More Sourdough Bread

10 years ago

I baked another batch of sourdough. This one was started with a sourdough levain and given a longer fermentation. The dough was made on Monday and went into the fridge until Wednesday morning.

I added 1/2 teaspoon of yeast along with the sourdough levain. I had to knock the dough down Tuesday night as it rose enough in the fridge that it was going to start pushing the lid off. The next batch I will not be adding any yeast.

Two loaves both baked in cast iron dutch ovens.

I wanted to see if it was easier to transfer the dough to the hot dutch ovens using parchment.

So one was baked with parchment and one without. I also wanted to see if the bottom crust browned more without the parchment. It didn't. But I did notice that the parchment loaf was less round than the other. The folds in the parchment left some indents in the loaf.

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Comments (13)

shirl36
10 years ago
Beautiful!! Good job!!
I love sourdough breads. I have 3 different starter living in our frig. When baked they never look like yours tho. Mine seem to go more flat. They taste good. I know it is pilot error I will keep trying. I sent my nephew your last posts on Saturday bread and Sourdough.

I love all the pictures of the foods posted. They are so inspiring.

shirl
Jasdip
10 years ago
My God. *thud*
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Finally, I have pictures! HereÂs the dough after adding yeast. Here it is about 2 hours later. So I punched it down. And formed 3 loaves. Two hours laterÂÂ.. By now itÂs 8:30pm, IÂve built fence all day, taken care of the garden and this is just going to have to do!! Baked Âem. And the results were just OK! Flavor is good, crumb is good, should have baked just a few more minutes. EverythingÂs better with butter!!! On a related note. I decided to keep feeding my starter to get it lively again and itÂs failed. I think I killed it. Probably neglected for far too long. Think IÂll take a break from sourdough for awhileÂÂÂ Luckily, I dried and froze some when it was healthy so can reactivate that later! Thanks again to all who helped "Save the Bread". Deanna
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1. Personally, I wouldn't use a freshly-made starter, I would feed the starter a couple more times to make sure I had a good colony of natural yeast growing in the starter. If your starter won't double in bulk when you feed it, it's not going to raise your bread dough. 2. You don't say whether your recipe uses starter only as the leavening agent, or both starter and baker's yeast. In recipes where the bread is raised with starter, I only use my Zo for mixing the sourdough bread dough - I don't allow it to raise in the machine. As soon as it's done mixing/kneading, I remove it from the bread machine and put it in a dough-rising bucket so I can monitor the rise. It takes sourdough a lot longer to rise than it does baker's yeast risen dough. Even on the sourdough cycle on the Zo, it may not be right amount of time. Then I bake the bread in the oven. If the recipe uses starter as a flavoring agent, and also uses a normal amount of yeast, then it should work to mix and bake in the Zo - as long as the amount of ingredients is correct for a loaf of bread. 3. Both fat and sugar have important jobs in breads. You don't say if you are making a lean dough or an enriched dough, and that would be helpful information, but I'm going to assume it's an enriched dough because it includes fat and sugar. There typically is only a small amount of each (with exceptions - such as a Portuguese Sweet Bread or brioche). The fat helps tenderize the crumb and keeps it from drying out as quickly as a lean dough. Depending on the type of bread you are making and the mixing method used, fat plays a vital part. If you want to skip the fat, don't use butter on your sliced bread after it's baked. If you want to skip sugar, don't use jelly or honey as a topping. If you are watching carbs - sugars - then don't forget the flour is jam-packed with them - as is applesauce. If you don't want sugar or fat in your loaves, choose lean bread recipes (Italian and French Breads) and skip the enriched breads (those that include sugar, fat, dairy, eggs - such as sandwich bread). 4. Splenda would NOT be a good substitute for sugar in a yeast bread. Bread isn't a good place for a no-calorie substitute. Sugar (honey, syrup) in a recipe provides food for yeast, flavor, tenderizes the crumb, keeps the crumb moist, makes the crust darker. You can't get those same results using a no-calorie sugar substitute. If you take some time and do a Google search on - care and feeding of sourdough starter - that will give you a lot of information about making and using starters. You will quickly find it's not one thing, there are rules and broken rules for it's use, it's a contradiction and as individual as the people who use it. Good luck with your sourdough bread. I hope you have good success and many more loaves to come... -Grainlady
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Thanks, Annie, Ann and Linda! It's the same basic bread I usually make, though the exact contents vary a little. :) Ann, big holes are formed the same way bubble bath big bubbles are--the interstices between bubbles break and they combine to make a bigger bubble. That might also be an indication of good gluten development because the structure around the bigger bubble holds up rather than collapsing. When you punch it down, your strong, long gluten will reinflate. Small amounts of gluten might be broken to let the air out, but most of it is still there. With the quantity of (sharp) bran in this kind of bread, where one can see the big holes while handling the dough--that is, where the side of the bubble is open--it's seeing where the gluten has been cut and will never inflate again once the air has been let out. It's not that the gluten hasn't developed. It loses its legs because there aren't enough long strands left, even with the high protein wheat I've been using. When that happens, the degassed shaped loaf can't rise. While the crumb structure doesn't look very different from usual, having the banneton to cling to did wonders for it.
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@andersons21 - I only saw your reply now - sorry about that. Yes - by "put in water" I just fill the reservoir. (I don't have the plumbed in version of the oven.) I don't do it before preheating because somewhere in the Miele manual it mentioned that the oven works best with cold water. So I always add water at the last moment. Maybe they just meant not to use water that was sitting in your hot water heater. I have no idea. The manual is vague in many places. And yes on MaxiBroil -- the baking steel does reach a higher temp, and the oven spring is better. I use it for both pre-heating and the first cooking stage. When I've pointed an IR thermometer at the baking steel after preheating, it's something like 480-490F. I forget the exact figure, but it's significantly above 435F. I wish it got hotter too, but the interior of the oven is made very differently than a regular oven, so I suspect that's probably why it's limited. The same thing happens in the regular Miele oven (not steam) - the high broil settings let the baking steel reach significantly higher temps (~650F) than the highest setting on the oven (which I think is 575F). I have both ovens btw - and use the steel in the regular oven for pizza.
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dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
10 years ago
The pictures will shut those people up who say, "Why not just go to the store to buy bread."

