Basic Sourdough Bread

As the great lockdown continues, I begin to become restless.

Quick Sir Badwolf, to the kitchen, there is bakery afoot …

Do read the recipe notes…

Basic Sourdough Bread

Easy, peasy, tangy, tasty
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Rise Time 9 hours
Course Breads, Side Dish, Snack
Cuisine American, Global
Servings 1 boule
Calories 935 kcal

Equipment

  • 6 qt Dutch Oven with lid
  • Oven Gloves

Ingredients
  

  • 200 grams Starter ~ 1 cup
  • 250 grams Ap Flour Or bread flour
  • 8 grams Salt
  • 125 grams Water Warm, Filtered, or bottled, no chlorine

Instructions
 

Sponge / Autolyse

  • Mix starter, water, 125 grams flour until smooth, cover and rest 1 hour
  • Add rest of flour and mix until smooth supple dough forms
  • Cover and rest overnight / eight hours on counter

Bake

  • Preheat oven and dutch oven to 425 for an hour
  • Turn out dough onto parchment paper
  • Form dough into rough boule
  • With good oven gloves, retrieve dutch oven and remove lid
  • Gently place dough into oven and slash
  • Lid up and return to oven for 20 minutes
  • Remove lid and continue to bake for ~30 minutes

Notes

There are MANY ways to do this, MANY recipes, MANY people screaming.
This is a GENERAL guide, your mileage may vary, no warranty expressed or implied. ..
Use the parchment paper as a sling to help getting the dough into the dutch oven..
On Hydration:
We have 250 grams flour, 125 grams water, and 200 grams of starter @ 100% hydration.  Roughly 63% hydration for 525 grams of dough.  This is a workable hydration level..
Stolen from: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/15913/what-is-the-ideal-hydration-for-bread-dough
Bread hydration varies widely. The "standard" bread using all-purpose (plain) flour has a ratio of water to flour weight (hydration) 60-65%. Flour with a higher protein level, labelled as bread, strong, or high-gluten, tend to use 65% hydration. Ciabatta and rustic breads generally use more water than normal. The extra water gives them more large, uneven holes in the interior of the bread (called the crumb), and generally leads to a higher-rising bread. These wetter doughs are often referred to as "slack" doughs in baker's parlance.
Here are a couple sample hydrations from Hammelman's bread baking:
Baguettes with poolish, 66% hydration, all bread flour
Ciabatta, 73% hydration, all bread flour
Pain Rustique (rustic bread), 69% hydration, all bread flour
Country Bread, 68% hydration, all bread flour
Roasted Potato bread, 61% hydration, 85% bread flour / 15% whole wheat flour / 25% roasted potatoes
Whole wheat bread, 68% hydration, 50/50 whole wheat and bread flour
Semolina (Durum) bread, 62% hydration, 50/50 durum and bread flours
Mind you, it is quite possible to make a bread with even higher water content, if one is a skilled baker. Wetter breads (70% hydration and up) generally cannot be hand-kneaded normally, and require a mechanical mixer, stretch-and-fold kneading with a spatula, or autolysis. Autolysis is when you mix water and flour before adding yeast, and then allow it to sit. This allows enzymes in the flour to develop gluten before the rising begins, and can supplement or replace normal kneading.
Another approach, called double-hydration, is to add only part of the water before kneading. This allows you to knead the bread to develop gluten structure before it becomes too wet to knead.
For extremely wet breads, these methods may all be combined. I'm looking right now at a double-hydration, mechanically mixed, autolyzed, poolish-using ciabatta recipe that sits at 76% hydration.
See  http://joshuacronemeyer.github.io/Flour-and-Water/public/   Nice little calculator

Nutrition

Calories: 935kcalCarbohydrates: 166gProtein: 25gFat: 17gSaturated Fat: 4gSodium: 4826mgPotassium: 383mgFiber: 7gSugar: 11gCalcium: 265mgIron: 8mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

  Filed under: American, Baked, Bread, Cast Iron

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