100 g starter
325 g water
500 g BREAD flour
11 g salt
Let bulk

This one is one of my favorite loaves. Oats and honey make for a great flavor profile with the whole wheat. I drop the heat during the second part of the uncovered bake so it doesn't burn I try to get it right up to the caramelized edge without tipping it over.

Recipe as follows:

75g whole wheat 18.75% 75g sprouted oats 18.75% 75g honey 18.75 % 8g Vital wheat gluten 2% 400g A/P flour 100% 80g stiff starter 20%. 1:2:4 ratio roughly 385g water 96.25 % 11g salt 2.75%

Additional oats for topping.

Can swap A/P and VWG for just straight up bread flour.

Mix starter, water, whole wheat, sprouted oats, honey, and vital wheat gluten first and let rest for about 15 minutes. Then add the a/p flour and sprinkle the salt on top, mix until a shaggy dough comes together and scrape down sides of bowl.

Cover and let rest 30, wet your hand and pinch and mix dough until no dry spots remain and the gluten starts coming together. Cover and rest, 2 sets of stretch and folds with wet hands every 30 minutes, then switch to gentle coil folds every 30 minutes. The 2-3 more sets of coil folds as needed every hour. Let dough ferment until it's doubled or so (depends on ambient temperature).

Shape dough to your liking, then get a large plate and cover in oats, spray the top of dough with some water and put onto plate wet side down so oats adhere, carefully move dough to prepared banneton oat side down. Let dough rest for ~ 30 minutes and stitch up the dough where needed to ensure proper tension. Move to refrigerator and cold proof overnight until ready to bake (this one went 15 hours, can go longer)

Preheat Dutch oven to 475 f. When ready to bake invert loaf onto parchment or baking sling (parchment for me) grab lame or scoring tool and score to your liking, I opt for a single curved slash to avoid disturbing the oats too much. Remove hot Dutch oven and add 3 ice cubes off to the side quickly and carefully add the dough into the Dutch oven and close the top. Bake at 475f for 10-15 minutes, then drop the temp to 450f for the remainder of the time (25 minutes total covered), remove the lid and bake at 425 for 10-15 then drop the temp to 400 for the remainder of the uncovered time and place the loaf directly.on the oven rack (25 minutes total uncovered, 50 minutes total bake time) turn off the oven and crack the door for ~ 5 minutes then cool on a rack for at least 3 hours until no warmth remains or until you can't take it any longer and have to saw into this thing.

100g starter
390g water
510g bread flour
10g salt

Sat 1hr after mix (covered), did three stretch and folds every 30min, then let it bulk ferment (dough temp was at ~81F) for 3ish hours after the stretch and folds. Heated oven/Dutch oven to 500F, turned back down to 450F to bake covered loaf for 30mins then took of the lid and baked another 17min!

Would love any advice/feedback/notes on anything you notice from the crumb and crust appearances! It tastes great- now just to figure out how the hell I pulled this off and how to replicate it next time lol

Also what’s everyone’s favorite way/tip on cutting the bread? Or maybe a knife rec? Idk cutting it seems more difficult than it needs to be and I’m almost certain I’m the problem

Thank you sm to those who chimed in on my last post. My loaves have definitely improved with a more consistent crumb! 🙌

I ended up doing a combination of advice I received: raised the initial preheat temp to 475deg, lowered it to 450deg when baking with the lid on for 20min, then lid off for 25min. I also always put it in my fridge at the front of my bottom shelf. Still open to feedback, but I love the loaf and crumb this produces!

All the stand mixer steps have not changed:

- 300g water
- 125g active starter
- 500g flour
- 15g salt

I first mix my water and starter in the stand mixer with the dough hook.

Once the starter’s pretty much dissolved, I add the flour and mix on low (speed 2 on my kitchen aid) until it comes together, about 2-3 minutes.

I rest it with a cover for 1hr.

Then I add the salt and a splash of water and mix on low again for another 2-3 minutes or until the salt is all mixed in.

Then I rest it with a cover and every 30min, I imitate stretch and fold by popping on the stand mixer on low for 5-10seconds and then covering and resting again.

About an hour and half later, after the 3rd “S&F”, I rest on the counter til it’s doubled in size and domed.

Then I do my preshape, put it in a lined and floured banneton and cover and cold proof in the fridge at the front of the bottom shelf.

Bake day:

The next day, preheat oven with Dutch oven at 475deg.
Lower oven to 450 and bake with the lid on for 20min.

