How to Make a Sourdough Bread Loaf Recipe

[Photographs and video: Tim Chin]

There are in all probability a thousand methods to make sourdough bread. Consider {the catalogue} of shapes alone: boule, bâtard, baguette, miche, ache de mie (or pullman), baton—that is only a pattern of a for much longer listing of the standard French shapes. Sourdough breads additionally embody merchandise like Ethiopian injera, Indian naan and bhatura, and Filipino pandesal. For these new to sourdough baking, studying the terminology, buying the tools, and mastering the particular methods required can appear extremely daunting.

But baking sourdough doesn’t must be an train in futility. You don’t must endure the indignation of manufacturing a dense hockey puck of cooked dough. Sure, I may hype up one other recipe for a “foolproof” no-knead sourdough bread and name it a day, however you in all probability need a little bit greater than that. In the spirit of providing concrete abilities and ideas, this recipe gives a roadmap for a fundamental ache au levain, an all-purpose sourdough loaf. It gives some foundational methods for different breads, too, and it even makes use of all-purpose flour, simply to maintain issues accessible.

If you simply need to get straight to baking, you may jump to the recipe. But if you wish to know the “whys” and “hows” of this recipe, right here’s a primer on the mechanics concerned.

The Big Picture Process

Pain au levain is the basic sourdough loaf present in any European-style artisan bakery and plastered throughout your IG feed. With the assistance of Kristen Dennis, a sourdough skilled and popular Instagram baker, I’ve outlined the method for a easy, medium-hydration dough based mostly on a few of her strategies.

• Build the Levain: A levain will probably be used to leaven your bread. Building one includes mixing your starter with a comparatively small portion of flour, and including water. If you don’t have a starter, you may make a starter from scratch or telephone a baker good friend and ask for a few of theirs. These days, some bakeries and eating places with bread packages are making small quantities of their starters out there for buy as properly, so you may as well attempt procuring a starter that manner.
• Mix the Dough: This step contains mixing the vast majority of flour and water in your dough. Crucially, this course of includes not solely incorporating elements, but additionally developing gluten. Mixing contains steps equivalent to an autolyse (see beneath) and mechanical kneading, in addition to the incorporation of levain and salt.
• Bulk Ferment (or Bulk Proof) the Dough: Bulk fermentation refers back to the fermentation and rising of a combined dough. At this stage, microbes metabolize starch and produce gasoline that will get trapped within the gluten matrix, which continues to develop and strengthen because the dough sits. This mild, sluggish fermentation is essential to producing a tall, ethereal bread with sufficiently bitter taste.
• Shape the Dough: Once the dough has adequately fermented, it’s normal observe to form it. Shaping (and pre-shaping) builds construction into the dough and will increase floor rigidity. Without shaping, doughs generally tend to unfold an excessive amount of when baking, leading to a flatter loaf. Shaping improves the percentages of manufacturing a tall, proud loaf.
• Final Proof and Retarding of the Dough: After shaping, the dough is often fermented a ultimate time earlier than baking. In some circumstances, this fermentation happens at a a lot colder temperature (41°F and decrease) in a course of referred to as retarding. Retarding improves the flavour of your bread, offering tangier, sweeter notes.
• Score the Dough: As a bread bakes, it expands with sufficient power to crack and break in an irregular manner. Scoring the dough beforehand gives an outlet for steam to flee and permits the dough to develop in a extra managed, predictable method, which produces a uniform and enticing form.
• Bake Your Bread: Without sufficient warmth, sourdough bread won’t rise correctly when baked. You gained’t get that coveted oven spring—the preliminary vigorous growth of gasoline that contributes to a tall loaf. It’s frequent to make use of steam to delay the hardening of the crust, which in flip permits the loaf to develop extra absolutely. Bakers use all types of setups to offer steam—lava rocks, ice cubes, steam ovens, or simply heavy lidded baking vessels.

