Sourdough Bread – How to make it and how to bake it!

hi there welcome my name is Jason andwhat I have to share with you right nowis how to make your very own loaf ofsourdough bread so I’ve taken a numberof measures to set this all up for youand we’re just gonna go over it step bystep and if you haven’t seen my how toactivate your frozen yeast and how tocare for your your sourdough starterplease watch that and this is the nextstep and so I’m going to show you how tomake a sponge which is essentially andwhat you start with to make yoursourdough roll and then we’re going togo through the process of kneading itthere’s two times that you’re going toneed it and and then you’re gonna bakeit and brush it so nevertheless let’sget started so what you want to startwith is your sourdough starter and Ihave this in the refrigerator I’m usingit about twice a week so I’m feeding itabout twice a week me and my householdwe go through about a loaf and a halfper week so I’m using this regularly ifyou’re not using it regularly make surethat you feed it weekly and then youtake some of the old sourdough starterout and replenish it with equal partswhite refined flour or unbleached whiteflour but I like to use with King Arthurthis is 12.7% on the protein which iswhat gives your sourdough that spongychew so um I do recommend this kind offlour I like to mix it with the wholewheat flour as well to bring down thatglycemic index so we’re starting withyour sourdough starter which we onlyfeed B white flour and I’d like to takeit on the fridge and let it sit for like15 minutes to thirty minutes based onhow much time you have just to kind oflet it reactivate because we’ve pausedit in the refrigerator so I what I likedone of the reasons I like this kind ofjar is because it it tells you even withthe screw on jars you’ll be able to hearit but I’m gonna try and make this sothat you can hear this because I have mymic right here but when you open it youknow did you hear thatanyways that’s an indicator of a veryactive yeast starter and if you lookright here we have lots of bubbles it’svery like foamy and this is kind of whatyou want it to look like this is a veryhealthy active well taken care of startso I I’m just going to close thatbecause I’ve actually mixed what youneed already for this bunch so you’regoing to want to get a glass of ceramicbowl and you’re going to want to add ina 1/2 a cup of the sourdough starter andyou’re going to want to add in 1/4 a cupof purified water and 1/4 cup of thewhite flour that we were talking aboutyou’re going to want to stir it up andthis is you’re essentially activatingthe yeast with the flour in the water tokind of get it like bump it up get itready to incorporate the rest of youringredients so you’re going to mix ittogether and you’ll have like what lookslike kind of pancake batter and and thenyou’re going to cover it highI like to use plastic wrap and if Idon’t have plastic wrap I like parchmentpaper in a towel so I’m just doing someparchment paper and I keep some of themoisture in there and a towel and I’mgoing to leave this alone for about 30minutes and one of the two of the toolsthat I like to use in the kitchen ortime cubes these are so awesome ifyou’ve never tried using them they’rewonderful in the kitchen this one hasthis blue one is in increments of 1 3 5and 7 and then I have a purple one thathas alarms that are in increments of 510 20 and 30and so I since we’re gonna let this sitfor 30 minutes I just take my time cubeBAM in 30 minutes it’s gonna go out andstart ringing which is pretty awesomeyou can also use whatever alarm you haveyou can use your cell phone whatever iseasiest for you so alright I’ll just setthose aside and so this starter it’sactually already been sitting for 30minutes so we’re gonna move directly onto the next step so here we go and ifyou look at this closely you can kind ofsee that it’s starting to get somebubbles because it’s active and this isvery active the starter that you justheard like kind of pop open and thestarter jar I use the same starter inhere so it’s very active so what we’regoing to do and if you like to lookright here is I’ve already measuredeverything out I like to use I call thismy bread spoon I like a shortest boonbecause it makes it easier to kind oflike fold the ingredients in to eachother but this is very simplethe ingredientsfor this bread are essentially just thesourdough starter flour oil water andsea salt and that’s about it so I’mgonna start adding my ingredients I liketo start with wet first so I get themevenly distributed in the sponge so I’mgonna start with the water I have onecup one measured full cup of water I’mgoing to add a quarter cup of olive oiland you don’t have to use olive oil ifyou don’t have it and you can use softflour oil canola oil I whatever likecooking oil you have on hand you can useI like to use the olive oil but youreally you can use whatever type ofcooking oil you like I have about ameasured teaspoon of sea salt not tablesalt just sea salt so the onlyingredient in your salt should be seasalt so we’re gonna add that in and I’vealready washed my hands very thoroughlybefore you start any of it so you wantto clean your hands super thoroughlymake sure that they are ready becausethis is a very hands-on project soalways start with really clean hands soI’ve got my ingredients in there I’mgonna stir them up just to kind of getthose wet ingredients incorporated withthe sponge and then I’m going to add mydry ingredients I’ve alreadypre-measured right here I have one cupand 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour that’sthis one right here the organic wholewheat the brand isn’t really tooimportant so much as its whole wheat Igot some usda organic whole wheat flourso i’m going to pour that in there stirit a little and then i have two measuredcups of the unbleached white flour andi’m gonna add that in there and then ifyou like to look right here i’m justgonna like start folding the flour andthe wet ingredients into each other andI