Sourdough Bread
Duration: 1 loaf
Ingredients
80g starter
300mL water, room temp
8g salt
80g whole wheat flour
320g bread flour
rice flour for dusting
Directions
Day 1
Feed your starter at least 40g bread flour, and 40 mL of room temp water before bed. It should double by the time you wake up, or your starter is too weak.
Day 2
In a large glass bowl, weigh out the amount of starter you need.
Add the room temp. water and stir.
Add the salt, and stir.
Add the whole grain and stir.
Add the bread flour and stir.
Once all the flour has been incorporated, cover the bowl and let it autolyze for 1 hour.
Once the hour is up, do your first set of stretch and folds. Pull one side up, but not enough to tear the gluten structure, and then fold it over the top of the dough to the other side. Repeat this for all four sides. Cover and wait another 30 minutes.
Repeat this another 2 times.
Do a coil fold, you place both hands in the middle of the dough at the bottom and lift the dough up to let it fold onto itself. Repeat on the perpendicular side. Cover and wait 30 min.
Check on the dough, do the poke test. Poke the dough with a floured finger, if the dough bounced back quickly, it is not ready. Wait until the dough slowly bounces back to a poke. This could take anywhere from 1 hour to 8 hours depending on room temp., humidity, dough temp, etc.
Pre-shape the dough. Flip the dough from the bowl onto a very lightly floured surface. Stretch the top half and then fold it into the middle third. Stretch the bottom half and then fold it into the middle third. Rotate the log of dough 90°. Roll up the log.
Flour the banneton with rice flour, and then flip the newly shaped dough into the banneton with the seam side up. Wait 30 min.
Stitch the dough to add more tension by pulling the sides of the dough towards the middle, alternating from left and right. Cover the banneton and refrigerate it for 1-3 days.
Day 3-5
When you're ready to bake it, preheat the oven to 450°F, wait 30min-1hr or use an oven thermometer to make sure the oven internal temperature is accurate.
If using a Dutch oven, preheat the oven with the Dutch oven with its lid inside.
If using a turkey roaster, you do not need to put the roaster while the oven is preheating.
Once the oven is finished preheating, remove the banneton from the refrigerator. Use a piece of parchment paper that is large enough for the dough to fit in, crumple it up, and then flatten it out again. Remove the banneton cover, lay the parchment paper on top of the dough, and invert it.
Make any decorative scores now. Place the dough into the Dutch oven and cover, or into the roaster and cover and place it in the oven for 7 of the 30 minutes you'll be baking it covered. After 7 minutes, make an expansion score, put the Dutch oven/roaster covered back into the oven to bake the remaining 23 minutes.
Remove the lid, and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes to let the crust brown.
Once it is done baking, place the loaf on a cooling rack to cool for 2 hours before cutting into it.
Notes
You can adjust the recipe using a ratio of 80% bread flour, 20% whole grain, 75% water, 20% starter, 2% salt.
Make sure your starter can double in 4-8 hours. If it can't, it's too weak.
Storage:
You can keep it in an airtight container outside the refrigerator for 2-3 days but it will lose its crunch. However, you can just toast it to regain the crunchy crust.
You can also store it in a paper bag to maintain its crust but the exposed parts will dry out faster.
Freeze – You can slice the loaf up, and freeze them. Let them thaw and toast when you want to eat any.