Daily Sourdough Bread
INGREDIENTS
100g Sourdough Starter
400g Bread Flour
285g Water
10g Salt
RECIPE
First off… here’s how I make my starter. One day, many moons ago, mixed together 100g of flour and 100g of water in a large mason jar. I proceeded to add about 50 more grams of water and flour to it the next day, and every day after that for 2 weeks. When you add more water and flour into the starter, that’s called “feeding” the starter.
It’s important to note, before I feed my starter I sometimes dump out a bit. I don’t like to keep my mason jar any more than 1/3 of the way filled, just in case the yeast get a little too happy with their dinner and foam all over the place. Which has happened to me.
Currently, I feed my starter about once every two to three days, and I feed it about 35g of Flour and 35g of water when I do.
To make a loaf of bread, first take 100g of starter and mix it with 400g of flour, 285g of water, and 10g of salt. Mix that together so it just barely forms a dough, then cover it and let it rest in the refrigerator for an hour. Then wet your hands, take it out, give it a very brief knead for a few seconds, form it into a ball and put it back in the refrigerator. Let it stay in the fridge for days. At least 24 hours, or until you decide you want to make bread.
Remember, after you take out 100g of starter to make bread, you’ll need to feed your starter with enough flour & water (50g each) to replenish that amount.
So after a few days in the refrigerator, I take mine out and warm it up in my oven. I turn on my oven for 45 seconds, then turn it off and put the cold dough in. This gets the yeast happy again.
Punch down the dough to distribute the air bubbles, then coat it in flour and transfer the very wet dough to some parchment paper. Lightly form it into a nice round loaf and cover it with a towel. Let it rise for 2 to 3 hours.
In the last hour of the rise, heat your oven to 450 degrees for one full hour. Put your dutch oven in there too, so it gets nice and hot. If you don’t have a dutch oven, consider a cast iron pan (like in my first Daily Bread video) or of course a pizza stone. The key is… make sure it heats up for at least an hour.
After everything is hot, risen, and ready to go, carefully transfer the dough into your cooking vessel by lifting it at the corners of the parchment paper it’s resting on.
Spritz the dough LIBERALLY with water. See the key here? Wet dough. Wet hands. Wet environments. The wetter the dough, the harder it is to work with, the better your bread is going to be.
Bake for 30 minutes, then take off the lid of your dutch oven and keep baking until the crust is nice and golden.
