pro-level sourdough at home

Sourdough aka fermented bread is a special thing. I’m often asked, “Adam what’s your favorite food?” Not to be cheeky, but oftentimes the answer is good bread and butter. Matter of fact, I enjoy eating bread so much that, over the past few years, I’ve put myself through the (sometimes torturous) process of learning to make sourdough bread from scratch at home. Yes, like many others, I too hopped on the “sourdough bandwagon” right around the beginning of 2020 as the pandemic swept the world. It was a bad time for humanity, but a good time for bread making. I’ll take what I can get, I suppose.

Part one of this miniseries is all about what professional bakers do to achieve great sourdough bread. I took a trip to Publican Quality Bread (PQB) and met with my friend Greg Wade who showed us around the bakery and took us through his bread making process. Part two of the miniseries is all about bringing our insights from PQB and applying them to our process back at the crib. The goal by the end of this, of course, if to make you a more versed, skilled and thoughtful home baker.

You can check out part 1 of the series here, and part two in the video link above. The full written recipe is below. Feel free to comment (here of on YouTube) or DM me on Instagram with any questions. Bake on! 🤘🏻 Adam

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Adam's Homemade Sourdough

IngredientsUSMetric

Sourdough Starter

• 50g Water
• 50g Bread Flour

Levain (pre-ferment)

• 100g Mature Starter (see above)
• 400g Bread Flour
• 100g Whole Wheat Flour
• 400g Water (90F)

Final Dough

• 740g Bread Flour
• 60g Whole Wheat Flour
• 620g Water (95F)
• 21g Kosher Salt
• 2g Instant Yeast, optional
• 360g Levain (from above)
• 1/2 cup Rice flour, for dusting
• 1/2 cup All-purpose flour, for dusting

Instructions

Sourdough Starter

1. Day 1: Mix the whole wheat flour and water in the container and let sit at room temperature on the counter overnight, for 24 hours.
2. Day 2: On the second day, depending on the environment, you may or may not see activity (bubbles) in the starter. Discard half of the starter and add 56 grams of water and all purpose flour to the container. Mix thoroughly until there is no dry flour chunks then let rest at room temperature for another 24 hours.
3. Day 3 + 4: Begin feeding the starter twice per day, once when you wake up and once before bed. Remove half the starter, add 56 grams of water and all-purpose flour then rinse and repeat for day 4, as well.
4. Day 5: On the beginning of day 5, the starter should be ready to go. In the morning, discard half the starter then stir 56 grams of water and all-purpose flour like usual. Leave at room temperature for 8 hours. If by the end of 8 hours the starter is extra bubbly and active, the starter is ready to use. Transfer the starter to a clean glass jar or container and store in the fridge. At least once per week, remove the starter from the fridge and feed it as directed in the past. You don’t have to use all of your starter at once and redo this entire process whenever you want to bake. To use the starter, remove a small piece of it to inoculate a larger “levain” as called for in the recipe.

Entire Sourdough Process

1. Step 1: Make the Pre-ferment aka “Levain” - About a day after feeding your starter, remove 100 grams of it and add it to a large bowl. Add the white flour, wheat flour and water then mix until just incorporated. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 4-8 hours, or until doubled in size. This rate will depend on the warmth of the room *see note*. PQB keeps the levain at around 75F for 4 hours, if your room is colder it will take a bit longer. For example a 70F room might take 6 or 8 hours to fully ferment.
2. Step 2: Autolyse the Final Dough - 30 minutes before the Levain is finished rising, mix the white flour and whole wheat flour then pour in the warm water. Mix until just incorporated, cover and let rest for 30 minutes while the levain finishes developing.
3. Step 3: Mix the Final Dough - Pour 21 grams of salt, 2 grams instant yeast and 360g levain over the final dough. With wet hands, mix the dough using the Forkish “Pincer Method” to work the ingredients into one another, about 5 minutes (see video). Cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the plastic wrap and stretch and fold the dough over itself, flip, cover and wait another 30 minutes before repeating the process a total of 4 more times in the first 2.5 hours of resting. After a total of 5-6 hours, the dough should be just over double its original size and is ready to be divided and pre-shaped.
4. Step 4: Pre-shaping and Shaping the Dough - Lightly dust your work surface with all-purpose flour and plop the dough out of the bowl using a bench scraper. Preshape the dough by using a bench scraper to work it into two equal, smooth balls. Let the dough rest, uncovered for 15 minutes. Lightly dust the inside of your banneton with a mixture of equal parts rice and all-purpose flour. Shape each dough ball making sure to “tighten” well (see video), dust with flour, then place seam side up in the floured banneton. Place both bannetons in a ziplock bag, leave the seal slightly open, and refrigerate overnight for 11-12 hours.
5. Step 5: Preheat, Score and Bake - The next day at least one hour prior to baking, set the oven to 500F (260c) with the dutch ovens that you intend to bake in and the lids inside. Lay down a piece of parchment paper, dust it with semolina flour and carefully invert the dough out of the bannetons onto the dusted parchment. Score the loaf from end to end using a razor or bread lame (“lamb”) then carefully lower it into the hot dutch ovens, cover and bake for 25-30 minutes. Carefully remove the dutch ovens from the oven, remove the lid and bake for an additional 12-15 minutes, or until the loaves are deeply browned. Remove the loaves from the dutch ovens and let cool on wire racks for AT LEAST 2 hours before slicing into them.

