We’ve been busy baking so we let this batch go a full 10 days in fermentation. It’s strong! We flavored the big batch with 1/3 cup of tangerine juice (pasteurized store-bought) and 1 full tbsp of sugar since there wasn’t much sugar left in the buch. For the plain we used 1/2 tbsp of sugar.
I think we produced our best yet today and we made it totally from scratch, no bread machine! Barbara did the kneading. We used ILoveCooking’s recipe but substituted wheat flour and added a cup of olives. The kneading was different than with white flour. It is much heavier and harder to manipulate. It’s tempting to add more water but I think we made it too wet doing that. We did the first proof in front of the fire place because the house was cold this morning. We shaped one oval and one round loaf. The boule we baked on a small round stone and the oval we baked in our new Emile Henry cloche at 450 degrees. The round took 40 minutes and I think we should have let it go 45. With the wheat bread and olives it took much longer to cook than plain white sourdough bread. We took it out when the center was about 197 degrees. I think we don’t want to pull at less than 200 degrees in the future. The cloched oval baked 25 minutes with the cover on and another 25 with it off (maybe a tad more). This brought it to around 203 degrees when we pulled it.
Next we’ll try a half wheat, half white olive with some sugar. Jarad uses 2 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp salt for a smaller batch. I suppose we could do 3 tbsp of sugar and 1/2 tbsp of salt to stick with his compromise with 2 tsp sugar and 1 tbsp salt. We also want to find a recipe for cheesy jalapeno bread and there’s a recipe for cinnamon rolls in the Zojirushi cookbook we want to try too.
This is our best effort yet I think. We used the Irish Guy’s recipe but added a cup of olives when the bread machine told us to. Next time we’ll use 2 cups of Olives. We baked one in a croche with the cover on the first 25 minutes, followed by another 25 minutes without the cover. Our loaf seemed happy at 50 minutes as well (I wouldn’t try less). So that’s pretty convenient. Irish guy’s recipe with whatever additional ingredients we want, whatever flour we want and cooked in pans or a croche (50 min), or artisan style (30 minutes).
As far as feeding, 50/100/200 is safe and I think we can go 35-50/75/150 but we’ll see how much is left over. We’ve been using the bread machine for kneading but it’s critical to adjust the dough, adding flour or water as needed, to achieve the right consistency. This is something I’ll probably start doing myself and then we won’t be using the bread machine at all for sourdough. (5 minute rest, 25 minutes kneading) and sometimes the first proof (3 hrs), or do a full 6 hour proof and bake it for 55 minutes.
Tomorrow I think we’ll try Jared’s recipe with wheat flour and 2 cups of olives and let the bread machine do it all.
Added ingredients (last 5 minutes of kneading)
The next day maybe the chocolate bread recipe in the Zojirushi book or another attempt at a rye. I think we can do 1/2 white 1/2 rye flower and add carroway seeds to either Jared’s or the Irish Dude’s recipe. Here are a few that look good…
Artisan Sourdough Rye Bread by Breadtopia
OK, this was an epic fail. Two things… I didn’t watch the kneading and I think we should have used the white starter. We’ll try again but this was our biggest failure yet. Hopefully the Olive will turn out better.
We actually forgot to make dough until around 1 pm today so hopefully starter that hasn’t been fed for 15 hours is still good. We put a cup of sliced olives in when the timer beeped. We used the Irish guy’s recipe. We let it proof in the attic at about 81 degrees and it rose nicely after 3 hours. We shaped two loaves, one in the oval basket and one in the round (a rustic boule and a rustic oval). We’ll cook those 25-30 minutes, checking with a thermometer.
So what about tomorrow? We think we’ll try Jarad’s recipe with wheat flower, let it bake in the bread machine.
Yesterday we made cinnamon raisin bread in the bread machine (including baking). It was a double batch made with honey. Our 2 lb machine handled it but it was a big loaf. Our oven baking has been going well, even if our recipes need work. Tomorrow I think we’ll try the ILoveCooking.com videos with Patrick Ryan.
How To Make Sourdough Bread Master Class
His ingredients (for 2 loaves) are:
Knead and Prove for 3 hours
Shape and Prove for another 3 – 3 1/2 hours (our temps are cooler)
He says bake 30-35 (I think ours need 25 but we’ll make sure by checking the internal temp, shotting for around 200 degrees (min 190).) minutes at 230 C but we are baking at 450 F which is little hotter. For our croche he says to bake for 25 minutes with the cover on and another 25 with it off. I think the pan loaves take about 45-50 minutes too. I’ll refine these temps. I think they’re also dependant on dough consistency and ingredients.
