Sourdough - ManKos Daily Bread

It is now almost a year since I started my journey to acquire the skill to bake Sourdough Bread. My main reason why I wanted to gain this knowledge was because of my mission to preserve the classic ways in which my ancestors prepared their food.

My Daily Bread

My trials and tribulations are all documented in my Sourdough stories. One of the main objectives for me was to strip the fairy tales and fables out of the process and document the bare basics about this process. When you start exploring this process you will be bombarded by weird and wonderful soundbytes that sometimes borders on absurd. The artisan bakers that have achieved celebrity status will entertain you with DO's and DONT's that will make your head spin. Most disturbing will be the photographs of stunning loaves that will make you feel completely incompetent.

After the initial trauma of getting my STARTER up and bubbling followed the nightmare journey of manipulating the dough, shaping the dough and baking the dough. I have documented all of these in other articles published on this blog. After mastering the skills with the processes I tried a number of recipes and in the end I used a lot of common sense and settled on a recipe that works well for me. In my home we do not buy bread since September 2016 and it is my responsibility to put the Bread on the table.

Poolish ready

My Daily Bread recipe is based on a low inoculation Poolish and then follows the normal route. I settled on the poolish because it removed the inevitable waste of maintaining the starter volumes prescribed by many recipes. My starter resides in my fridge, I refresh it once a month and it starts off at around 150gr of flour. I use between 3 and 5 grams in my poolish.

Here is the recipe:

After Autolyse. Add seeds and salt

20h00 Day 1. - POOLISH:

166 gram Flour ... I use white bread flour
200 gram Water ... Luke warm
3 gram of starter ... I just dip a desert spoon into the Starter, pull it out and rinse it in my water that was measured off for the poolish.

Check the gluten window

Mix this paste well and leave on a warm place to develop. I place it in my one oven with only the light on. During summer I leave it on the bench. 12 to 14 hours later the Poolish should be spongy and bubbly.

08h00 Day 2 - DOUGH:

440 gram Flour ... I use AP and sometimes I mix 75% AP 25% Wholewheat
240 gram Water ... You can reduce to 200 to get a stiffer dough.
60 gram mixed seeds ... I use Health Connection's Ultimate Seed Mix

Kneading done

60 grams of water ... Soak the seeds in this while the dough is going through Autolyse.
12 to 15 grams of Salt ... you add this after the Autolyse.

Add the 240 gram of water to the poolish and stir. Then dump this into the flour.
Mix to get a shaggy mass and leave for 20 to 30 minutes to Autolyse.

Now add 12 to 15 grams of salt.

Final S&F done

I also add 60 grams of mixed seeds that have been soaked in 60 grams of water while the dough was in Autolyse. This is completely optional.

I knead in my Kenwood ... so I mix the dough and seeds and salt now for 8 to 9 minutes on Speed 5. Medium High.

BF done

Once I am happy with the gluten window, (see image for how I test) I transfer the dough to 4.3 liter plastic container that has been oiled with olive oil.

Ready to split

Now I do a Stretch and Fold every 20 minutes. Usually by the 3rd S&F the dough is nice and firm. Once again it is important to follow your instincts here. With every S&F you will notice that the dough gets stiffer. Usually during the second S&F you will notice that you can lift the whole lump of dough up from the container. This is an indication that the gluten strands are getting stronger. Do not be enticed to overstretch, the last thing you want to do is to start tearing that dough. Let it dangle naturally and just shake it lightly and fold over. Many times I do not do a 3rd S&F.

Ready to shape

It is good practice to wet your hands with luke warm water when S&F so that the dough does not stick to your hands. Do not use flour, it will leave streaks in your dough and final bread. At the end of each S&F tuck the sides in nicely so that you have a lump with a smooth top.

Allow this to Bulk Ferment now for 5 hours or so. Once the dough has expanded to almost fill the container I tip it out on a lightly floured bench.

Shaoing done

Here are some good advice on handling that dough after BF. If it was a robust rise and the dough did fill the container, take your time when removing the lid. Lift it extremely carefully and allow the dough to slip off slowly and naturally. You don't want to be aggressive and tear that skin off. By doing that you are destroying what was built carefully over 5 or 6 hours.

Final proofing

Next, taking that dough out of the container. Do not be flamboyant and simply tip the bowl over on a lightly floured bench. Tip the container on a long side on the bench and allow the dough to slip out slowly onto the bench without tearing away from the sides. Remember, you depended on your yeast to built strong structure and fill the dough with gas bubbles ... so don't destroy what they have achieved. Easy does it, you will get the idea very quickly.

