Sourdough Bread Baking 102 - Exploration

Let's test the local flour you have available to you and see if it's able to bake up a loaf of bread. This is a quick easy test to help you determine the quality of a flour especially if you don't know how strong it is and whether it can be used to make bread with. 

In this lecture we will begin our test of four different types of flour to determine their quality and whether we can use the flour to make bread with. We will bring the flour to 70% hydration and allow it to set for 30 minutes. 

After 30 minutes we will do a windowpane test to see how the gluten bonding is coming along and determine after such a short time, how strong the gluten already is. 

After 60 minutes we will test the strength of the gluten again and talk about ways to protect the gluten in weak dough. 

Let's take a minute to talk about hydration in dough and also share a few tips.

After the flour test we will be mixing the doughs together and making a loaf of sourdough bread from it. This lecture is the formula for the bread (or the instructions to turn our test into a loaf!) Everyone's bread will come out different depending upon what type of flour they tested. Look forward to having a lot of fun with this experiment. 

Let's have fun with the test dough and make a loaf of sourdough bread out of it! 

We will fold the dough a few times during bulk ferment and then shape our loaf and refrigerate it when it's done fermenting. 

Refrigerate the dough overnight and then bake it the next morning. 

Follow the formula to make the dough at 66% hydration and then do the gluten washing. 

Mix four different types of dough for the Gluten Washing experiment.

To develop the gluten before we wash it, fold the dough at least once. 

Let's wash the dough and uncover the gluten. This is the fun part!

Examine the gluten and see how it looks and  how it acts. You can also see the starch that was washed out. 

While trying to make test boules to compare All Purpose flour vs Bread Flour, I  made a mistake with my hydration calculator. I ended up with 92% hydration dough. Follow as I fix my mistake by making Ciabatta bread. 

This 92% hydration Ciabatta bread was made as the result of a mistake. It is terrific! Here is the formula and downloadable printout formula. 

Fold the dough and develop the gluten structure. 

The dough is now ready to final proof and shape. It's the other way around for this Ciabatta bread! 

Shape your Ciabatta loaves and get them into the oven to bake. 

Bake the rest of the Ciabatta loaves and once they are cool, slice into them! Big holes make great craters for butter! 

What do you think will happen during the experiment? How will a lower protein flour compare to a higher protein flour? The results might surprise you. 

After making a mistake the first time I did this experiment and made Ciabatta instead, I redid the experiment here to compare All Purpose flour with Bread flour. 

Start by making the first loaf with all purpose flour. This dough is at 68% hydration and the protein content is at 10%

Now we'll make the next two loaves following the exact same formula as the all purpose loaf. These loaves will be a blend of all purpose and bread flour and also just bread flour. 

Let's warm up the dough and finish the bulk ferment. We'll follow what each dough looks like and how it acts. 

After refrigeration, take out the dough and let it warm up and bulk ferment. 

See what dough looks like when it's done bulk fermenting. 

We'll shape our batards and proof them. 

Score and then bake the loaves and see how they turn out. 

It's time to compare the finished loaves, what are the differences?

Now let's do the loaves again and use a higher hydration to see what happens. Can you make a loaf using all purpose flour and a higher hydration? 

See how the flours perform with a higher hydration dough at 78%

In this formula I used a higher quality bread flour called Morbread flour and took it to an even higher hydration level of 88% I also used a double hydration method and an autolyse to help the gluten bond better before adding the additional water, starter and salt. 

Let's go even higher in hydration. This time I'm using a great quality flour an autolyse and double hydration. We'll take the hydration to 88% this time. 

Let's bake up our high hydration loaf and slice into it. 

Now that the experiment is over what do you think? See some suggestions for using low or high protein flours. 

The first stage of a sourdough starter life cycle is when you feed it. 

I mentioned that I made pancakes from the discard when I was filming stage one. Here is the pancake formula I used to make the pancakes. The formula is simple and easy to throw together and tastes delicious. 

The second stage of a sourdough starter is before peak and after feeding. 

The third stage of a sourdough starter is peak. 

See what the peak stage looks like and what happens after. 

The fifth stage of a sourdough starter is it's decline and demise. 

Thank you for joining me in exploring sourdough! I had a lot of fun and I hope you did too!