OK, so it's both as easy as you are lead to believe, and also not exactly.
Several Sundays ago, my wife announced she was going to make sourdough bread starter and read me The NYTimes recipe she was going to try. From the bread guru Peter Reinhart, it begins with pineapple juice, had thought for flavor but have since learned from Ryan in a comment below and a link to thefreshloaf.com lowers the pH to the point that undesirable bacteria cannot grow and prevent yeast from growing.
It reminded me of my first time making starter using another bread guru's method (Nancy Silverton suggests putting organic grapes into the mix to increase odds of growing enough yeast to leavan the bread). Another baker I knew swore by adding organic purple cabbage to make the starter, which also worked like a charm.
Then, collaborating with Matt McDonald, head baker at the Bouchon Bakery at the time, on the Bouchon Bakery cookbook, he told me how he made a starter: combine flour and water. Putting fruits and vegetables in your starter was ridiculous, he said. There is plenty of yeast in the air and in the flour already.
My wife had gotten me all excited about sourdough, so I started my own Matt McDonald-method starter by putting equal weights flour and water together (you can also do 1 part water and 2 parts flour by volume--but to bake bread, you should really have a scale). About a quarter cup of flour to start. (I had attempted starters before that never took--it's not a given.)
Within a day I had bubbles, but my wife's seemed dormant. She accused me of starting a competition, so I threw mine out. But it was too late. I'd already jinxed her starter and it failed to thrive. So we began again. And a couple days ago, after considerable feeding, we had a starter that was ready (just) to do the job. But it really took a good week till it was strong enough. You've got to have a sense about it.
I went back to my old ratio of 2 parts flour, 1 part starter, 1 part water (500 grams flour, 250 grams each water and starter or 1 pound flour and ½ pound starter and water) plus 1.5% to 2% salt (a tablespoon or so). And after considerable folding and rising, baked something the people wanted to eat. (Remember that the starter is equal parts flour and water if you weigh, which means you can know exactly how much flour and water you have in your dough.)
Not perfect by any stretch. A little under baked, irregular and slightly dense crumb. But not bad. So I made another day before yesterday, bulk fermented it overnight in the fridge. The next day I let it warm up for an our or so, shaped it into a tight boule, and let it rise for a good 3 or 4 hours.
I baked it as is now standard: in a preheated Dutch Oven, 500˚F, 20 minutes covered 30 minutes uncovered:
And I do have to say that, while you have to feed the starter every day and it takes some work, and some bread sense which only comes from practice, it feels really good to leaven a loaf of bread with 100% wild yeast you grew yourself. Notice the rich color of the crust--this only comes from sourdough. Don't know why, but it's gorgeous.
That said, if your sourdough isn't strong enough, I'd go ahead and add ¼ teaspoon SAF dried yeast just to be sure or until you've got a thriving starter. (Don't add it to your starter or the commercial yeast will take over.) Your dough will still taste really good.
Happy bread baking all!
How To Make Sourdough Bread
Ingredients
- 1 pound flour (or 500 grams)
- ½ pound sourdough starter (see below) (or 250 grams)
- 8 ounces water (or 250 grams)
- 1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt (or 15 grams, about a tablespoon)
- as needed olive oil
Instructions
- Combine the flour, starter and water in a mixing bowl fitted with a dough hook or in a bowl if mixing by hand. Mix till just combined and let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes (this is called autolyse, which helps the doughs structure but isn't strictly necessary).
- Add the salt and continue mixing of kneading until the bread is soft and smooth and pliable, 1o to 15 minutes.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for up to 48 hours.
- Several hours before you intend to bake, remove the bread. Remove the plastic and cover the bowl with a towel. Let the bread warm up for an hour or so.
- Remove the dough from the bowl. (If you want to see how lively it is, cut it open--you should see a network of bubbles; if you don't, your bread won't rise; throw the dough at your neighbor's house as a primitive form of greeting.) Press the air out and kneed it a bit to move the yeast around to a fresh food supply. Shape the dough into a tight boule by rolling it back and forth and around between your hands.
- Put the dough in a parchment lined bowl, cover it with a towel and let it rise until you can just stick a finger into the dough and the indent is not quick to bounce back. This can take 2 to 5 hours depending on your dough (remember, it's alive, and everything alive moves at its own pace).
- Put a Dutch oven in your oven and preheat to 500˚F.
- When the ovens are hot, rub the top of your dough with some olive oil. With a sharp knife, cut a hashtag in your dough and say "hashtag sourdough!" Using good mits or hand towels put the Dutch oven on your stove top, and remove the cover. Using the parchment, lift the dough out of the bowl and rest it (along with the parchment paper) in the Dutch oven. Cover the Dutch oven (remember it's hot!) and return it to the stove.
- Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 30 minutes or so (if you want to be sure it's done, an instant read thermometer should read about 205˚F). Remove it from the rack. Resist cutting into it for at least one hour! This is much harder than it sounds.
Sourdough Bread Starter
Ingredients
- flour as needed (you'll want to have plenty, at least a 5# bag to be sure)
- water as needed
Instructions
- Combine 100 grams flour with 100 grams water, and stir to create a paste (I use a quart deli container). Let it sit for 24 hours (you can give it a stir once if you wish).
- Add the same amounts of flour and water and stir till combined. Let sit for 24 hours. Give it a stir once or twice. Now you can cover it if you wish.