Special Equipment

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Making this recipe requires some particular tools, although in some circumstances substitutions are potential (altering the tools could require some adjustments to the recipe course of, as famous beneath). Most of that tools is roofed in our guide to bread-baking gear, although this recipe has a few particular wants value explaining.

Square baking dish

An 8-inch square baking dish or related container isn’t important. But symmetry is essential for correct, uniform dough dealing with and consistency. Working at 90- and 180-degree angles when coil folding (which is the strategy used on this recipe) helps set up this symmetry; utilizing a sq. container helps guarantee correct, 90-degree turns higher than a spherical bowl. Using a sq. dish additionally preserves a sq. dough form all through proofing, offering simple edges and axes when it comes time to form.

That stated, you need to use a spherical bowl, however you will must be extra cautious about making the right, symmetrical turns, and shaping could also be much less intuitive later.

Oval Banneton

A banneton is a wicker basket used to proof portioned bread dough after it has been absolutely formed. For larger hydration doughs (60 % and better), a banneton helps to protect a bread’s form and gives a little bit extra rigidity whereas it rises, producing a tall, uniform baked loaf. This recipe is designed for an oval, 10-inch lined banneton, which leads to an oval bâtard form. You can use a spherical banneton or perhaps a spherical bowl lined with a lint-free towel, however word that the form of your baked bread will probably be rounder and fewer rectangular (and it’ll additionally require a unique forming methodology than the one described within the recipe steps). If your banneton doesn’t embody a liner, then make sure to liberally mud it with rice flour to stop sticking.

Ingredients and Process Notes

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Bread-making is complicated course of with seemingly infinite variables. Many of these variables rely upon one another—change one, and chances are you’ll have to make different changes to the recipe. Here’s a bit extra data on this explicit loaf.

Flour

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This recipe is designed for all-purpose flour, with a smaller share of entire wheat flour for taste and to assist fermentation.

All-Purpose Flour

Why all-purpose flour? Mainly as a result of it is extensively out there. In Trevor Wilson’s phrases, “The baker makes the crumb, not the flour.” If you may make a tall, open-crumbed loaf with all-purpose flour, then you may positively make a loaf with higher-protein bread flour. I examined this recipe with high-protein King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour, Gold Medal unbleached all-purpose flour, and Central Milling unbleached all-purpose flour. They all produced good high quality bread with comparatively open crumb construction.

If you need to or have entry to bread flour, then you’re welcome to make use of it, although it should require some adjustments to the recipe. Bread flour has larger gluten potential, and tends to supply doughs that may entice gases very successfully, leading to greater holes and taller loaves. But take note bread flour additionally absorbs extra water, so it might be needed to extend the dough’s hydration by including extra water. Similarly, higher-extraction domestically milled flours comprise extra bran and germ, and can maintain extra water than lower-extraction flours, and also will require extra water.

Whole Wheat Flour

It’s frequent observe to incorporate some proportion of entire wheat or entire grain flour in a bread system to facilitate fermentation—most elementary white sourdough recipes name for as much as 20 % entire wheat or entire grain flour of their whole flour system. Whole wheat flour is wealthy in vitamins and potential microbes, rushing up fermentation and finally imparting extra taste to breads.

On the opposite hand, the inclusion of bran can inhibit gluten improvement. The tiny bits of bran are sharp and act like razor blades, mechanically disrupting the bonds fashioned in a gluten matrix. To maximize the good thing about entire wheat with out compromising gluten construction, it’s frequent to sift entire wheat flour (as this recipe requires), or use flour that has been bolted (commercially sifted). It’s additionally frequent to pre-soak entire wheat flour to melt the bran, by way of a course of known as an autolyse (extra on that beneath).

Hydration

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High hydration dough is overrated. Don’t get me flawed: Raising hydration typically improves dough extensibility, and may help produce these huge, open holes that many bakers covet. But with out correct fermentation and dough dealing with, getting an open crumb turns into considerably tougher. The results of sluggish or weak fermentation will probably be extra noticeable in the next hydration dough: The dough could also be slack, sticky, and exhausting to deal with. At the identical time, improper dealing with of a excessive hydration dough can severely degas the dough or lead to a weak dough that doesn’t maintain its form.