Adam's Notes

• A pre-ferment is a blanket term for wild yeast in different forms that we use to give our bread rise. To create a pre-ferment we must add part of a starter to flour and water. Maybe you’ve heard the terms levain (“leh-von”), Biga and poolish, these are all names for different types of pre-ferments.

• The autolyse stage jump starts gluten formation.

• The target temperature of the dough should be 80-82F just after mixing, if it’s lower that’s okay you’ll just have to wait a little longer for the final dough to rise before putting it in the fridge. For example, if your dough is 75-76F instead of waiting 5-6 hours, it’ll be more like 7-8 hours.

• With most wet doughs “stretching and folding” is used instead of kneading to create gluten. When water is added to flour, gluten naturally begins to form. Stretching and folding takes more time, but is easier than kneading wet dough and also distributes gases and starch at a slower rate to encourage fermentation which will award you with a tastier end result. The stretch and fold technique we’re essentially autoleasing the dough over and over to create gluten networks instead of doing it manually by kneading.

• Adding a pinch of yeast is a good insurance policy to ensure proper rise in the bread. If your starter is very active and healthy, you won’t need it. If you’re new to sourdough, it isn’t a bad idea to use the touch of commercial yeast.

• Pre-shaped dough rises more than dough that has not been pre-shaped so don’t skip this step. The tighter the loaf, the better the rise. Preheating is tightening.

• Rice flour does not absorb water like regular flour, so it stays dry which is ideal for keeping the wet final dough from sticking to the banneton while standard AP flour gives a distinct toasty flavor and color when baked. AP flour alone is harder to distribute and tends to cake and can become sticky when it comes in contact with the moist dough.Using all-purpose flour to dust under the loaves can steam and burn onto the bottom of your loaves, semolina is course and rolls off the loaf instead of caking to the bottom so it is ideal for using to dust the base layer for your bread when using dutch ovens to bake.

• Parchment paper allows you to easily score the bread then lower into the dutch oven instead of trying to score the bread in the deep dutch oven and potentially burning your forearm… something that is not fun, trust me.

• Dutch ovens emulate a hearth oven found in bakeries by allowing steam to form which is hugely important for well-risen bread. Dutch ovens are a home bakers best friend for sourdough.

• A concave bread “lame” (pronounced “lamb”) works by creating a shelf that lifts one side of the dough while pushing down another to create a score that will bake up into an “ear,” that signature slit down the center that all good sourdough has.

Final Takeaways:

• Like cooking, there are lots of ways to get from point A to B in baking; baking isn’t a one track thing that is dictated by weights and measurements, though ratios are an important part. Once you understand those ratios and percentages, you’re able to get creative and create bread with vastly different textures, flavors and aromas.
• Just like cooking, once you understand a few key principles about time, fermentation, flour to water ratios, etc., you can get very creative with your baking.

Example Baking Schedule...

DAY 1

8am: Mix levain. 12:30pm: Autolyse the final dough.

1:00pm: Mix the Levain and salt into the final dough.

1:30pm: Stretch & Fold 1

2:00pm: Stretch & Fold 2

2:30pm: Stretch & Fold 3

3:00pm: Stretch & Fold 4

7:30-8pm: Divide, pre-shape and shape the dough. Refrigerate overnight.

DAY 2

7:00am: Preheat the oven to 500F with the dutch ovens inside.

8:00am: Bake loaves.

8:30-45am: Let loaves cool on wire racks for AT LEAST 1 hour, preferably 2-3.

11:00am - Slice into loaves and get Butter b-roll / compare to Greg’s loaves.

STUFF THAT I USE:

Metal Bench Scraper - https://amzn.to/3ngQtps

Plastic Bench Scraper - https://amzn.to/3u5Nrbm

Batard Bannetons (Bread Baskets) - https://amzn.to/3nhFMmD

Bread Lame (for Scoring) - https://amzn.to/3yoADQ3

Large Scale - https://amzn.to/3No1XSD

Small “Precision” Scale - https://amzn.to/3HTMQiy

2 qt Circular Cambro Containers - https://amzn.to/3QQdnl2

Deli Containers - https://amzn.to/3QJGrdQ

Dutch Ovens for Baking (5.5 qt) - https://amzn.to/3QT9ZWE

Sheeted Parchment Paper - https://amzn.to/3bBbokA

Small Rubber Spatula - https://www.thermoworks.com/mini-spatula-set/ (Not affiliate link)

Cop Artisan Flours here: https://www.janiesmill.com/ (Not affiliate link)