Ready for the oven

Now your dough rests on lightly floured bench, look at the image where I have split the dough, the top is still smooth. I sprinkle flour along the line where I want to split the dough. This helps to prevent the dough from clinging to the scraper. Split in two and shape for my bannetons. I do a soft hand shaping to preserve the rise as well as I can. Do not go berserk with flour now and just dust your hands lightly. I also dust my bench scraper lightly. I use the scraper to push the dough gently on the bench to form the skin. Do not be in a hurry, focus and look at what is happening as you push. This is where you can destroy all the care and nurturing of the past 5 hours.

Bread done

Let me explain "soft hand shaping" ... this is important, many bakers go wild and knock the dough down, they pull and push that dough during shaping. To me this makes no sense and I stopped that practice pretty soon. When I work with the dough for shaping, the main goal is to achieve a nice tight skin on the shaped loaf. This is needed to trap the gas that will form during Final Proofing as well as give the bread a top that can be lifted by the oven stretch. A good skin will guide the gas and steam in the oven to follow your slashed route and present you with the sought after gaping mouth and curled ear. So make sure your hands are the hands of a lover when you shape that loaf ... always gentle and always attentive ... never rough and forceful. Do that and the loaf will show the appreciation when in the oven.

Final Rise of around 1 hour and then bake on a flat cookie sheet in a 230C oven for 25 minutes.

17h00 Day 2 - BAKING:
I have two small bread tins in the oven filled with lava rocks. I add 200 ml water to each tin and spray the oven liberally with a spray bottle and water. That is what I do to create steam. I heta my oven to 230C. I have a DEFY and use the oven with the baking shelf in the middle and I select the FAN ASSISTED function.

Sliced

After 25 minutes you should have a beautiful loaf, well structured and well baked. Remember that all my times are based on this volume of dough and in a kitchen that has an ambient temperature of between 22C and 25C during Winter.

Seeds I use

I know that there are hundreds of videos on the web that will differ from what I have written here and I know there will be hundreds of bakers that will dispute what I am saying. What is more, there are hundreds of bakers that are struggling to get a decent loaf because every video they watch and every article they read, just confuse them more.

Not for one single moment will I try and claim that my way is the right way or the only way. What I can say is that my way is the way I found to work the best for me and it gives me consistently good results. Every thing I have written here was experienced by myself and I have the photographs to proof my point.

My Daily Bread

Something else that is also true is the fact that baking sourdough bread is not that complicated or that complex. My grandmother did it this way every second day of her life. She did not use a DO, she did not have a steam assisted oven, she did not have pizza stones ... she baked like this in tin pans and fed a very large family.

Now back to my initial statement about the photographs. Most of the shots that you see are Bread done by bakers that bakes lots of Bread everyday. They have the advantage to select the best looking Bread from the batch and photograph that one. If you look a bit higher up, there is a shot of the Bread as they came out of the oven. Two loaves from the same batch, same handling and baked side by side. The one on the left is obviously the star while the one on the right is simply a good loaf.

The most important piece of advice that I can give is to keep on baking and do it regularly. I bake three times a week and over the past 3 months I did see a major change in my results. This is simply a case of Practice makes Perfect ... and yes, I still get a dud from time to time and it is usually when I have not paid attention. As you get more familiar and more comfortable with the process you will learn to read that dough better. All the times I have given here can vary a lot, depending on your flour, condition of your starter, temperature and humidity.

I hope you have enjoyed this story and that it gave you a different perspective of sourdough baking. Above all, persist in your mission and ensure that you feed your loved ones healthy Bread. After experimenting with a lot of baking methods I have settled for the most simplistic one, a simple sheetpan.


Here are my other Sourdough Stories ... LINK

Enjoy your baking till I write another story.

Hier is my Facebook Page... Man Kos ... like it if you want.

Sourdough - You and your oven

When baking bread, especially sourdough, the most important goal is to get a good crust.

Lovely crust

I have tried a lot of the methods, DO, Stone, Stone with Dome, Roasting pan with ice, Roasting pan with water, Roasting pan with Lava Rocks, Loaf pans, perforated pans ... you name it.
 
Some may know yet many wont ... I run an Afrikaans Language FB Page and Blog ... Colyn Kook Man Kos ... loosely translated as Colyn cooks Man Food or Dude Food if you like.
My mission is to encourage men to cook and as such I try and find the easy routes because as a rule men don't want complicated, especially if you are not a natural cooking guy.
After many failures and violent bouts of swearing I have settled on a simple way of getting a decent loaf.

The DO thing is not easy because many do not own a proper DO and then the ever confusing question, DO Hot or DO Cold ... I have done both and the difference is negligible for a home baker.
The roasting pan for the steam is a problem in domestic ovens because it shields the underside of the bread from the bottom element ... if you bake full thermofan then this is not an issue. I prefer to bake FAN ASSISTED.

Small loaf pans for water

The stones requires a long warming up cycle and not everyone has a stone.

On simple sheet pans

So I have settled for two small loaf pans, one on each side of the oven on the shelf set in the lowest setting. Then another wire rack in the middle. Filled the loaf pans with lava rocks.
I shape and form my loaves and bake on a metal sheet pan, the thinner the better. This metal heats up almost immediately on placing it in the oven because it is so thin.