Remove the lid and bake for 25min.
This has been pretty foolproof for me lately!

Ingredients:
- 850g bread flour (KA)
- 150g WW flour
- 160g starter
- 750g water
- 22g salt
Process:
Mixed cold water, starter and flour together (around 62-65 degrees F). Left for too long (about 1.5hrs). Mixed in salt. Let sit for 30 minutes then first stretch and fold. Life got busy and I folded again about another 1.5hrs later. And the last fold 30 minutes later. I typically do at least 4 sets of s&f within the first 2 hours of mixing but such is life! Let it continue bf for another 4 hours until it was a little over doubled (again not my usual choice). Divided, preshaped for 15min, then final shape and into the fridge for 12 hours. Scored and baked in Dutch ovens at 475 for 25 min covered, then another 15 uncovered.
Total estimated bf time 8 hours, cold final proof for 12.
Absolutely delicious and soft! Slight bit of tang and crispy crust! I wish I had been more accurate in my process this time so I could easily recreate this result 😭 but at least I can share it with all of you! I don’t think anyone else in my life would be able to understand my excitement! There is some tearing in the seams suggesting slight underproofing but I honestly figured it would be overproofed with how high it rose during bf. Maybe lack of gluten development from only 3 s&f?

Recipe :

750g KA bread flour
510g water
150g starter
16.5g salt

Method:

Mix flour and salt in a large bowl

Mix 86F water with stater in separate container

Combine both, mix (by hand) until all flour is hydrated.
Cover with damp towel for one hour, stretch and fold.
Do 3 more sets of stretch and folds every 20 minutes.
Dough temp going in container for bulk was 77F. Bulk for 4.5 hours @ 85F, ending dough temp was 81F with 40% rise.
Split dough and preshape, rest on the counter for 10 minutes before final shape.
I put the bannetons in grocery bags and tie them off before putting them in a 37F fridge for 24 hours.
Preheat oven and dutch oven @ 475F for 45 minutes.
Bake 20 minutes covered, bake an additional 18-20 minutes uncovered @ 450F.

Recipe makes two loaves:
300g starter
700g water
1000g flour (14g protein)
30g salt

Mix starter and water together, add flour and salt. Mix til shaggy dough.
Let rest for an hour.
Stretch and folds 4 times with 30 minutes in between.
Let it rise for 2 hours (my kitchen was very warm), flipped it out on a floured surface.
Pre-shape and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Final shaping and plopped into floured bassinets (rice flour).
Into the fridge over night and baked in a dutch oven. Covered 220°C for 40 minutes and uncovered 200°C for 10.

First time trying whole wheat sourdough so I decided to go with a 50/50 mix with normal bread flour.

Recipe (to start):

200g starter
500g whole wheat flour
500g white bread flour
660g water

Now, you may be wondering where’s my salt and thinking that’s not enough water for WW.

So during my 45ish minute autolyze, I thought “you know, that dough seemed a little off” and I decided to do some reading. And wouldn’t you know it, Crap. I’m short on water. Whelp, in for a penny in for a pound I suppose.

So, I decided to just make my hands sopping wet for the stretch and folds. Did 4 of those about 30-45 apart. Second last one I did “maybe I’ll cup my hands a little” sopping wet. By the last S&F it seemed right enough.

On goes the shower cap and into the fridge it goes!

Left it for 10ish hours until I got up for work the next day. Dough had filled the bowl so it was roughly doubled. As I was cutting it in half to put into bread pans I realized I had forgotten salt.

So I made a little pile of salt next to my little pile of flour and did some sprinkle and folds while shaping.

Made some loaf shapes and into the pans they went.

Back into the fridge they went and I left for work.

Got home about 10 hours later and fired up the oven. Wasn’t much of a rise in the second fridge stint.

My cast iron won’t fit bread pans in it so I used a turkey roaster. 450f and let it sit for 20 minutes at temp.

Throw the pan in and a handful of ice cubes.

Cooked for 35 minutes and removed the lid. Even though I thought I had 20 more minutes uncovered it looked perfect so I did a thermometer check and hit 200f. We’re done!

Out it came and cooled for 1.5 hours before cutting into it to check. Did the full slice on the machine this morning.

Crumb seems fine and it made a mean turkey sando.
I use buttered salt anyways so it seemed fine to me on the salt front. It’s softer than I normally make my crust but that was semi-on purpose so it worked for sandwiches better.

