Hi there welcome back to another video
if you aren't familiar with me hi I'm
Bettie
I am the baking instructor here on this
channel and I also teach over on BakerBettie.com and here in Chicago through
workshops in the area. now this video is
going to be an addition to our sourdough
series so if you're new to the series I
actually created this to walk you
step-by-step through the whole process
of how to create a sourdough starter
from scratch and then how to start
baking with it. so in this video I'm
going to assume that you already have an
active sourdough starter ready to bake
with and if you do not I will leave
links for the other videos down in the
description box so you can go back and
watch the previous videos and get to
this point now today what I really want
to do is kind of talk through the whole
process of a sourdough bread recipe
because I know that can be really
confusing for people
there are literally a million different
ways to approach sourdough bread so this
is going to be more of a description of
all of the different components of a
sourdough recipe now a sourdough recipe
is actually less a recipe than it is a
combination of a formula and a timeline
and like I said there's a lot of
different ways to approach this so let's
talk through all of the different steps
so that you can have a really good
understanding of it so you can create
your own formulas and timelines or you
can better understand other people's now
the first important thing that you need
to understand about sourdough bread is
how to use Baker's percentages now I
don't want this to scare you off because
it does involve some math I'm gonna try
to keep it really simple here but bakers
percentages or Baker's math is used
really commonly in bread recipes to
calculate the bread formula now when
you're calculating a baker's percentage
no matter what quantity of flour you
have
in your recipe that quantity of flour is
going to be set at 100% so for the
purposes of talking through this let's
say the flour in our recipe is 1000
grams of flour so that 1000 grams of
flour is going to be our 100% total now
every other ingredient in your recipe is
going to be calculated as a percentage
that relates to the flour so when you go
down through a sourdough
recipe the next ingredient is typically
your water so the water in the recipe
can vary widely in the amounts or the
percentages that you're going to use in
your recipe you might be anywhere from
as low as 65% and you can go up a very
very high in the 90% or even up to a
hundred percent if you're working with a
lot of whole grains so that variation is
really big so just for the purposes of
talking through this we're gonna say our
water for this recipe is 750 grams now
when you compare the 750 grams of water
compared to the thousand grams of flour
that is going to put our water at 75
percent now you might also hear this
referred to as a 75 percent hydration
dough now bakers frequently talk about
the hydration of their dough because it
is one of the biggest factors in
changing the texture now moving on to
the next ingredient that is going to be
your active sourdough starter now again
this can vary widely and how much you're
going to put in your dough, bakers
percentage-wise,
sometimes you might go as low as 5%
sourdough starter and you can go up much
higher than that so for the purposes of
talking through this recipe we're going
to put the sourdough starter at 200
grams which would be 20% now the salt
typically lies around 2% and that can
change a little bit if you have
preferences and you like a little bit of
a less salty bread you can reduce that a
little bit but 2% is pretty standard now
that's really it for
most sourdough bread recipes flour water
sourdough starter and salt now it's also
important to note that your sourdough
starter is usually a 100 percent
hydration starter which means it is half
flour and half water so if we put 200
grams of that starter into our loaf of
bread 100 grams of it is flour and 100
grams of it is water which means if
you're trying to calculate true final
baker's percentages you do need to
calculate those in your total flour and
your total water amounts but for the
purposes of just getting started with
sourdough baking I would not worry about
that too much
so now that we hopefully have a general
understanding of how bakers percentages
work I want to talk through two bread
formulas to show you some different
things with each because depending on
the hydration you do kind of work with
different dough's a little bit
differently so a batch of dough that
starts with a thousand grams of flour is
enough to make two really nice sized
loaves so for these recipes we're going
to start with 500 grams of flour so that
each one makes one loaf so for the first
recipe we are going to start with 500
grams of flour which puts that at our
100% and I want to make a 65% hydration
dough for this first loaf so we're going
to use a 325 grams of flour and then I'm
going to keep my starter at the same 20%
so I'm going to use 100 grams of starter
and then again I'm going to keep the
salt of the same at 2% so we're going to
use 10 grams of salt
now for our second loaf we are only
going to change the hydration and for
this one we are going to go up to 75%
hydration so again we're going to start
with 500 grams of flour which is our
100% we are going to add to that 375
grams of water which puts us at 75% and
then again 20% for our starter which is
100 grams and 2% for our salt which is
10 grams okay now that we have both of
our dough formulas that we are going to
work with today let's go ahead and get
started on the process of making our
