Making sourdough bread using flour, salt, water and starter

hi there it’s Maria I have lately beenloving baking sourdough bread so I puttogether a video to show you guys how Ido it so the first thing you’re going toneed is some sourdough starter this wasgiven to me by a friend back in April soit’s been almost a year and my starteris going strong so you can see I’mgiving it a quick mix with a chopstickyou can use whatever you want and youalways start by discarding most of yourstarter so I’m gonna zero out my scaleand put the bowl in and I’m just gonnadump out the majority the starter in thebowl is what it’s going to be used tomake my loaves and as long as you alwayshold a little bit back in the jar you’regonna have more starter for your nextproject so here it ended up being about90 grams in the bowl and you’ll want 400grams total for this recipe so youalways feed starter with equal partsflour and water so you can see I’m goingto add 155 grams of water and 155 gramsof flourI’m pouring water in from a kettle butit is not hot I did boil the water andthat’s because boiling the water killsoff any chlorine or removes any mineralsthat can cause the yeast to not growwell but you definitely don’t want topour in hot or even water that’s toowarm because that will kill your starterso that has been sitting out and is coolnow now you can see me adding the flour155 grams and I’m using just the plainall-purpose flour i buy it in bulk fromCostco there’s no need to use breadflour or anything like that I’m sure youcan if you want to experiment with thatbut again all-purpose flour has workedfine for me I’m just gonna give it agood mix here and get that flourhydratedokay so now I need to make sure I haveenough starter for the next round so I’mgoing to zero out my scale again and I’mgoing to feed well the starter in my jarforty five grams of water forty fivegrams of flour a lot of people will tellyou that you’re supposed to feed yourstarter in a one to one to one ratio Ido not have forty five grams of starterin that little jar but again I havefound as long as you add equal partsflour and water your starter will behappy and grow well so there’s my fortyfive grams of water and here come myforty five grams of flour and I’m justgoing to combine that well now whenyou’re mixing you’re gonna notice thatyour starter has a tendency to kind ofcreep up the sides so what I do after Icombined it with the chopstick is I geta bowl of water and I dip my fingers inand I just kind of wipe and scrape downthe sides push that starter down so itstays kind of in the center of that jarand I’m gonna do the same thing in thebowl now what I’m doing with the rubberband there is a really good tip you wantyour starter to double it can eventriple or grow beyond that but you wantit to at least a double that’s the signof a healthy starter so that rubberbandis a great idea it marks the level sothat you can easily see through theoutside when your starter has doubledyour oven here is going to serve as yourproofing chamber so you’re going to putboth starters in you’re going to coverthem with a damp towel and the oven isnot going to be turned on all you’regoing to do is turn the light on becausethat’s all you need to get the inside ofthe oven to be the perfect temperaturethat yeast loves to grow here you cansee I’m doing a quick check after aboutan hour and a half there’s a little bitof activity but not a whole lot going onbut four hours later you can see that mystarter if looking at that rubber bandhas indeed doubled and that’s ready tocome out I’m just gonna put a cap on itand put that back in my fridge for thenext round and the starter in the bowlI’m just gonna leave that in there untilI’m ready to start my baking soI have heard people bake bread with toour old starter ate our old starter Ifind four is the best for mesometimes I go five or six hours butagain here I’m going to start the flourand water mixture so you can see I’mdoing a mix of spelt flour and wholewheat flour so the spelt flour I put inabout a hundred grams which is 10% andthe whole wheat I put in about 150 gramswhich is 15% because we’re looking for atotal weight of a thousand grams so Idon’t zero out the scale in betweenbecause I just add the all-purpose flouruntil I reach 1,000 total gramsso you can see I’ve got a hundred gramstotal weight now and I’m just gonnacombine those flowers together gentlywith my hand and then add my water sowith this mixture I’m going to add 650grams of water now when I first startedbaking sourdough bread I used 100%all-purpose flour and that’s fine but ifyou do that if you want to start theremake sure you add only 600 grams ofwater and that’s because whole wheatflour is thirstier than the all-purposeand that’s why you need to add a littlemore water when you start experimentingwith different types of flour I justfelt like adding some whole wheat flourwould up the nutritional value a littlebit and help with the flavor but 100%all-purpose is also very delicious sohere you can see I’m just combining thatflour and water together it was a bitdry I don’t know if the humidity was alittle low in my house I didn’t want toadd any more water because in latersteps we do add little bits of waterhere and