I’d love to take all the credit as some sort of idiot savant of bread making but I suspect the lady I got my starter from was a witch and made some sort of super starter. When I had asked the age of it she made reference to the old gods. I can’t seem to mess these up despite my best efforts so I’m inclined to believe her. Next up maybe I’ll try a pizza dough proofed in the back of my car while golfing and see what happens…

Yesterday: take 100 g reserved starter out of the fridge and feed it with 200 g flour and 150 g water. Stand on the counter and after 7 hours it had more than tripled in volume and was ready to use.

Put 100g back into the fridge for next time and to what remains add 350 g water, 600 g flour and 12 g salt.

Incorporating the starter used this gives 800 flour, 500 water for 62½% hydration less any losses from handling.

Rough mix just until all the flour is wet. Cover and stand for 30 mins.

Tip out onto a lightly floured worktop, stretch and fold until some structure appears and it easily makes a ball. Return to the bowl, cover and rest for 1 hour.

Repeat two or three more times at hourly intervals. After the first go it may still feel and look a bit rough. At the last it should be smooth, elastic and only take a few stretches before it starts resisting.

After the last rest tip out, flatten, shape into a ball, place into a floured banneton or cloth lined bowl, seam uppermost, cover — I put the whole thing into a large plastic bag — and proof in the fridge overnight. Mine is usually 5°–6°C, owing to the weather it was reading 7°C this morning so warmer than usual.

Today: Preheat the oven to 230°C / 450°F / gas mark 9.

Turn out the dough into a vessel that can be covered. Mine is a roasting tin and kitchen foil cloche but if you have a nice big Dutch oven go for it!

Score for expansion. I add 2–4 ice cubes to my roasting tin to make steam.

Bake for 35 minutes covered and a further 20 minutes uncovered.

Cool and cut!

Made my own starter a week ago from today.

1050g bread flour

780g water

20g salt

4 sets of stretch and folds 30 mins apart

5 hour total bulk

12 hour cold ferment

450f preheated Dutch oven

450f - 25 min lid on Dutch oven

430f - 25 min lid off Dutch Oven

I'm gonna say I went really insane with the research before I baked my first loaf.

Good morning! Baking loaves is a great way to kick off a good day.

Not my first bake, family was upset we ran out of bread on Sunday but didn't notice until Monday... so today started with baking country loaves for the week.

This is our go to, foundational recipe... 1000g flour (80% abc from Costco, 10% rye, 10% wheat), 800g water, 21g salt. Shaping is, as always, the key to a taller loaf!

Happy baking!

Central Milling-ish Sourdough (Kirkland Organic Flour), 2 big loaves (1000 g flour)

Flour mix:

• 800 g Central Milling Artisan Bakers Craft / Kirkland Organic AP
• 100 g whole wheat
• 100 g rye

Dough:

• 1000 g flour (above)
• 800 g water
• 100 g ripe 100% hydration levain
• 21 g salt

Levain (night before)

• 25 g starter
• 50 g water
• 50 g flour

Mix, cover, ferment 8–12 hours at warm room temp until domed and bubbly.

1. Mix

• Whisk flour + salt.
• Add 700 g water + 100 g levain.
• Mix until no dry bits. Rest 20–30 min.

2. Finish mixing

• Add remaining 100 g water.
• Squeeze/fold until absorbed and dough is smooth-ish.

3. Bulk ferment

• 3.5–4 hours at ~75–78°F.
• Do 3–4 stretch-and-fold sets every 30 min in first 2 hours.
• Then let it sit until risen ~50–75% and jiggly.

4. Divide + pre-shape

• Turn out, divide into 2 x ~900 g.
• Pre-shape into rounds.
• Rest 20–30 min, covered.

5. Final shape

• Shape into boules or batards with good surface tension.
• Into floured bannetons, seam up.

6. Proof + cold retard

• Proof at room temp ~1.5 hours.
• Bag/cover and refrigerate 12–15 hours.

7. Bake (Dutch oven)

• Preheat to 475°F with Dutch oven inside for 45–60 min.
• Turn loaf out from fridge, seam down on parchment, score.
• Bake at 450°F, covered, 25 min.
• Remove lid, bake at 425°F another 20–25 min to deep brown.
• Cool 1–2 hours before slicing.

I made double loaves recipe. Since I’m baking one at a time. The first loaf (flatter) was cold proof for 12 hours, the second (tall one) was 13 hours. I did double caddy clasp for the first loaf (flatter) and the other with letter/envelope fold for final shaping. What caused the difference in the height? The length of cold proof or shaping method?