sourdough bread now the very first step
in your bread process is you need to
feed your starter so hopefully you
already have an active sourdough starter
and you need to get it ready to bake
with you need to have your starter at
this stage where it's really bubbly and
vigorous before it goes into a dough now
after I feed my starter it usually gets
to this point around the six-hour mark
and it will stay there up to about the
10 or 11-hour mark before it starts
falling and I would need to feed it
again because it's not going to be
active enough to go into a dome now if
you have followed my whole sourdough
series you have seen me feed my starter
and I do that same feeding when I am
prepping to bake a loaf of bread now
there are a lot of different ratios
people use to feed their starters but
the most common is to keep it a 100%
hydration starter which means when you
feed it you will use equal amounts of
flour and water by weight now I also
feed my starter a-133 feeding which
means however much starter I keep I feed
it three times that amount in flour and
water by weight now this is just a
personal preference I find that it keeps
my starter fed long enough that I can
wait a full 24 hours before I feed it
again so since I am making two loaves of
bread for this tutorial and I needed 200
grams of total starter to go into my
dough I decided to start with 40 grams
of start
and I found that 120 grams of flour 40
of that being whole wheat flour and 80
grams of that being all-purpose flour
and then 120 grams of barely warm water
now that gives me 280 grams total
starter and 200 of that is going to go
into my dough and then I'll have just
about 80 grams left over for my next
feeding and you just want to stir that
up really well and let it sit at room
temperature until really bubbly before
putting it in your dough
now the next step is technically
optional but I highly recommend not
skipping it because it can really make a
huge difference in the quality of your
bread and this step is the auto lease
now this is just a fancy word for mixing
your flour and water together before you
add your other ingredients now there are
a lot of things that are happening
during this auto lease stage but the
main thing that's happening is you are
allowing your flour to fully hydrate
because the salt is not there to prevent
it from absorbing all of the water the
second thing that's happening is your
gluten structure is going to start
developing without you having to do any
work so I'm going to go ahead and add
Elise both of the flowers for my dough
and I'm actually going to use 450 grams
of bread flour and 50 grams of whole
wheat flour to get to that total 500 for
both of my dough's I really like a
little bit of whole wheat flour in all
of my breads not enough that it makes it
taste like a whole wheat bread but just
a little bit of whole grain it can give
so much flavor now for my first dough
again like I said I'm adding 325 grams
of water this water is at room
temperature and for my other dough I am
adding 375 grams of water now I'm going
to mix these together I'm not trying to
knead the dough here I'm just trying to
fully hydrate and saturate the flour now
at this stage if you try to pull on the
dough and see if it has any stretch to
it it is just going to immediately rip
because we just hydrated the flour there
is absolutely no gluten development at
this point but after we rest this
mixture or let it auto lease you are
going to see such a huge difference in
just giving it a little bit of time to
rest now if you are going to do this
step you want to give it at least 20
minutes for it to really do some work
for you and you can let it go much
longer up to two hours I typically go
about an hour and
i watch my starter to see when it's
almost ready to use in about an hour
before that I will go ahead and auto
lease my flower now to check if your
sourdough starter is ready to put in a
dough you can do what's called the float
test and all you have to do is take a
glass of water and very gently scoop out
a little bit of your starter be very
careful not to push the bubbles out when
you do this and just drop it in your cup
of water now if that floats your starter
is vigorous enough to go ahead and go
into a dough it's going to work great to
help your bread rise but if it sinks
down to the bottom you either need to
let it rest for a little bit longer to
get more active or you maybe have waited
too long and it has started to fall in
your jar and it's starting to get hungry
so it's probably not going to work very
well at that point to leaven your bread
dough now it's been about an hour for
both of these dough's and I want you to
see how much this has changed you'll see
that the texture of this dough is so
much different from when we first mixed
it and if you start pulling up on it and
trying to stretch it there is so much
more extensibility to the dough and that
is the gluten structure that is starting
to build just from letting it rest
without the salt so since our starter is
really nice and active we can go ahead
and start mixing that into our bread
dough so I'm going to add 100 grams of
this starter to both of my dough's
and to start mixing it in I like to take
my fingers and kind of dimple it in all
over my dough and then I'm gonna fold
the dough over itself to sort of encase
the starter in and start getting it
mixed in
now we can go ahead and add our salt and
I'm just going to sprinkle that 10 grams
of salt over the top of each of my
dough's and then to mix it I like to use
what's called the pincer method so
you're going to take your hand and
literally start pinching your dough all