there and I didn’t want thedough to get too wet now truetraditionally sourdough is a highhydration dough which means a lot ofBaker’s you’ll see take their dough past70% hydration I do not like to do that Ifind that the dough is just too wet andtoo hard to work with so I like to stickwith my you know 65 68 percent hydrationwhich by the time I add all the water inthe other steps I probably end upsomewhere in that range so go ahead andcover with a damp towel and put it backin the oven to proof and from this pointon I’m going to leave the oven light offand that’s because the slightly lowertemperature will cause slower yeastgrowth which will give better flavordevelopment so at this point I’m readyto combine the starter with the doughOtto Lee’s is the technical term forwhen you let the flour and water restbefore you add the starter to it you cando the auto Lee’s stepfor 30 minutes you can skip itcompletely you can do it for five hoursyou can even do it overnight I’ve seenlots of different people do it indifferent ways so that is completely upto you the auto lease step is justmainly to really give that flower a headstart to absorb all that water and gethydrated so I did about 30 minutes hereit was getting late and I wanted to getstarted so the bowl of water you dipyour hands in there it does help withkeeping the dough from sticking to yourhands but honestly in this first stepwhen we’re combining the starter and thedough it’s going to be extremely stickyextremely messy so you’re just gonnahave to roll with it they are twocompletely different textures thestarter it’s actually even more runnythan my starter typically is I may needto give it like an extra feeding nexttime to get the strength up a little bitbut you can see that you’re gonna justuse a pinch and squeeze method to beginincorporating the two there are a lot ofvideos out there that will show you youknow slapping it on the counter andthings like that I just think it’s waytoo messy I prefer to just keep it inthe bowl and knead and squeeze and pressas much as I need to to get those two tocombine and just keep that up until it’sthoroughly combined now the dough doeswant to stick to itself so sometimesyou’ll see I kind of grab a big handfuland try to pull the dough off the sidesof the bowl but again I wouldn’t worrytoo much about it because you can alwaysjust use some water and wipe down thesides a bit after you’re done the maingoal here is just to squeeze and pressthe dough until it’s nicely combinednice and stretchyso here you see I’m trying to get theexcess dough off my hands by just havingit stick to the majority of the dough inthe bowl and then I’m just gonna usesome water and just wipe down the sidesa little and kind of Pat the dough alltowards the middle if you need bread itmakes a very satisfying sound when youkind of smack it which is why you see medoing that a lot all right so back inthe oven and we’re gonna set the timerfor 30 minutes so while we’re waitingfor the dough to rest we are going tomeasure out our salt I use 24 grams ofdiamond crystal salt which is a koshersalt if you use table salt you may needto make adjustments since the salt levelvaries so here you can see my doughafter 30 minutes it spread to all thesides of the bowl and that’s because thedough has not built enough strength yetand we’re going to build that strengththrough a series of stretch and foldswhich is the next process after we getthe salt in so you just sprinkle thesalt on top you can see I’m just puttingsome water to help dissolve it and I’mgoing in with that pinch and squeezemotion again and the texture of thedough will really change when youincorporate the salt it’s reallyimportant that you knead until the saltis completely dissolved and you can nolonger feel any little crystals withyour hands I was kneading and holdingthe camera and it was really difficultbecause the bowl was moving so I did putthe camera down for about a minute andyou can see how quickly the doughtexture changes with just a little bitof kneading okay back into the oven fora 30 minute rest and after 30 minutesyou can see I set the timer first 31minutes because this next step is goingto take us less than a minute so I’mgoing to pull the dough out and I’mgoing to wet my hand and I’m gonna do atechnique called stretch and flip so youcan see I’m going to lift the dough andjust stretch it highand then flip it right on top of itselfand I’m gonna just go around the bowlwetting my hand so that it doesn’t stickto me and once you go all the way aroundI’m going to now do just a little bit ofa stretch and lift here where you grabthe middle and just kind of fold theends back down underneath that buildssome surface tension and allows thedough to rise now this is buildingstrength and you’re gonna do this sixtimes I did not have the time to filmmyself doing it six times so just takemy word for it a thirty minute rest inbetweenI did four stretch and flips and thenthe last two times I just did the liftfrom the middle so once you do thatyou’re gonna go ahead and just flip thedough out onto a clean dry counter andjust use a bench scraper to divide itinto two and kind of shape them intorounds you’re going to give them alittle bit of a bench rest while