Thumbs up!

dcarch
Acadiafun
10 years ago
I love sourdough bread and yours looks so yummy!
ann_t
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks Shirl. Not sure what recipe you are using your starter in, but you might try adding just an 1/8 or 1/4 teaspoon of yeast to your breads if they are not rising.

Thanks Jasdip.

Thanks Dcarch, I think that it is a case of some just not realizing how easy it is to bake bread.

Thanks Acadiafun.

~Ann
shirl36
10 years ago
Hmmmmmmm...."try a 1/8 or 1/4 tsp yeast to sour dough batter".....it is my memory bank for next time.
Thanks ann t

shirl
annie1992
10 years ago
Ann T, those look amazing. Did you bake them uncovered or put the lids on the pans? I'm assuming uncovered, but I try to never assume that I actually know what's going on, LOL.

I have a batch of bread dough in the fridge that I was going to bake on Wednesday and then life intervened. Didn't get it done yesterday or today either, maybe tomorrow. Or Sunday. So, it'll be kind of like sourdough....

Nah, it won't, but it'll still be good and I'll try sourdough again in the spring.

Annie
sleevendog (5a NY 6aNYC NL CA)
10 years ago
It's baked with the lid on Annie. Usually a pre-determined time for the lid to come off and baked a bit longer to top brown. I believe that is what gives bread personality. With a bit of study, and knowing your own oven and its quirks, bread can be what you want. Nice to reach a point where it feels natural and 'understood'.
I like the parchment 'dump' method ann-t. I just made #6 batch of my grain rye.
For the ruis i've been lifting out of the pot by the parchment and sliding the loaf back in the oven nude. To brown and finish on the oven rack. DH finishes his boul in the dutch oven.
What has surprised me and my recent baking attempts is getting a good feel for the dough. I'm just now starting to ask 'why'. What's all that crazy talk about strand and gluten, pre-fermentation bla bla bla. spounges and poolish and biga and starter.
I think i got lucky that my first recipe included a sponge. Kept me focused and held my attention.
At the point now where i don't need the recipe. Just a glance to check if i've forgotten something.
This link has been helpful....

Here is a link that might be useful: poolish and biga
ann_t
Original Author
10 years ago
Annie, as Sleevendog, confirms, the lid is on for the first 30 minutes of baking.

I didn't like the indents in the loaf caused by the parchment. I don't have a problem picking up the loaf and placing it in the hot pot. But the parchment makes it easier to remove. Next time I will put just a three or four inch wide strip in the pot. Just wide enough to support the loaf, with long tabs to use to lift the loaf out of the pan.

It is just as easy to get a round loaf with good colouring baked directly on a stone. The difference I think is the Dutch Oven creates its own steam. When baked directly on the stone, I spray with water and toss ice cubes or a cup of water on to the bottom of my oven to create the steam.

These rounds were all baked on a stone.
melissa_thefarm
10 years ago
I started baking regularly with a sponge simply because yeast is so expensive here. I begin with one packet of yeast and end up with half a dozen loaves of bread, different varieties. I started a batch several days ago, made a savory almond dough to cook on the stove top and a whole wheat potato bread, then saved the remainder of the sponge to sour, feeding it now and then. I also make sweet yeast breads from the sponge.
My bread isn't the best that was ever made, partly because I'm dealing with flours my U.S recipes weren't written for, partly because I'm a fairly casual baker. But it's good, better than anything I can buy, and it offers variety in this desert of white bread that I live in. And it's much cheaper than store bought! Baking bread really is pretty easy, and it's a flexible process with considerable tolerance for imperfection.
Jasdip
10 years ago
Ann, I have to ask you what you do with all of your bread??
When you bake bread, you don't bake just 2 loaves, you make a lot!! Do you freeze them (either whole or sliced), give some away to friends, or just eat and eat? :D

These are exquisite. Can bread be exquisite? Wow.
ann_t
Original Author
10 years ago
Jasdip, Bread does freeze well. So I like to have some in the freezer for when I don't have time to bake. Moe feels deprived when he has to eat store bought bread, even if it is from one of our artisan bakeries. I also have a few friends that I share it with. Everyone loves a fresh baked loaf of bread. And I really enjoy the process of baking breads.

Moe's favourite meal is breakfast so he almost always has toast in the morning.

~Ann
Jasdip
10 years ago
Hi Ann, yes bread does freeze well. I always slice my homemade bread, and freeze it; a slice is easy to snap off when needed.

I also give some away, and I don't even make 6 loaves at a time! Your loaves are gorgeous. Hmmmmm I think you should open a bakery!!

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shirl36

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