really love these ratios it works forme every time like a charm so it mighttake like a little bit that we’re justgonna kind of stir this together it justtakes a couple minutes so as you can seethe dry ingredients are getting mixedinto those wet ingredientsI recommend wearing an apron when doingthis because it can get kind of messyand if you don’t have an apron maybesome like slimming clothes or clothesthat aren’t really important whether youget them dirty or not because youprobably won’t get some flour or yeastor a combination of the two on you is soyou can see it’s getting a little doughywhat I do is look at shorter spoon Ijust kind of like pull it along thesides with ball and then I like thatdone is as you can note it as you noticeum the dough it’s semi sticky and I justsay semi because there are stickierdough combinations so it will start toget sticky like this totally normal sowhat I do is I just take the spoon likethat I’ve already set some flour asidesome of the white flour and I’ve flouredthis board so I’m just gonna add alittle bit more I’m gonna add a littlebit to the top of this and this is veryunmeasured so just four more for you toeyeball but just use it as you need itso I’m gonna take this out and get anylittle bits that are on the bottom allright I’m gonna set that aside and thenI’m gonna start kneading this and mytime keeps coming back in handy here Iknead the dough this is the first needso I need them for about five to sevenminutes um so I usually do my fiveminutes in five minutes the alarm willgo off and I start kneading and this iswhere I kind of like you know I try toinfuse positivity into the dough so youknow I’m not really taking all mystresses out on it I’m more just likeyou know expressing gratitude for thisbecause this is food and you know it’s Ifeel like we instill the energy that wehave into what we eat and so I just kindof like send good vibes and love andgratitude to the dough and I need it upand I just kind of gently do that andyou don’t want it really sticking toomuch to the board however a lot of itwill stick you’ll notice it sticking tothe board what I do is I just kind oflike brush it up get a little more flourand then just keep kneading itand I’m essentially just like folding itover and over again and I’ll show youwhat this is supposed to look like and Ireally want you to see this because thisprocess is very important and you knowit’s easy to just tell you how to needsomething but actually seeing it I feellike makes a bigger difference becausethen you kind of see like you know howare they needing it and I’ve seen abunch of different ways people needtheir dough but um you know this worksfor me I’m not a trained baker but Ihave been cooking and baking my wholelife and this makes the basic roll ofbread that tastes amazing and wonderfuland so it’s one that I like to useactually the one that I came up withthis has been trial and error for a verylong time and no it’s just it just worksso so I’m kind of flattening it out andand I’m not letting you get too dry ione thing is you know when you use thatbull measured cup of water you reallywant to use that because the ratios ofwater to flour you don’t want to startwith dough that’s too dry it’s so muchmore difficult to rehydrate dough that’snot what enough than it is to dry outdough that is wet enough and so and youcan knead it more in the beginning iineed that we’re gonna do in a bit or injust a minute actually i it’s gonna be alot less intensive so this you know i’mfolding it over and over you know i canpush it down a little more I’m prettymuch like smoothing the dough out and Iwant the dough to be you know relativelysmooth it won’t be perfectly smooth butit’ll be pretty smooth and when smooththat just tells me that this is thestarter and the flour and water and theoil and the sea salt I’m all mixed intogether and I do recommend if you havelike high quality ingredients you knowlike a really good organic olive oil youknow organic flour those reallyinfluence the flavor of your dough youcan even add a little bit of truffle oilif you have that it adds a wonderfulflavor to your bread soyou’ve kind of gotten the gist of thisanyways we’re gonna move right on to thenext step so I’m just showing you thatit won’t be perfect then it’ll be smoothenough so you’re gonna end up with likethat ball of dough okay I’m gonna stopthis a little short because I’m gonnamove on to the next stage right away butI would need this for five to sevenminutes until you’ve got it relativelysmooth it doesn’t have to be perfectthen what I do is I take the bowl that Ijust used I put it back in there andthen I cover it back up the parchmentpaper and then with the towel and I’mgoing to let this fit for a while andwith each ease the rise time isdifferent this one I you know if it’sreally active it might rise overnightbut if it doesn’t rise overnight like soyou do this in the evening and it stillhasn’t risen just give it some time itwill rise okay you just might have towait a little bit longer and if thetimings inconvenient you can put in thefridge to pause it once it has doubledin size if say like it takes you knowfor a while to double in size and thenyou’re ready for it but you’re not readymaybe you just don’t have the time tobake it once it’s doubled in size youcan pause it in the fridge take it outlet it sit for about 30 minutes and wecan proceed to the second meet in thiscase I’ve already let the dough rise soyou can kind of see it grows into a bigpuffy ball okay and so we’re going tomove straight into the second need soI’m going to flour the board and so thisis the need the second time you’re goingto knead the dough this is after it’salready risen and this is already risenso I’m not going to pull it out it’salready done what it needs to do andthen this is a more gentle need youdon’t want to over knead it in thisspace because I’ve noticed when you doover need it at this phase it can reallymess up the texture of your bread andyou don’t want to do that soand what i pre-measured