Sourdough (rec.food.sourdough) Discussing the hobby or craft of baking with sourdough. We are not just a recipe group, Our charter is to discuss the care, feeding, and breeding of yeasts and lactobacilli that make up sourdough cultures.

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Default Nice Loaf

This is a run-of-the-mill success story.

I've been refreshing my starter daily by roughly double for about a
week. I started with about a teaspoon or so, and when I hit 100 grams of
active starter (which I estimate was about 100% hydration) I added flour
(some whole wheat pastry, and AP) and water to about 65% hydration for a
total weight of about 500g, plus a teaspoon of salt and a squirt of
honey. I mixed the dough then put it in the fridge (in an airtight
container) for about 10 hours.

I took it out of the fridge and let it rise (still covered of course)
overnight, about 10 hours. It had risen quite well. I deflated and
folded a couple of times, shaped a loaf and let it rise (humid) until
ready to bake (about 4 hours). It had more or less tripled in volume. I
baked it in a cold oven with some tiles at 400 for 20 minutes, then 300
until done. I find that the easiest doneness check is a probe
thermometer with the alarm set to water's boiling point (95C here).

The loaf is soft with a thin crust (if it were freeform it might have a
bit more rigid crust), chewy, has a great crumb with medium uniform
holes, and just the right mild sourdough taste for my tastes. I'll post
pictures if my camera battery charges before the loaf disappears.

So in short, I'm trying to keep things simple. I measure by weight but
don't sweat the details, I refresh daily from a small amount and waste
not, and let the water in the dough do my kneading by retarding, but I
just retard the whole dough. I do no temperature control other than
sticking things in fridges or ovens. Room temperature here right now is
about 75F.

It's my theory, after revisiting the FAQ and some of the recent
discussions, that the less-frequent refreshings (24 hours instead of 12)
and non-refrigerated start made the most difference in sourness.

The no-knead approach makes this convenient enough to do every week even
for a lazy bum like myself, and reduces the number of dishes. Not to
mention I don't have to scrape dough off my hands for an hour.

My plan from here on out is to follow this schedule:

sun 5g (abt 1 heaping tsp)
mon 10g
tue 25g
wed 50g
thu 100g (abt 1/2 cup)
fri mix and refrigerate
sat final rise and bake

Now I'll start using whole wheat to bake and adjust things if necessary.
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