- You should be seeing bubbles by now. Pour 100 grams of starter into a fresh container and add 100 grams each of flour and water in the morning.
- That night add 150 grams flour and water and stir.
- Continue adding about equal measures of flour and water to an equal measure of starter. You'll start dumping your starter (or save it to use for pancakes or waffles--you'll have to calculate flour and water by weight if you use flour and waffle recipes, knowing it's 50% of each). You should have the hang of it by now. You'll need about 250 grams (about 8 ounces) per loaf.
- Figure out when you want to make your dough and feed your starter on last time about 12 hours before. You want that yeast nice and hungry come mixing time. If your schedule changes or you just can't deal—refrigerate it until you're ready. But I would recommend feeding it again and letting it sit at room temp for 12 hours or so.
- Sour dough should last indefinitely in your fridge. The longer it sits, though, the more refreshing it may need. (If it's moldy, of course, that would mean it's dead and should be discarded.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2
The pineapple juice is to fast forward through the cascade of organisms that normally have to grow and die off to drop the pH low enough so that the desirable ones can grow.
thanks! added to post.
Michael, you might want to check your edit -- it looks like the cut n' paste boogie man struck and left out the word "not," so the sense of the sentence isn't quite what Ryan wrote.
Thanks for letting me know!
That is a great looking loaf.
It is so satisfying to bake and special to give the loaves as gifts.
With a healthy starter and warmer climate you can just use 25 grams. I use 50 for a larger loaf. And I make 1/2 white 1/2 wheat to feed the starter. I’ve read that produces a better flavor.
Add 1/4 cup of rye or whole wheat to the bread mix.
I use a Pullman pan for a nice square loaf - great for blt’s
Whole grain rye flour has always worked very well for me in starters. I used to keep two starters -- a white and a rye, both 100% hydration -- on hand, but that's too much work unless you're baking for the whole block. It's easy enough to build a white levain from a rye starter, it just takes a couple or three feedings: you begin with 25 or 30 grams (a tablespoon or two) of starter and, as Michael describes, feed an equal weight evenly divided between flour and tepid water.
In his book "Bread," Jeff Hamelman has a 10 page discussion of sourdough cultures and their build processes. Despite reading it a dozen times, my eyes still glaze over.
In any case, a touch of rye in white loaves is a very European thing. It evokes France to me. Wegman's sells a very good pain de campagne which, despite being pretty snowy white, lists rye flour as the third ingredient. No, they won't divulge the formula; I asked.
Is this following the 5/3 ratio. Sorry of this is a question with an obvious answer.
Kind of. this uses 2 parts flour, 1 part each water and starter. do you have a scale. If not, a cup of flour weighs 5 ounces depending. a cup of flour should weigh 6 ounces or so, and fine to err on adding extra starter.
I leave my starter in the fridge after it has been fed, so I don't have to do a daily feeding. The night before I plan to bake bread (or whatever else sourdough), I do a feeding and leave it on the counter to mature. Next day, bread gets baked. Starter gets fed and then back into the fridge until next week.
Given scarcity of flour right now, I have to ration flour and I can't be wasting it with discards from daily feedings. One can only make some much from the discards.
I made my starter similar to your first method. Equal weight water and whole wheat flour, plus a tsp of honey. The method I used required a feeding 5 days after the initial mixing. For 5 days, it sat on top of the fridge. It seemed to work because I have an active starter even if she spends much of the time sleeping in the fridge.
thanks for the comments, glad you too need longer feeding period. mine's pretty active now.and our small local grocery store only had 25# bags of flour, so we have plenty.
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Hi, Michael. I'm making the bread today! When I remove the dutch oven from the rack after baking, should I also be removing the loaf right away from the dutch oven? I'm assuming yes, but just checking. I'm a novice baker, and have only baked sourdough buns before, and yeast-risen breads.
Yes, remove to a rack, but try to resist cutting into it immediately while it finishes cooking.
ohhhh that's going to be difficult! thank you!
annnnnd... the starter clearly wasn't lively enough, or my dough was still too cold (it's about 70 in my kitchen). So we'll re-feed the starter and try again tomorrow.
Damn. Keep at it. It's a living thing and you have to treat it as such!
success! beautiful loaf. I could have pulled it a little sooner-- got very dark on top, but fresh starter was the key! now to wait an hour. Thank you for your help.
yay!
I really appreciate how kind and responsive you are! Thank you.
I have another question: my first loaf burned on the bottom. I preheated my Staub dutch oven as you suggested, and baked the suggested time. Today, I did the same, and baked a shorter time (20 minutes covered, 20 minutes uncovered), and it is still burnt on the bottom.
What can I do to prevent this?
try putting it on a sheet tray and raise the rack. Or lowering oven temp. perhaps yours runs high
Thank you! Success!!
What’s the size of your Staub Dutech oven?
It's a le creuset dutch oven and I believe it's 7.5 liters.
This has become my go to recipe for sourdough bread. I use everything bagel seasoning on it and it's great. Would it be possible for you to give us a lesson on increasing hydration percentages because I struggle maintaining a tight boule at higher hydration.
Nothing like being 2 years late to the party. I made this recipe this week after reading Ratios and making the best biscuits, something I’ve been testing for a long time now (thanks!). I actually baked this in an 8x4” loaf pan inside a preheated dutch oven and it made great toasting bread. Thanks again!
thanks!