here it’s about2/3 a cup of flour in a separate bowljust to work with I as I’m making thisall happen and as you can see this isalready smooth out a lot you know it’swe’ve really leavened that bread and I’mnot pushing as hard I’m not it’s justvery gentle you can see there this is avery gentle state you don’t want to betoo rough with the dough on the secondneed just think very very gentle youwant to keep all that structure thatthat has happened while this is neededand what I do with my time cube is I’llusually do like a minute because I dothis for like in about two minutesyou know just very gentle kneading I’mkind of just making a ball a very smoothball and I’m just gently doing thatand same thing nothing but peace andlove here so I feel like that influenceswhat we eat this is alive the yeast thatyou’re using to to rate to leaven thebread is life and you’re feeding it andit’s creating gases that are are fillingup that bread and making it puff upso this is what I’m aiming for if youcan see that there this is a very youcan kind of see it it’s got sometightness there it’s like a little doughballoon if you squeeze it it’s just yousee that so this is this is ready to goso the next phase on this is we’re goingto put it in your Dutch oven and that’swhat I like to use for the bread itworks the best for me if you don’t havea Dutch oven I highly recommend gettingone if you already have one so what youwant to do is you want it to be free andif you look in here I’ve pre it and andyou’re just gonna gently like set it inthe center and you’re going to leave itsitting I’m what I do is I put it thereI cover it I let it set for 30 to 40minutes I’ll come back it will havegotten a little bit bigger not too muchbigger though we’re not going to waitfor it to rise I’m just gonna skip towhat you’re gonna do because what thisessentially will do it won’t double insize this time it’ll just get slightlybigger and if it starts to like sink alittle bit like a tiny bit that’s okaycuz once you cook it it’s gonna puffback up so um so say we’ve waited the 30minutes and we’re ready to throw it inthe oven so this time when she placedyour ball in this and you’re waiting 30minutes I’d preset the oven to 450degrees and so that way by the time wellpreset it like maybe like 15 minutesbefore you’re ready to bake it butyou’re gonna want to preheat the oven to450 degrees because that’s what you’regonna cook it at and so right before youput in the oven you’re gonna score itand I like to do a lotus flower you cankind of score it whatever way you want alot of Baker’s the way that they marktheir bread is a way it’s kind of liketheir signature so on but you know teachtheir own okay it’s just a fun fact soI’m gonna do the Lotus I usually like tocut it like this and I’ll go a coupletimes because I’m cutting into thoselayers of that I’ve like folded and thenI’ll do like this and you’ll see thebread start to separate where I’ve cutit like you can already see it kind ofdoing that here that’s gonna open upinto layers which is really really neatonce it pops up and so and so thisscoring that I’m doing this is afterwaiting 30 minutes for this to you knowrise a little bit again and so once youscored it it’s ready to go in the ovenand this is what it looks like score andso it looks like a little fan and then Iput the cover on because you want tobake it cover and you want to bake itcovered at 415 degrees in the oven andyou want to bake it for 40 minutescovered after 40 minutes you’re gonnatake the cup take it out of the ovenwithin that 40 minute frame though donot open the oven a lots going on inhere like a lot of the moisture and likethe cooking like in the rising of thebreath a lots going onso don’t peek at it and like bake it for40 solid minutes at 400 15 degrees afterthat and your alarms gone off take thelid off you’ll notice that it’s puffedup and it’s awesome you’re gonna put itback in the oven and then you’re gonnabake it at 440 degreesso once you put it back in the ovenafter taking the lid off just go to thetop go to 440 degrees and then leave itin the oven for 10 more minutesuncovered and then that will golden thetop and so once it’s golden on the topit’s ready to pull out and I alreadyhave one that’s done for you here thisis what you end up with they’re prettyawesome I love it okay see how it reallyopens up all of those scores that we puton the top of the bread have opened andwe’ve got the nice brown on the top whatI do once I’ve removed it from the ovenis um while it’s in the pot I have youknow a brush and some oil it’s usually acombination of olive oil and truffle oilwith a little bit of sea salt I’ll brushall over the top and then I’ll use aspoon and I’ll use like an oven mitt andI’ll take this out the loaf of breadfrom the Dutch oven I’ll set it on usthe rimplate um you know because it conductsheat well and I’ll let it cool thereyeah I’m at room temperature for aboutthirty minutes to an hour and then I’llput it back in the Dutch oven and thenI’ll just have it there to use at willso I’m just gonna show you what thislooks like when you slice into it whichis pretty neatso I’m going to to save some time I’mjust gonna flip this over and I wouldallow your bread to set for about thirtyminutes to an hour and then you’re readyto cut it thoughand I would use a bread knife darn it Ididn’t bring that but anyways but yeahso your bread will be like it’ll justbeautiful it’s this is delicious andit’s nice to store this in your Dutchoven because it helps really retain themoisture of your bread and it’s justawesome so anyways um and then it tastesreally really awesome you can toast itor you can just have it like this mmm ohmy gosh this baked this today so it’ssuper fresh anywaysno that might not fall mmmthat’s how you make a little bit breadif there’s any questions that you mighthave about making your own loaf of breadplease feel free to let me know in thecomments below once again this is how tomake your own roll of sourdough my nameis Jason thanks so much for hanging out