youprep your Benetton’s so these are bambooBenetton’s that I bought from Amazon andthey come with liners you don’t have touse them I often use them without theliner and I get that nice pattern on mydough but this time I’ve been havingsome trouble with my dough sticking so Idecided to use the liners so that thebread would turn out easily for thisvideo so you’re gonna just liberallydust them with rice flour andall-purpose flour and here you can seethe dough is starting to spread a littlebit and that’s because it’s been restingon the counter so you’re going to goahead and give it a flip and the doughshould be nice and relaxed so you’regoing to fold the top down fold thesides over and then when you fold thebottom piece up you’re actually going toturn it so that the bottom piece whenyou fold it over it ends up on thebottom and when you do that the seam ison the bottom so it seals and then whenyou put it in the Benetton you actuallyflip it so that the seam is up I hopethat made sense so you can see after Idid the folding I’m gonna bring thebenetton over sprinkle some flourbecause I do not want it to stick I’mgoing to scoop it up and flip it upsidedown into the Benetton because that’sgonna be the top of the dough and youwant that on the bottom of the proofingbowl so this is what they look likeafter they’ve been moved to theirBenetton’sand now I’m going to cover them withplastic bags just so that the bags don’ttouch the dough inside and I’m gonna putthem in the fridge you can prove thesefor a minimum of 12 hours up to 72 hoursbut this time I did 36 here is a niceDutch oven that I use it’s veryimportant because it allows your doughto spring up so you’re gonna put the potand the lid in your oven and you’regonna go ahead and pre-heat your oven to500 degrees now my oven does notactually reach 500 degrees which is whyI put it to 5:30 because then the actualtemperature inside your oven is closerto 500 and you’re gonna want to letthose warm up and then heat to 500degrees for at least 40 minutes if notan hour so you can see I pulled my doughout from the fridge and let it come toroom temperature and the whole time theDutch oven is heating in there the doughis resting at room temp so here we goI’m going to pull out the hot Dutch ovenbe very careful it is very hot thisparchment paper has been trimmed so thatwhen I lay it over top I’ll have twohandles extending but I won’t have toomuch excess so I’m going to flip it outand they came out nicely because I usedthe floured liner now I’m gonna use justa razor blade here fancy people they usea lamb but I find this razor blade fromthe local pharmacy works just fine I doone big slash and then a bunch of littleones I think it kind of looks prettylike a wheat sheaf and sometimes whenyou transfer it with those handles itkind of closes your slash so you can seeI just reached it a little bit you’regonna put it in the oven cover it withthe lid tightly set it in the center andset your timer for 23 minutesnow as soon as I start the first loaf Ipull out the second loaf and let thatone start coming to room temperature soafter 23 minutes you’re just going toremove the lid and you can see the breadhas sprung up beautifully the cast-ironpot keeps the moisture which allows itto rise and at this point you’re goingto lower the temperature to 450 andyou’re going to bake for another 23minutes with the lid off 23 minuteslater and you can pull out the pot anduse the parchment paper handles to liftthe loaf right out of the pot so goahead and transfer it to a wire coolingrack to cool and this is reallyimportant do not cut open your loaf forat least an hour if not two hours if youcut it too early the steam inside willcause your bread texture to be gummy youreally want to give it a chance to coolproperly and you will not regret it sohere you can see it’s just take toreheat to 500 slash your dough add it inlid on 23 minutes after 23 minutes thelid comes off you can see the bread hassprung up lower the temperature to 450and bake for another 23 minutes so goahead and remove the second loaf let itcool and at this point my first loaf hasbeen cooling for well over an hour sinceI preheated the cast-iron at 500 degreesfor another 3040 minutes before Istarted the second loaf and now themoment you’ve all been waiting for we’regoing to go ahead and slice in using along bread knife go ahead and cut rightdown the middle and here’s our firstcross-section looks amazingso the loaf was a teeny bit warm whichis why it’s harder to cut thin slicesbut you can see here nice stretchydelicious bread with a beautiful crustnow as a fan of Bon Apetit I always loveto finish my bread and butter with asprinkle of flaky sea saltthis is Malden because I had not seenBrad episode when he visited Jacobson’sso sorry Brad maybe next time so thereyou have it a sourdough loaf made fromflour salt water and the naturallyoccurring yeast in your home I know itcan seem a little intimidating buthopefully you’ll give it a try afterseeing the steps broken down it’s a lotof waiting I would definitely startpretty early in the morning if you wantto give it a go so you’re not up to till3 a.m. like I was but it’s totally worthit and I think you’ll like itthanks for watching everyone bye