Now for the 100% Rye Sourdough
This is more difficult because it’s more pasty. He uses
Knead less than white flour. Don’t add extra flour. Just work it around for a couple minutes. Oil a bowl and your hands. Put it in bowl and prove for 2 1/2 hours. Take out. Shape. Dust basket heavily with flour. Put dough in basket, dust bottom and prove another 2 – 2 1/2 hours. Don’t score, let crack for 5 minutes. Bake 45-50 minutes (we’ll take temp after 35-40 minutes)
We’ve been using our bread machine to help us knead and proof dough and even bake. We have to customize the times so currently I’m using the following settings:
Our loaves are taking longer to bake in the oven. Somewhere between 40-45 minutes I think. I’ll start checking at 35. The bread machine seems to want about 45 minutes but I’ll verify that with a thermometer too.
King Arthur shows us how to feed your starter. She uses 4 oz (113 grams), leaves it out for an hour and then refrigerates it. The remaining question is how much starter to feed prior to making dough. Tonight we fed 1 cup of white starter (about 220 grams) and about 1.5 cups of rye starter (330 grams). The rye seems to rise much less but since we’re using weight now, I’m not sure that matters so much, however we do use more rye starter than white starter for dough.
Update: King Arthur’s method works great for making the levain (last feed of the starter before making dough). The 1 cup of white we fed last night and I think we could have gotten away with just a cup of the rye as well. We’ll do heaping cups of both. So it’s 1/4 cup first feeding, 1/2 cup 2nd feeding, 1 cup third and before baking. Make sure to give that last feed a good 6 hours before making dough with it and if you’re putting newly fed starter in the fridge, let it set out an hour to get going. Feed your refrigerated starter every week and your room temp starter every 8-14 hours (8-12 is ideal). That’s about it on keeping your starter fed.
Well there you go, our first loaves, kneaded by Babs and baked in Pyrex pans. It actually didn’t taste as good as the bread machine loaf but it looks a lot better. It may be that the sugar and olive oil made the difference or it could be that we didn’t steam it properly, overbaked it … who knows. We’re happy because all 3 loafs turned out pretty good for a first attempt. We are keeping the starter at room temp for a couple of days while we play with baking. This morning we’re looking at options on how to keep starter fed, produce a levain, dough, the timing of all that … and then there’s the baking. This is fun!
Everyone seems to have differing opinions from the minimum of 3 feedings at room temp recommended by Cultures For Health (they are on the difficult end of the spectrum) to quick and easy methods that involve one feeding from refrigerated starter. We’re working on a compromise which is to feed our 1/4 cup refrigerated starter twice and then make the dough. The key is to give the starter (or levain which I’ll use to refer to the starter used to make the dough (final “feeding”) digest for at least 6 hours. We still have a lot of questions regarding times betweens feedings and dough making. We’re thinking the starter peaks between 6 and 12 hours (8 seems like a good peak) and that while you can go 24 between feedings or dough making, it loses potency after 12? We’re still learning. I think we’ll make our own YouTube video that puts all this together.
So today we’re going to try the cinnamon raisin bread from this YouTube video called Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough Bread – Bread Machine by Desert Hava Garden. She uses the following ingredients for 2 loaves of bread:
She puts them in the above order and runs the machine at Dough only. After kneading and a 3 hour rise time. She then kneads just a little with the machine (punch down). She then greases two bread pans and divides the dough between them, rolling the dough into loaf shapes and setting them into the pans. She then covers lightly with seran wrap and lets sit in 72-80 degrees for 5 hours and puts them into the oven for 30-40 minutes (she does 40 but doesn’t tell us what temperature unless we missed it).
I think today we’ll try it in the bread machine, same programming as last time (Cycle 15?). We’ll add the raisins as an extra ingredient at the beep part way through the kneading. This is a lot of ingredients for one loaf but we have a big bread machine so we’re just gonna go for it.
We’ll also try some oven loafs. We’ll use the loaf pan and maybe try an artisan bread on our new baking stone. I think we’ll use Jarad’s recipe for that and kneed it in the bread machine…. which means we’ll need to do that first! Back later!
Oh wow, we just learned some great stuff from the Irish dude. We can proof our dough in the fridge overnight! Hooray! I’m learning a lot from this guy. Looks like we make dough, knead it, proof it for 3 hours, cut it in half and create your shapes (pans, proofing basket, etc) and let proof for another 3 – 3 1/2 hours or pop it in the fridge overnight and bake it in the morning. I gotta get this guy’s folding technique down because he does it at every phase. Great video from ILoveCooking!
First we’ll make some dough. This step will be the same every time. We’ve fed 200 grams of flour, water and starter twice and maybe 500 grams of each for the levain, let rest 6-14 hours and then make dough. I’m gonna take a stab at a recipe for either 2 artisan loaves or one big bread machine loaf
Bread machine Dough Only (Cycle 15 Memory 2):
Soon we’ll try ILoveCooking’s Rye Sourdough Bread!