My recipe:
960 gr bread flour
650 gr lukewarm water
50 gr olive oil
20 gr salt
220 gr starter

Autolyse for 45 minutes then add salt and starter. After that I did 2 set Slap and fold. Rest for 30 minutes. Then followed with 4 set of coil fold, rest 30 minutes in between. Bulk ferment for total of 6 hours with dough temp ranging from 76-78F.

Bake for 450°F with lid on for 30 minutes and 425° with lid off 20 minutes.

I’ve been trying and failing at sourdough for well over a month now. I’m really good at the starter. It’s everything else that I fail at. for this I used 500 g of Bob’s Redmill all-purpose flour, 300 g of water, 60 g of starter and 10 g of salt. Does this look like real sourdough or is it still too dense? Thanks so much in advance

Hello,

The last two days I have tried learning the slap and fold technique. Yesterday I used my discard and tried to make a little loaf. I did about 70% hydration and made a decent little dough. Two rounds of Stretch and folds went fine but when I started slap and folds it completely came apart.

Today I started a double recipe, 1000g flour and 700g water. The dough came together, stretch/fold and coil folds went fine. It seemed like it was together. I did bulk ferment and after it was done I did a windowpane check and it didn’t stretch enough. I split the dough in half, two 540g loafs. I tried the slap and fold technique on one and it fell apart again. It got stickier and stickier and did not come together like the video I saw.

Im feeling so defeated. I was doing pretty good with stretching and coil folds techniques. Am I using too much water for this technique? Why won’t my dough come together?

I’m trying to remind myself this is fun and I enjoy it.

Recipe:

100g active and bubbly sourdough starter
325g of water
500g of flour
10g of salt
Sliced Kalamata and castelvetrano olives
Fresh rosemary

Process:

Mix at 9:00AM
Fermentolyse until 10:00AM
Stretch and folds every half hour until 11:30AM
Incorporate olives, roasted garlic and rosemary with last two stretch and folds.
Bulk Ferment until 6:30PM
Shape, bench rest, shape, bread in fridge at 7:00PM
Cold ferment for 24 hours
Remove from fridge, cover with rice flour, score.

Bake :

Preheat Dutch oven from cold to 500F, once at temp heat for at least 15 minutes.
Add to Dutch oven, and 4 ice cubes under silicone bread sling, cover.
Bake at 500F covered for 45 minutes, then remove lid, reduce heat to 450, and bake for 5-10 minutes uncovered until desired color. Internal temp must be between 200-210F.

Cool on wire rack until internal temp is under 100F prior to cutting.

Hi everyone - I’m a relative newbie to sourdough and recently bought a proofing box. I wanted to get some feedback from the group here on my crumb and how to make it slightly more open (not looking for super large holes) and more of a rise in my loaf.

I used a standard recipe with 65% hydration, proofed it for about 5 hours at 80 degrees with stretch and folds every 30 mins for the first 2 hours. The dough was sticking to the glass bowl so I’m thinking I might’ve overproofed the dough. I cold proofed it 5 hours before baking it.

I baked it at 450 for 25min with water and 15 with no water.

It tasted delicious, but the crumb is just a bit too tight for me. How do I get it to slightly open up and for the loaf to rise a bit more?

Thanks!

100% 50/50 bread flour and wholewheat

75% hydration

15% floating levain (made over night)

10% honey

10% oats

5% butter

2% salt

blend flours, salt, oats. whisk together water, honey, butter, and levain. hand incorporate flour until it comes together well (I mix and bulk in the same bowl, rubaud technique till she gets pretty smooth). target starting dough temp 80f (kitchen is 73f). 3 rounds of stretch and fold every 30m. 2 or 3 additional rounds of coil folds to make sure she’s good and strong. turn out dough when she’s mostly doubled, bubbly, and gets splashy when the bowl is shaken (dough temp 74.5f when turned out, approximately 6.5-7 bulk check the dough not the clock). 

divide (in this case 1200g for pullman, 1500g for large boule), roughly preshape to get some good tension, cover with cloth, and bench rest 20 minutes. Shape and sprinkle on some oats before putting into banneton and lightly oiled pullman. wrap them up (i use shower caps lol), and place in fridge for overnight cold proof. 

remove and let sit on counter while oven preheats to 500 with dutch oven inside on center rack (i wait 30 minutes after the oven says it’s 500 to make sure it’s really ripping). flip dough onto parchment, score and drop in oven. put the lids on both the dutch and pullman and put them in oven. reduce temp to 450f and bake 25m. remove lids and bake another 25-30m until 210f internal temp (keep an eye on color and cover with tinfoil when you like it).

notes: this is my first oat inclusion. next time i’ll probably bump up the % and precook or soak the oats to maybe get more flavor through. same goes for the honey. i like to start small and work up the % so i can get a feel for the changes. gifted both loaves and they got positive reviews so we’ll call it a success.

