Cooking Cheap

This should be interesting. This time I’m following Reinhart’s “Crust And Crumb” instructions, mostly. I’m using the newly opened bag of Stone-Buhr bread flour (12.5% they claim). I’m scaling down his recipe for my target size (around 1 1/2 pounds). It’s a different technique for me. I only thought I I’d tried them all.

There are practical reasons I’d like this to work and some irony nearby. Anyone remember when it only took me a day and half to declare victory with an overnight sponge? Then I went to Ortiz’s two day, triple ferment (Reinhart acknowledges this a viable and traditional method) Now I’m trying a three day three ferment. Damn books. Just when you think you know something, some light bulb writes a book.

[Day 1]
I mixed 3 oz of flour and 5 oz of active starter. No water and you knead like it was dough for a few minutes. His starter must be more liquid than mine. I added a little water and even then it’s still seems a little too firm. This is supposed to ferment for 6 to 8 hours at room temperature and then it goes into the fridge until the next day when you make the dough.

A new technique. I just have to try it. I haven’t deconstructed his measurements but he uses a large % of levain to Total Flour Weight and it doesn’t look to me likes he’s using enough water. I’ll have to adjust it by feel when I mix the dough tomorrow for another retard. Whether that ball of starter dough (his “firm starter”) really gets rolling in 8 hours, that will be interesting to discover.

I think I understand the premise. A lower hydration starter (this one is closer to 50% than my usual 100%) and the levain retard will encourage the sour. More accurately, with less water and room temperature and them the retard, the yeast won’t work as fast and the sour bugs get more time to feed. There’s no doubt the yeast and sour bugs will eat and that they will leaven bread. How long it takes for the first rise after mixing the dough, I can’t predict. Day 2 is where all the work happens: Mix, first rise, shape, second rise and second retard. Day 3 is to let it warm up and then bake.

[Day 1 Repeat]

You might expect this would be Day 2 and it would be if I hadn’t screwed up. I forgot to put the “firm starter” in the fridge before I went to bed. I spent a bit of time debating whether I should go ahead or start over.

I’d fed the starter yesterday. I managed to get that one in the fridge. Out it came to warm up and I took 5oz of it and added 3 oz of flour and a tiny bit of water. It didn’t take 6 to 8 hours to double. Four hours was enough but I let it go for five.

Five oz of starter almost depleted my starter jar so I fed it again and it was really happy in 4 hours. If this “firm starter” style of making sourdough is better, I might try growing a table spoon of starter in to the 5oz used in the “firm starter”. I could add another day (or a half day)!

I also know the answer to what the firm starter looks like after 12 hours on the counter. It looks and feels a lot like bread dough just before shaping. Essentially, that’s what it is. I would have expected it to break down after 12 hours. It hadn’t, most like because of the lower hydration or possibly because this batch of flour is a little stronger that my normal feed. Then again, as noted in the previous paragraphs, a happy starter has no trouble with a stronger flour. The idea of growing a table spoon or two of cold starter into 5 oz of starter would ensure an active starter for making the “firm starter”.

[Day 2]
Mixed the firm starter with 9 oz of bread flour 5 3/8 oz of water. Too dry, I added another ounce of water I let it rest for 20 minutes, kneaded (and added a few drops more water). Let rest for a half hour and did one stretch and fold and into a covered bowl for 4 hours.

Then I shaped the dough into a boule, It was a little tacky but it shaped very easily (no punchdown) and the seams held together when pinched. I placed it into the banneton, covered with the floured towel and a placed it in a plastic bag. That sat out on the counter for three hours and the poke test says it’s ready to bake but since I’m following the recipe, it’s another retard in the fridge until tomorrow. It’s a good looking dough. Well risen but no obvious big bubbles under the surface. It feels and looks more like a commercial yeast risen dough than my previous sourdoughs.

Whether it’s Reinhart’s technique & recipe or the (new to me) stronger bread flour, or I’m just getting better as a baker, I can’t say. I did add more water than called for and there was the stretch and fold that wasn’t in the recipe so I’ve added my experience and touch to the recipe.

As always, there’s still an opportunity to screw up but I’m hopeful. I always am. What I’ve learned this time: It’s possible I’ve been over proofing on the first rise (and maybe the second), I’ve been just quick enough to not seriously over proof too much so the bread looks and tastes just fine but the gluten was starting to break down inside. That would explain it. Or I could be all wrong.

[Day 3]

I let the dough sit in the fridge for 18 hours in the banneton and plastic bag before I baked it. That was too long, or more correctly, not airtight enough. The surface of the dough was too hard for the lame to cut quickly. 475F, pan of boiling water, spritz, and spritz again after 2 minutes, turn the oven down to 450F and pull it out when it looks and sounds done.

It’s a pretty loaf. Looks fine with decent oven spring after the clumsy slashing deflated it. This time you can really see where it was slashed so that’s an improvement. I haven’t cut it open but if it’s just OK, I probably won’t fool with getting the pictures posted.

It’s no surprise that Reinhart’s method works. I question the hydration % of his recipe. I don’t know how well I adjusted it, nor do I know if its more sour which is the reason he gives for doing it this way. More sour was not my goal for this bake. I wanted to try his “firm starter” method and I wanted to try my new brand of bread flour.

After tasting: It’s not more sour. It’s not worse either. Good bread, Nothing to hide from guests or visiting foodies. It’s little dense, not so much of the irregular crumb (holes and tunnels). Whether that’s from the initial hydration or the inability to oven spring because of tough outer dough. can’t say. Could be both, could be neither, probably both.

It’s good bread. I like it very much. Actually, it is very fine bread. I think I was correct earlier, I was overproofing my doughs in the first or second rise, not long enough to collapse the gluten into foam, but long enough to start that break down. I hope I’ve learned that.