Sourdough Secrets

1. What kind of bread are you after?

Bread type	Crumb	% Hydration	Dough	Handling
Bagels and Pretzels	Dense, stiff crumb	50 – 57	Very firm, dry and satiny; not tacky to the touch	This type of dough needs kneading to develop the gluten. The dough is so dry that after kneading for a few minutes, any stickiness disappears.
Sandwich, Baguettes, rolls, challah	Standard fine, closed crumb	58 – 65	Supple, tacky yet not sticky	This type of dough will hold their shape well while allowing a good rise during proofing. The dough will be more tacky during kneading and will stick to the hands a bit, but it allows for easy incorporation of other ingredients such as olives.
Pizza, ciabatta, focaccia, rye breads	Rustic, open crumb with large pockets	65 – 80+	Extremely wet and sticky, hard to handle if not experienced	As these doughs are rifdicluously sticky, do not even attempt to knead. Rather fold the dough 4-5x during the first rise, and allow for a much slower rise to let the gluten develop naturally. The shaping will be harder while the baking will be longer than usual to avoid a gummy crumb.

2.
Water is your best friend

Too many bakers resort to flour as their first line of defense when handling dough. Yes, this is what we have been trained to do. Just about every chef and his dog start with “generously dust your working surface” while sprinkling the white magic dust everywhere, tipping the dough out and working it. Sticky dough? Just add more flour…

But, this can be precisely the wrong move when handling high hydration sourdough, well any high hydration dough really. Here, adding more flour is precisely the wrong move. Add just a little bit and you make no difference, add too much and you end up with a totally different dough, moving up in the table above.

The best way to handle high hydration sourdough is to keep going with the hydration theme and add water. Essentially, all you need to do it wet your scrapper, wet your hands and handle the dough as normal. Use the scrapper under the dough to release it from your work surface and as long as your hands are wet, the dough will not stick to them.

This will take you a few tries to get right as often people use too much water, affecting the end product.

3.
Gluten will develop

If you are like me, you moved over from yeast-based breads, or at least your have read a few articles, seen a few videos where the bakers knead their dough for 10 minutes or more. This is fine for less hydrated dough. In our case, kneading will mean that your hands will be coated with a sticky mess or your dough will be more like a soup due to all the water that you will add while trying to stop the dough from sticking. Neither is ideal.

The simplest way to develop gluten is actually to let the starter do its job… Give it enough time and the gluten will come. This is why many recipes recommend an initial 5 hour proofing.

However, it is possible to help the process along by simply taking the dough out once every 30 minutes for the first 2-4 fours. Place the dough on your work surface and simply stretch it and fold it. As you do so, you can see how developed the dough is by observing how far and how thin you can pull it before it tears. Once you have pulled it out, fold it over, like a baby’s nappy or folding a T-shirt. As you do this, you will feel at first that the dough is very easy to stretch and then after 2-3 folds, it gets much stiffer. Great for bodybuilding. At this stage, set the dough back in the proofing basket and let it rest for the next 30 minutes. This will allow the gluten to rest and relax… you will feel just how relaxed it gets over time.

Doing this 4-6 times in the initial proof will allow you to incorporate a lot of air, distribute the gluten and get a feel for the readiness of the dough. It also helps you develop key folding and shaping skills which will help when shaping the loaf prior to baking.

4.
Avoid natural bannetons

I will admit that this instruction just felt wrong at first. Everything inside me screamed “but I want to be natural!” This is just the wrong instinct.

There is nothing wrong with a natural banneton per se, and if you choose to use one, make sure to have rice flour on hand and not wheat flour. This is because rice flour can withstand more moisture before it gets gummy and sticky, thus your dough will have a lower chance of sticking to the banneton during the proofing. This is crucial if like me you have made a beautiful boule and now your hard work is destroyed at the very last step.

However, as the natural bannetons are made of rattan, with its natural fibres and air pockets, this means that the flour can disappear in crevices and go mouldy, not an ideal scenario!

Beware, even rice flour will fail you if you proof your dough for too long and it will get incorporated into the dough, leaving you with a sticky mess when you try to tip out the dough.

For me, the best solution is to use a plastic banneton, easy in this day of modern 3D printing and use oil or “spray and cook”. This has 2 benefits:

1. If you over-proof your dough, it will not stick. This is a massive advantage.
2. If you want, you can thoroughly wash the banneton with soap and water, ensuring that no mold has a chance to grow.

But, if you really want to be environmentally conscious, reduce the amount of containers in your kitchen and use oil or “spray and cook”, then why not buy a suitably-sized glass or ceramic bowl. I personally use pyrex dishes these days and if I mess up my dough a bit, it is just as easy to pop the entire thing in the oven, thus rescuing the bread.

5.
Slow is good – use the fridge

The first time I tried making sourdough, I could not wait to get started. I got up early, refreshed my starter, put it in some hot water to make it fizz faster, autolysed my flour at the same time, mixed in the starter after only 2 hours and let it rise in the oven…

Basically, I did everything wrong. After some trial and error, I came up with this basic schedule:

• Decide when you need the bread by and start two whole days ahead. Yes, it sounds like a lot, but you will really be busy for about 1 hour at most.
• Take your starter out of the fridge about 36 hours before you need to use it and refresh it. If it is ready in 4 to 6 hours, you are good to go, if not,refresh it one more time. The extra 6 hours allotted is really there because I normally need to refresh my starter twice. The first time the starter takes about 12 hours to really get going.
• 24 hours before you need to eat, refresh the starter a final time. Give it the required 4 hours to really get going. In the meantime prep all your other ingredients, autolyse your flour.
• Mix the starter in and let the first proof take about 5 hours at room temperature.
• Divide the dough, shape it and place it in the banneton for the 2nd proof. This will be a slower one and I put mine in the fridge for 12 hours.
• Bake and eat.

6.
Play with the final product