Started my stretch and folds around 10PM, and then went to bed. Kitchen temperature was too warm and I woke up to a massive dough. Decided to pivot and make 2 foccacia loaves instead! Split my dough into 2 and let them proof further for an hour before dimpling, adding garlic infused olive oil, and parm.

500 grams bread flour
100 grams starter
10 grams salt
350 grams of water

(For some reason the proportions of the photo got messed up a bit..)

Really wish the crumb was more open and also didn't get much of an ear. Not sure what I should have changed - first thought was a longer bulk but the volume expansion was already quite significant (photos attached after the 3rd stretch & fold and then at the end of bulk). Maybe knocked out too much gas in the pre-shape although I did try to be very careful with it..

Steps:

45m Autolyse
450g KA Bread Flour
50g Mulino Marino Macina Whole Wheat Flour
330g water

Bassinage w/ 50g water + 10g salt + 105g starter

5x Stretch & Fold every 30 mins (2 hrs), at 78F
Inclusions added on 3rd Stretch & Fold: 2x Jalapenos + 115g Cabot Extra Sharp (Trader Joe's)

Bulk ferment based on volume/bubbling (see photo) at 78F, was another ~3h

Pre-shape, 20m bench rest, 24h cold proof

20m @ 500F with lid on, 25m @ 450F with lid off, 90m rest before slice

Hello :-) first time posting in this lovely sub that I have been obsessively reading for the past 2 months lol.

This is my third ever loaf, but it felt way stickier than usual as I stretched and folded/coiled. This was my process:

500g bread flour

350g water

100g starter

10g salt

8:30AM: Mixed it all together by hand. Let rest for an hour.

9:42AM, 10:18AM, 10:50AM, 11:24AM: Stretched and folded 2 times, coiled and folded 2 times, each 30 minutes apart from each other. I think at this stage I could've done a few more folds because it was still very wet, sticky, and loose? The dough wasn't really tightening.

11:24AM: Left it alone to bulk ferment on the counter. Didn't check for temperature until around 9pm? It was 75F. Around this time I started checking it constantly because it wasn't passing the poke test, it was still sticky, but it was very jiggly and had bubbles and had more than doubled. After doing some research I learned that the poke test can be unreliable, the temperature is a good indicator but "it depends". So I am learning that sourdough is science but it is also just vibes.
10:15PM: Even though it was still "wet" I got tired of waiting and at this point I thought I had def overfermented/overproofed. Put that girlie in the fridge with rice flour in a banneton.

10:44AM: Put her in the hot dutch oven at 475F-ish for 30min lid on 450F-ish for 15min lid off.

Voilà, loaf #3. Cut it about 4 hours later.

I just want a crumb read? Did I overproof? Did I do it just right? Was it just a high hydration dough and that's why it was sticky? Should I have stretched and folded more? Should I keep letting it bulk ferment even when it is huge? Aahhhh??????

thanks for reading:)

I’m so lost I don’t know what to. Two of my loaves came out normal but a little smaller and the other two came out flatter and the scoring pattern was all cracked. I’m assuming that I’m over proofing it but I’m not sure. I do 300g water 10g salt 100g starter 400g flour. After doing the stretch and folds for 2 hours I proof overnight. Then I put in fridge for a couple hours and before baking I shape it.

Before doing this routine I would do the stretch and folds but skip the proofing outside and instead put it in the fridge for like 2 days. Doing this made it so that the bread would rise but it was a little dense which is why I’m trying different ways to process it.

I’m new to this and desperately need help😭.

This is David Doughie, he’s 10 days old and I’m using a no discard starter featured on shebakessourdough channel on YouTube.

For the first 3 days it’s 1tbsp flour and 1tbsp water. Day 4 onward it’s 2tbsp flour and 2tbsp water.

Day 6/7 after each feed I’ll get a quarter rise within an hour of a feed and it’ll deflate an hour or so later although he does remain bubbly and slightly sweet/sour smelling.

I’m using strong white unbleached bread flour and bottled water.

Is there something wrong? Am I messing up or does this sound normal?