The comparatively decrease hydration on this recipe is especially essential as a result of it makes use of principally all-purpose flour. In basic, all-purpose flour absorbs much less water than higher-protein bread flour. For instance, breads made utilizing bread flour generally characteristic hydrations in extra of 80 %. If you made the identical bread utilizing all-purpose flour on the similar hydration, you’d probably discover that the dough is way slacker and tougher to handle—in a phrase, ‘wetter’ than the unique dough. To account for decrease water absorption, it’s useful to decrease hydration. For this recipe, I lowered the hydration to 76 %. That four % distinction makes the dough a little bit simpler to deal with, and creating construction turns into extra simple. And but, the crumb remains to be open.

If you want to increase hydration on this recipe, you’ll probably must make a pair adjustments to your course of. You could have to include extra units of folds into the dough to construct construction; or you may swap to bread flour to lift water absorption.

Temperature

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Establishing and sustaining a constant fermenting temperature has a big affect on a sourdough loaf. Of course, dough will proof quicker at hotter temperatures than at cooler temperatures. But how have you learnt how lengthy to bulk ferment at a given temperature? At a goal ambient temperature between 73-75°F, full bulk fermentation (from the time levain is added to the dough) takes between 6 and seven hours. At a decrease temperature vary (64-68°F), bulk fermentation may take between eight and 10 hours; at larger ranges (78-82°F), bulk may be full in four hours as a substitute. Knowing and judging bulk fermentation for a given temperature requires a little bit of trial and error over successive bulk fermentations at that temperature.

One method to set up extra consistency in your baking is to intention for a goal dough temperature. Bakers discuss with desired dough temperature (DDT) as a direct measure taken after mixing all elements in a dough. Bakers can calculate what water temperature to make use of in mixing by factoring room temperature, flour temperature, and a predetermined friction issue based mostly on the method of mixing. For simplicity’s sake, I intention for a DDT of 74°F after mixing. I periodically verify this temperature after every set of coil folds to make sure that my dough is fermenting on the anticipated temperature.

As a matter of excellent observe, it’s useful to measure dough temperature after mixing even when you don’t need to do some difficult math. If the temperature is significantly hotter than 74°F, then chances are you’ll want to regulate the ambient fermenting temperature to deliver the dough temperature down.

Finally, how do you preserve a goal ambient temperature? You may have to mess around a little bit. In temperate areas, 75°F may be room temperature. In cooler areas, you may want to search out an space of your house that’s barely hotter (within the oven with the sunshine turned on, or in a cabinet above your fridge). For most precision, investing in a temperature-controlled proofing field is the most suitable choice (however you may bake nice bread with out one).

Autolyse

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An autolyse includes stirring flour and water collectively and ready. During this time, starches hydrate and gluten develops passively. Amylase enzymes convert starches to easy sugars, leading to higher fermentation as soon as the levain is added. An autolyse provides dough a head begin on each gluten improvement and fermentation in the long term. That means much less kneading, and fewer time ready for the dough to rise. Overall, an autolyse improves the consistency and high quality of bread. It’s not a compulsory step in bread-making, however in the suitable circumstances it makes life rather a lot simpler. It’s a standard course of for high-hydration doughs.

It’s essential to notice that lower-protein flours profit from shorter autolyse occasions than do higher-protein flours. For instance, bread flour could be left hydrated for upwards of two hours earlier than including the levain and salt with no ailing results. But a dough of all-purpose flour can turn into soupy or lack construction given the identical remedy. That’s as a result of amylases have damaged down too many starches and compromised the gluten construction.