over to start working that salt and
sourdough starter in more after you've
done a bunch of pinching motions you can
also start folding the dough and then
continue pinching and folding some more
until your dough is really cohesive and
all of those ingredients are really well
mixed in I like to do a good two minutes
of mixing just to make sure everything
is really really well combined now that
our dough is a really well mixed we are
going to move on to the next step of the
process which is building our gluten
structure now if you have seen my no
need bread video I did not mess with
this dough anymore after I mixed it
until we were ready to shape it now for
that recipe we were just letting time
build our gluten structure for us and
that is a somewhat effective way to work
with a bread dough time is going to
build that gluten structure somewhat but
if you're working with a higher
hydration dough or you want a taller
more structured loaf doing some work on
the dough is going to give you a better
structure so for our 65% hydration dough
we are actually going to knead this
dough this is a low enough hydration
that it can tolerate us kneading it by
hand so I'm going to work on kneading
this dough by hand for about 10 minutes
now if you do have a stand mixer with a
dough hook you can also do that but I
just personally prefer to knead by hand
now for our 75% hydration dough we are
going to do what is called the stretch
and fold method now this method is used
typically for higher hydration dough's
it is a more of a gentle process of
building our gluten structure especially
when your dough is too wet to knead it
by hand so for our 75%
Shindo I'm actually just going to set
that aside I'm going to let it rest for
about 30 minutes before I start my first
stretch and fold so I'll show you that
when it's time now one thing I didn't
mention when we were talking about
bakers percentages is when you might
want to use a lower percent hydration
and when you might want to use a higher
percent hydration now a lower percent
hydration is going to give you a dough
that is workable enough that you can
knead it now the benefit of this is
after you knead the dough you have a
really long period of time in which you
do not need to touch your dough again
before you shape it now in our higher
hydration dough's when we are going to
do our stretch and fold method there's
not a lot of work you need to do for the
dough but you do need to tend it to it
for a few hours after you have mixed it
so if your schedule doesn't work out for
that method that's when you might want
to go with a lower hydration and just go
ahead and knead your dough upfront so
you don't have to tend to it for a few
hours now there are a few different
benefits of a higher hydration dough if
you really like working with a lot of
whole grains those grains are going to
absorb more water and so it's more
beneficial to have a higher hydration in
order to have still a really nice
texture of your dough also higher
hydration dough's can just tend to have
a more moist and nicer crumb it's also a
little bit easier to get that really
nice open structure crumb that sourdough
bakers are always after when you go
higher hydration but if you're just
starting out you definitely don't want
to push the hydration level too much
because it's really hard to work with
really wet dough's if you're new to that
so I would say start at a lower
hydration and just kind of work your way
up as you get more experienced okay so I
am done needing my 65% hydration dough
here you might have noticed that I did
not use any extra flour with kneading I
really wanted to keep that hydration
level true to what it was and so I just
worked with it I worked through the
stickiness and it got really smooth and
elastic and a check if
dough is done being needed I'm just
gonna do what's called a windowpane test
here so I'm gonna cut off a piece of
dough and I'm just stretching it to see
if I can get it really nice and thin
thin enough that I can see some light
through it and that's just a sign of a
really nice and solid gluten structure
so now that I'm done kneading it I am
going to just put it in my bowl and
cover it and it is going to move into
our bulk fermentation phase okay so now
for our 75% hydration dough we are going
to do our first round of stretch and
folds so this is a super easy process
all you have to do is get your hand damp
and then you're going to scoop
underneath the dough and pull a section
of it up stretching it as far as it can
handle it without ripping and then
you're gonna fold that piece of dough
over the top of itself now turn your
bowl about 90 degrees and go ahead and
repeat this process going all the way
around the bowl now as you do this you
will start to see that that ball of
dough is starting to tighten up and kind
of hold its structure better so you want
to continue doing this stretch in folds
until it is holding into a pretty tight
round ball and then you're gonna cover
the bowl and let it rest again now as
you can see after the dough rest for 20
to 30 minutes it will have sort of
flattened out again and relaxed so it's
going to tighten back up again as you do
those stretch and folds now this process
is achieving the same thing that
kneading our dough does we're building
strength and a strong gluten structure
in our dough so that it can trap in all
of those gases that the sourdough
culture is creating as it feeds in our
dough now I like to try to do about four
rounds of stretch and folds to build the
structure of my dough for most dough's
that is enough now you want to do this
about every twenty to thirty minutes
within about the first two hours after