So here’s how the day went. I waited till 3 pm to make dough after feeding about 8 am. I was going to just put the above ingredients in the machine but I started mixing in a bowl, then poured it in, forgot the salt, let the machine knead for a while, started grinding salt all over the dough and let knead for another 15 minutes. I then took it out, put it in a bowl and let it proof for 3 hours in the attic upstairs where it was warmer. I then brought it down, cut it in half and put 1/2 in our new proofing basket and half in a loaf pan greased with ghee. I put them in the fridge, covered with towels for baking tomorrow. At 9pm tonight I’ll feed 2 cups of starter for tomorrow. Tomorrow I think we’ll try the cinnamon raisin bread, baked completely in the machine with Rise 1: 3:00 and Rise 2: 4:00.
Today is the big day! We fed our refrigerated starter 3 times (way too much, will discard more next time) and are trying two methods, both from YouTube videos. The first is in the bread machine. I made a few tweaks to Jared Sergent’s video. Here’s my recipe:
Bread machine programming:
Jared doesn’t bake in a bread machine but I wanted to try this set and forget “Homemade” cycle on our new bread machine. You need to keep an eye on it though.
Because we had a ton of starter after 3 feedings, we tried making some from scratch using a Cultures For Health video. Babs did this herself and we did it just as directed, using one 1.5 liter pyrex loaf pan and one 1.2 liter pyrex bowl. We’ll let proof at least 6 hours and put them in the oven. I like how this guy bakes. He first bakes at 450 degrees for 10 minutes with boiling water for steam, then reduces heat and bakes another 35-45 minutes.
Right now the bread in the machine has risen nicely and is about to start baking. We might be able to use more dough with the machine in the future. The loaves are also rising on the counter. We’ll let you know how they turn out!
7:50 pm
The bread machine finished and the internal temp was around 109 so next time we’ll try 55 minutes OR use more ingredients! I think it could have been 1/3 bigger which means we might be able to use the Cultures For Health recipe in the bread machine. It does look ugly though so I have a feeling we’ll be baking in the oven. Maybe a little of both. Our loaves are rising nicely after 7 hours and we’re preheating the oven for them now. For tonight’s feeding I used 200 grams of each ingredient at 7:15 pm. That means I need to get up at 7 and either feed it or bake with it (I think that’s how it works). I discarded a lot, trying to get a handle on how much to discard on I guess the second or night before feeding. I’ll probably get up at 7 and feed it so we’ll have plenty of time to make dough, maybe after we surf.
9:30 pm
We baked the loaves at 450 degrees for 10 minutes with a pan of water on the bottom rack. Unfortunately we didn’t know we needed to pour boiling water into the pan to produce the steam, so we have a very hard crust. While we were supposed to bake an additional 35-45 minutes at 375 degrees, at 35 minutes, they were definitely done. The inside measured 110 degrees, the max. You want between 190 and 210 with 200 being perfect. Better to overcook than undercook though because supposedly wet dough gets rancid. No worries for us on that as all our bread today tested 210 degrees. We’re not going to try the loaves tonight to keep them fresh but the bread from the machine is delicious! Ugly but yummy! The loaf and round look really nice, especially the loaf shape. We’ll try artisan style when we get our baking stone.
This week we flavored the big batch with 1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice sweetened with sugar syrup (about 2 3/4 cups lemon juice with 8 pumps syrup) plus 1 tbsp of sugar. We are thinking this may be more like ice tea with lemon and that we could have used more lemon but we’ll see. Not sure how long the second fermentation should be. We’ll probably try one in about 5 days.
We’re trying something new here at Bab’s Buch, sourdough! Her friend Rose Ann Weber was kind enough to give us some sourdough “starter”. We’ve never done sourdough but we went to YouTube U and now we’re well on our way to adding another family of bacteria and yeast to our commune. Much like a SCOBY you have to feed your starter and if it’s hibernating in the fridge you need to feed it weekly. We fed our new starter today with flour and water, equal parts by weight. Here’s how we did that….
We put the new starter on our scale and found it weighed 97 grams. We added 97 grams of flour, 97 grams of water and stirred it all together. That’s it! Now here’s the part we aren’t real sure about. Do we need to leave it out and let it “proof” (rise) a little or can we put it right back in the fridge. We read somewhere that you should let it proof for 1-2 hours, then seal it and put it back in the fridge. So that’s what we’re doing. We’ll make a few batches of starter and start learning how to bake bread and make pancakes! Should be fun. Stay tuned!
From Cultures For Health ….
If you do not bake often, maybe only weekly or monthly, it may be more practical to keep your sourdough starter in the refrigerator, in a tightly-closed container, and feed it once per week.
Rindon brought us raspberries and strawberries today and we used them both. As usual we used 1/3 cup of puree with 1/2 tbsp sugar for the big batch and just 1 tsp of sugar for the small batch. We’ll let the strawberry go 2.5 days in 2nd fermentation. The raspberry we may give an extra 1/2 to 1 day as we think it’s slightly less explosive than the big bomb maker, strawberry.
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