlook fancyand I’ll glaze it a few timesprobably about three o’clock so sixhours from now I’ll go ahead and bake itthen we should have some bread alrightso we’ll see how that goeshey all right we are back it is threeo’clock in the afternoon so almost 3:30so we are good thirty two hours fromwhere we started yesterday morning at 7p.m. just for a reference you knowhere’s the sourdough starter that I didput back in yesterday and it’s bubblingit’s got some bubbles in there so that’sgonna sit in the fridge all week nowbecause it’s refrigerated it’s not gonnabe too active I can go for a weekwithout you know blowing past the topI’m going to take out my bread doughwhich has been doing its second risingand if I look at that that’s nice andrisen now okaythat’s already too cooked so here’s whatwe’re gonna do going to turn on the ovento 400 degreesthat’s our temperature I need to usejust some plain old spray on Pam youknow use the butter the pan and twoflour and I got really good at floweringpans and all kinds of stuff and my breadwould still stick sometimes so use aspray on stuff it’s not authentic maybebut it worksokay I’m gonna very carefully take mydough out of my bowl and put it on to mypan and I’m doing this carefully becauseI don’t want to punch it down I don’twant to collapse it so I’m just gonnakind of gently ease it off this is aliving thing it’s filled with you knowI’m guessing millions of yeast doingtheir thing that’s part of the fun ofmaking bread is yourwith this no very complex system so I’mjust gonna transfer that onto my pan andthen got a kind of you know push it up alittle bitchalright I’ll put the bowl aside now I’mgonna do a couple of odd things herefirst of all and you just put a littleartwork on the top right I’m just gonnacut kind of a angled swoopy thing hereit doesn’t mean anything it’s just youknow slightly artistic but this willspread as it bakes and it will look kindof cool maybe I’ll do one going acrossthat’s it from us with the artisticcomponent now I’m going to put a glazeon here I like doing an egg white glazeI like the kind of crust they get fromthe magic you can glaze with all kindsof things or not at all as I said beforeif melted butter you’ll get a very softcrust if you use water you’ll get acrunchy crust I’m gonna use egg whitemixed with a little cold water and eggwhite is gonna give me a chewy texturewhich I like especially for sour doughso there’s my egg white I’m gonna docold water they don’t actually know thatit has to be cold but I always do itcoldand just a little bit you know maybe atablespoonthat was pretty precise right I mix itup kind of like if you’re making anomelet this is like the world’s smallestomelet though all right you have apastry brushgo get your pastry brush I do not have apastry brush but I have a paper towel soI’m just gonna fold it over a few timesand I’m just going to rip up some coarsebristles like this and shape this onemore time I’m just going to brush thetop with this egg white glaze I’m gonnatry to cover it this is not SuperDuperprecise either it’s really just kind ofgonna affect the color of it and thetexture of it cost but you know thecrust is important and I’m coming in onthese these patterns that I cut andgetting the edges of that and it’s hardto overdo the glaze right you don’t wanta lot of it piled up on the pan becauseit’ll cook and it might turn brown andmake smoke and stuff but you know we’rejust putting on a glaze and we’re gonnado this again before we pop it in theoven and we’re gonna do it one or twotimes while it’s cooking so I’ll take myvery high-performance high-end pastrybrush and leave it there all right sothat’s that’s ready to go so the oven isset to 400 degrees and I have this panthat was you know in the bottom of theoven I guess it’s a broiling rack orsomething I think if you do meet you dosomething with this to catch juicesmaybe I don’t know but I’m gonna usethis I’m going to fill it with water andput it on the lower shelf of my oven sodown here bottom shelf I’m going to putthis pan and going to fill it with waterthe ovens at 400 so it’s going to youknow make steam andI’m going to put up here this isactually on the third of five shelves soit’s right about in the middle goingwellthat’s gonna make a really moistenvironment I don’t know what that’s forbut I like it I’ve never done thisbefore before I started making asourdough but I’ve read about it that’sexciting that’s okay and you know somerecipes I’ve read for French bread theyhave these really elaborate procedureswhere you bake for five minutes and thenyou lower the temperature and you bakefor three minutes and then you spits itwith water and you turn up thetemperature and you wait seven and ahalf minutes and then you rotate the pan180 degrees and you put it in boilingwater in a pan underneath and all thisstuff and it all seems kind of weird youknow but one of the best friends I evermade I ended up doing that because I wasbaking a loaf of French bread in atoaster oven friend whose oven wasn’tworking and I ended up you know openingit and scraping the bottom at one pointand changing the pan height because itwas touching the heating elements on topand all kinds of weird things there wasfantastic bread the one that came out atthe end was amazing so sometimes theserituals I think there’s something to itall right so that light goes off whenwhen the ovens hot but I don’t mindputting bread in an oven that’s notquite a temperature yet in my mind thatgives it a little more time to risebefore the East is killed so I’m poppingthat in the oven and I’m setting mykitchen timer to 45 minutes and it’ssupposed to take I think 55 to 60 butI’ll start keep I’ll be keeping an eyeon it but I’ll definitely start lookingat it closely at about 45 minutes soI’ll come back do a glaze and a littlebit and we’ll see how it’s goingall right it has been about 15 minutesthat the bread has been in here pullthis loaf out it’s looking pretty lowfee I’m gonna buy some more egg whitecold water glazed with my hi-tech pastrybrush again nothing very scientificgoing on here it smelled like it wasdoing something so I checked the timerit had been 15 minutes that’s probablypretty good interval I’ll do one moreglaze and another 15 and then I’llprobably just let it cook until it’sdone this looks like it’s going to be aflatter loaf than some of my other onesand I kind of sensed that when I took itout of the bowllooked like it wanted to spread out andto me that’s saying maybe it could haveused more flour it was taking in a lotof flour when I was cooking all rightI’ll put that back in there we’ll checkin again in about another 15 minutesall right one more check it’s been abouta half hour water on the bottom of theboiling this is nothing like a nice loaflet’s do one final egg white glazeand I’m just gonna let it go for anotherabout 20 minutes maybe and you know pullit off tap the bottom with a butterknife see if it sounds nice and Hollowand since this is a sort of flatter loafunusual I’ll know it’s starting to risemore but since its kind of flattish thatmight affect the baking time but youknow times measurements temperaturesthese things are all starting pointsit’s a very dynamic process you have toyou know feel what the dough is doing todecide whether to add more water orflour you have to look at how it’sbaking check out smells and so on todecide when it’s done minutes or so andthen we’ll see what we gotall right it has been a good 45 minutesnow and it is definitely smelling likebread let’s see what we’ve got in herewe still got water on the bottom this islooking pretty glorious I’m starting toget some browning going on there so I’mjust gonna take a butter knife and I’mgonna do a tap test tap on the bottomI’m thinking it’s probably pretty closeto done it can go just a little more Idon’t want it to get too cooked I don’twant that crust to get burned to let itgo for I don’t know two or three moreminutes maybe and I’m gonna take it outand call it goodall right I am calling this done it’sbeen about 15 minutesthat’s a beautiful loaf right there goahead and take that out I’ll leave thattray of water in there until it’s coolI’m not gonna mess with boiling waterbut turn the oven off and let’s see whatwe got herethere is our loaf of sourdough bread andall right there you go thank you verymuch for watching I hope you enjoyed itor learn something or both take carecatch you later