you mix the final dough so after you've
added your starter and your salt then
you're going to go ahead and do your
stretch and folds now I'm going to show
you here how you can kind of check to
see if you need to continue doing more
ten folds you're going to do the
windowpane test just like we did with
our kneaded dough kind of towards the
end of your stretching folds maybe on
the third or fourth round you can check
it and see how much your dough has
developed and then you can decide if you
need to add another round higher
hydration does sometimes need a few more
rounds sometimes I'll do five or six
rounds but you'll just have to see how
your dough is developing now after the
gluten structure is built both dough's
are going to move into the bulk
fermentation phase now actually this
phase starts after your starter and salt
is added so technically your dough that
is going through stretch and folds is
already in the bulk fermentation stage
as you are building the gluten structure
so those two steps kind of coincide as
you're building the gluten structure now
your kneaded dough gets needed
immediately and then it goes through
bulk fermentation now the bulk
fermentation phase can vary widely and
how long it needs to go for and it
depends mostly on the temperature of
your room and also how much starter you
decided to put in your dough now for
this dough we put 20% in with our
Baker's percentages and I usually let a
dough like that go for about six hours
now depending on how much you put in
some people will put much less in and it
might bulk firm it up to twelve or
fourteen hours and that is going to give
you a dough that's a more sour and
flavor so that's something you can kind
of play around with when you are working
on your own dough formulas so I'm going
to let these dough's finish bulk
fermenting for about three-and-a-half to
four more hours now remember we are
already partway through that six hour
time period because we were doing the
stretch and fold during the first few
hours so the way you can check to see if
your dough is finished bulk fermenting
is you want to look to see for signs of
fermentation so hopefully you will see
some bubbles on top of your dough your
dough should be larger in size it's
probably not going to be quite double in
size the way a dough that is made with
dried yeast might be but it should be
larger in size and it should look like
it's filled with some air now you can
also do the float test just like we did
with our sourdough starter so for this
test we're going to very gently cut off
a piece of dough and drop it in a glass
of water to see if it floats and if it
does you are good to start shaping if it
doesn't give it a little bit longer now
again you need to be very gentle when
you do the float test don't press the
air out of the dough otherwise it will
never float so now that we're done a
bulk fermenting our dough we can go
ahead and move on to shaping now there
is an optional step right before the
final shaping that is called the pre
shape now I always do this if I'm not in
a rush and I highly recommend you doing
it this is where you very gently shape
your dough slightly round it into a ball
and then you let it rest for another 15
to 20 minutes now what this does is it
just lets the dough start forming into
shape but then let it relax so that when
you do your final shaping it doesn't
want to fight you and it works with you
to get in that shape and hold its
structure really nicely now when you
dump your dough out of the bowl to do
your pre shape you do want to be really
careful that you are not deflating a lot
of air out of it you want to preserve as
much air in it as you possibly can this
is a little bit different from other
yeast dough's where you often press all
of the gas out of it before you shape it
we do not want to do that here we're
trying to preserve as much as we can now
when I do my pre shape I do basically
the same thing I do with my final shape
I just don't build quite as much tension
so I'm going to do what's called a
letter fold where I sort of stretch out
the dough on one side bring it in
towards the center stretch it on the
other side bring it in towards the
center do that on all four sides of the
dough flip it over and then very gently
around it into a circle then I let it
rest for about 15 to 20 minutes before I
do my final shape now that our dough has
rested for about 20 minutes after our
pre shape we can go ahead and move on to
doing the final shape now it's really
important when you're shaping dough that
you don't really have a lot of flour
down on your
counter top because we actually want the
dough to stick slightly to the
countertop so that you can build some
tension as you are shaping now again I
like to do the letter fold method where
I give a little bit of tension on each
side of the dough bringing it into to
the center and then flip that over and
round it into a nice taut ball this
takes some practice especially if you're
not used to working with wet dough's you
can see that my 65% hydration dough is
actually pretty easy to shape I really
don't need to struggle with it too much
but my 75% hydration dough is definitely
a little stickier you can put some flour
on top of the dough you just don't want
that flour on the counter top so that
can help you shape it a little better
but this is just something you're gonna
have to practice now that my dough's are
shape I'm going to dust my banneton basket
with some rice flour and if you're new
to working with banneton baskets I have a
whole video about how you can work with
them how to prep them how to care for
them so I will link that below as well