Judging Gluten Development

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How have you learnt when you’ve developed adequate gluten construction in your dough? You can definitely depend on subjective indicators, like accumulating floor rigidity. But within the early phases of blending and incorporating elements, these indicators aren’t so helpful. One method to decide gluten improvement includes a “window pane” check. After the preliminary autolyse, choose up the dough between your fingers and attempt to stretch it to a skinny sheet. If the dough stretches with out tearing and you may see your fingers via it, then that may be a good indicator of gluten improvement. The window pane check demonstrates the diploma of each elasticity and extensibility—two essential traits of a well-developed dough. It’s useful to carry out this check after every step in mixing as much as the primary set of coil folds, to know if the dough requires extra kneading or extra folds.

Shaping

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Shaping on this recipe is comparatively simple. For a bâtard like this, a easy letter fold and roll up is sufficient. Because we’ve been cautious to develop dough power via coil folding throughout bulk fermentation, the dough ought to have ample power and rigidity even earlier than shaping. This mild shaping methodology is good for learners, because it minimizes unintentional deformation or degassing of the dough.

Retarding

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In this recipe, many of the rising happens throughout bulk fermentation. But after shaping, it’s useful to throw the loaf into the fridge. Proofing at low temperatures is named retarding. And relying on the temperature, the ultimate rise slows significantly. While yeast exercise slows, the manufacturing of carbon dioxide is throttled. At the identical time, enzymatic exercise continues at an affordable price, enhancing taste with out compromising dough construction: Amylase enzymes break down starches into sugars, rising caramelization when baking and offering an entire cascade of latest flavors. Lactic acid micro organism are additionally nonetheless barely energetic at low temperatures, so bitter flavors can nonetheless develop. Finally, retarding the dough makes scoring simpler. A chilly dough is firmer, much less sticky, and a blade will not drag as a lot on the dough floor. Retarding improves the probabilities of producing an ear.

Scoring

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Scoring merely guides the dough in its growth. For greatest outcomes, it’s useful to slash your dough at a shallow angle; between 10 and 20° tends to lead to a extra pronounced ear. If you’ve dealt with and fermented your dough correctly, even improper, imperfect scoring will lead to good bread. When scoring, it’s additionally useful to comply with the curvature of the dough from high to backside. But finally, the important thing to good scoring is observe and confidence. The extra you rating, the higher you’ll get at it.

Baking

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Baking sourdough bread requires warmth—actual, critical warmth. Your run-of-the-mill 350°F setup isn’t going to chop it. In basic, the warmer you run your oven, the extra power you may provide to warmth your combo cooker, which later transfers that warmth to the dough inside. More warmth transferred means higher potential for vigorous growth of dough and oven spring. Most ovens attain temperatures at or in extra of 500°F. In different phrases, don’t be afraid to essentially crank it. I like to recommend heating your oven to a minimum of 485°F, or as much as 500°F.**

**According to Kristen Dennis, there’s a level of diminishing returns on the subject of excessive temperatures. If you generate an excessive amount of warmth, then the dough can crust over too early earlier than reaching most growth; second, excessively excessive temperatures danger burning the underside of the loaf. For this motive, Kristen recommends 485°F.

After that preliminary burst of warmth and growth of dough, it’s very important to take away the cooking cowl and proceed baking. To bake bread absolutely with out burning the crust, it’s useful to decrease the baking temperature. In the European custom, good sourdough bread is bien cuit (‘well done’ in French)—darkish, crusty, and simply wanting burnt. But so long as the interior temperature of dough reaches roughly 210°F, the colour of crust is mostly a matter of private choice.

The Power of Practice

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Hopefully, these explanatory notes provide a basic roadmap for a easy loaf of sourdough bread. There’s no exhausting and quick, “ultimate” method to good bread. But when you perceive the underlying ideas—when you nail fermentation and are conscious of correct dough dealing with—you then’re properly in your method to success. How do you get good at baking sourdough bread? A recipe is just not sufficient. Several thousand phrases aren’t going to immediately remodel you into the second coming of Chad Robertson.

It’s like my previous chef stated: Young cooks are in a rush to be hotshot cooks. If you need to grasp one thing, preserve your head down. Respect repetition. Kristen’s message is not any completely different. “You need to practice,” she says. “You need to bake 20 loaves and know your dough. You compare results. You become your own little scientist.”