I'm going to flip my dough over upside
down so that the steam side is up and
that nice rounded side is down in the
basket and I'm going to cover them with
my shower caps to let them move into the
proofing phase now our next step is
proofing and this is where our dough
rises again it gains a little more
volume before it gets baked now
hopefully if you were really careful in
preserving as much air as you could when
you did your shaping you don't really
need to gain that much more volume in
your dough so depending on how well you
did that you might have 30 minutes up to
a few hours of proofing before you go in
the oven now to check to see if your
dough is finished proofing you can get a
little bit of flour on your fingers
press in on the dough about a half inch
in and see how quickly that hole fills
in if it very very quickly fills in kind
of springs back up you need to give your
dough a little bit more time to gain
some volume now if that hole really
slowly it fills back in the
you are good to go it is ready to bake
now there is another optional step that
you can add in this process and that is
retarding your dough now you can
technically do this at any point in the
bread making process but I really like
to do it right before I bake my bread so
after I shape it I let it sit on the
counter for maybe about thirty minutes
usually it only needs a little bit of
time to get some more air in it and then
I go ahead and put it in the
refrigerator to retard now the cold
temperature is really gonna slow down
that yeast activity so it doesn't
overproof and get too much air in it but
it does let the bacterial activity
continue which is what creates all the
acidity in your dough and gives you that
really delicious sour flavor so
typically after I have proof my dough I
put it in the refrigerator I let it
retard for about 16 hours this also
really firms up the dough so that when I
turn it out of my banneton basket to go
in the oven it's going to hold its shape
really nicely so now that we're almost
ready to bake our bread we need to prep
our oven and my favorite thing to bake
bread in is in a Dutch oven now the
reason why a pot is really nice to bake
bread in is that seal on the lid is
going to trap in all the steam from your
dough which keeps the crust moist and
allows it to rise as much as it can
before that crust sets so you're going
to put your duct oven or oven safe pot
in the oven and preheat it to 450
degrees now you want to let this preheat
for a good 45 minutes to an hour that's
going to give your oven enough time to
get completely hot and to really really
heat up your Dutch oven so I like to use
a piece of parchment paper and I'm just
very gently going to tip my dough out
onto it and then I'm going to use my
bread lame to score it now a bread lame is
a razor blade on the end of a stick it
helps you get really nice precise cuts
in your bread and scoring your dough
serves the purpose of allowing the dough
to really open up and get tall in the
oven it also tells the dough where to
open up
if you don't score your note it's going
to open up anyway and it's going to just
pick a spot to do that so scoring it
tells it where to go and it allows it to
get that really nice rise on it
now once I scored my dough I immediately
put it into my hot Dutch oven being very
very careful not to burn myself and I
put the lid on it and go right into the
oven I like to bake with my lid on for
about the first 30 minutes then I take
the lid off and let it finish baking
until it gets a really really nice dark
golden brown I like a really nice dark
crust but you can go as light or as dark
as you like now the last step in the
bread baking process which some people
think is optional but I'm going to tell
you it's not optional is letting your
bread cool completely before you slice
it I know this is a very difficult step
it's so tempting to cut into hot bread
it smells amazing you just want to taste
it but I promise being patient and
waiting until it cools is so worth it
letting your bread cool completely is
going to help trap all of the moisture
in
if you cut into it while it's still hot
it's going to release all that moisture
it's going to stale really quickly the
texture of your bread is also going to
be pretty gummy and you actually release
a lot of flavor out of your dough if you
don't let it cool completely
so I say at the very very minimum let it
cool an hour but really it's much better
if you at least go for hours I typically
try to schedule my bakes to where I bake
in the evening or afternoon and then I'm
gonna slice into it the next morning for
breakfast now I want to cut into both of
these breads to show you the difference
between that 65% hydration dough and
this 75% hydration dough now remember
the only thing different about both of
these breads is the amount of water in
them and the way I built the gluten
structure so all of the other
ingredients are the same and the
timelines are exactly the same now you
can see that 65% hydration dough it's a
beautiful bread but it has a little more
of a closed structure than my 75%
hydration dough my 75% hydration dough
is a little more moist
it has a little bit more of an open
chrome structure now I really really
hope this video was helpful for you I
know it's a lot of information I know
the sourdough world can be a little
intimidating but just take it one step
at a time and continue experimenting
that is the best way to learn and I'm
always happy to answer any of your
questions you can leave those down in
the comment section make sure and give
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time with another video bye