I put 500ml of water divided between the two loaf pans and then spray the inside of the oven till the loaf is wet.

This gives me enough steam to last for around 15 minutes and by that time the loaf is steaming itself if it is a high Hydraditon dough.

I get acceptable results every time and I bake like this almost every day.

My oven is a Defy and there are two steam vents next to the handle, top and bottom ... in the image you can see the steam escaping through the bottom vent after 20 minutes with a 70% hydration loaf.
Hope this helps somebody ... it is cheap and uses what most have in their kitchens. This is how I teach men to bake their own Daily Bread.

Good crust, good oven spring and nice blisters

I bake on 220C Fan assisted and after 20 minutes I tune the oven down to 200C for another 10 minutes. Then I measure the internal temperature of the loaf to decide if it needs more baking. You want to see 195F and plus. Most bakers that hit a snag is caught by "under baking" ... for me the only sure way is to measure the internal temperature.


Here are my other Sourdough Stories ... LINK

Enjoy your baking till I write another story.

Hier is my Facebook Page... Man Kos ... like it if you want.

Sourdough - Into the oven

My quest to good sourdough bread took me on a mission where I encountered many great moments but I also met some desperately disappointing moments. Those of you that have read my other sourdough articles will know by now that one of my missions was to separate the facts from the folklore when it comes to sourdough and I have stripped many of those "secrets" out of the process.

Fresh from the oven

Sourdough baking is not merely a hobby with me, I bake all the bread that we consume in my home and the "factory" bread was clearly not good for our health. One of my passions in life is to resurrect our South African traditional food and I have been doing it for quite a few years now. I also try and write my articles in a style and language that will help a reader to understand the process and empower him or her to succeed in making the dish. I rarely do recipes because the internet is full of recipes, what most home cooks struggle with are the methods and techniques. My main focus is to get more men to cook hence the title of my blog ... "Man Kos" ... loosely translated as Man Food or Dude Food.

Ready to bake

Bread is something that almost all men enjoy and to me Bread is almost sacred.

Peel back the cloth

Let us talk about baking your sourdough. Most of us start off with sourdough and then we join some groups and pretty soon you see the most magnificent Breads on display and they make your Bread look quite inferior and more important, it makes you feel vary much like a stumbling amateur. First of all, most of those exquisite loaves are baked by people that bake everyday and they bake volumes, so they have the experience plus they can pick the best one out and place it on show. This is important to remember because I can assure you that sourdough has a will of it's own and sometimes for no clear reason you will get a loaf that does not peak out to become a star, no, it will turn out fairly average.

There are lots of stories on the baking utensils and the use of baking stones and Dutch Ovens (DO) ... all of the methods do have merit but is not required in order to get a good loaf.

The aim of this article is to allow the average Home Baker to get a good loaf of Sourdough and I will explain the simple things you need to do to achieve that. Remember our ancestors had very primitive facilities and they made their Daily Bread with that what they had.

Loaf pans for steam

For a start you need an oven obviously and I personally use a Defy Gemini Gourmet double eye level oven. Something that most homes have in one or other shape. I spent money on baking stones and have a large range of Dutch Ovens, none of it really needed to bake a good loaf.

You need a simple sheet pan or baking tray, two small loaf pans. Look carefully at the picture to see how I set my racks and the small loaf pans. You will pour a cup of boiling water into each pan when you place your bread in the oven. I have also bought some volcanic rock that I have placed in the loaf pans to accumulate some heat and steam the water more efficiently but the rocks are a "nice to have" and not required. Many bakers place a roasting tray on the bottom shelve and then add the water or ice blocks to it ... for me that did not work well because that pan were cutting heat from the bottom element and affected the crust. The two small loaf pans sit at the edges and does not shield the element.

Next you will need a simple water spray bottle and some sort of a blade to slash your loaf.

Slashed and ready

Now back to the dough ... you have gone through the whole process of preparing the dough and it is now time to shape the loaf and place it in some form of proofing utensil for the final rise. Bannetons are popular but expensive. What you need is a some muslin cloth to line your proofing basket. I have bought a roll of the kitchen wipes, they come in all sorts of colours and are very absorbent and I use that when I work with small dishes.

You have allowed your loaf to proof properly and it is time to bake it. This is where many tears are shed because you tip it out of the proofing basket and things goes sideways. The loaf collapse and spreads over your bench like a blob of butter in a hot pan. You scrape it together and ditch it into a Dutch Oven and hope for the best. If you were preheating your Dutch Oven this process goes hand in hand with some scalding of your fingers and in my case, profuse swearing. I am sure many of you knows exactly what I am talking about.

Fresh Sourdough Bread

Let's take the ManKos route and make life simpler ... Step back to the stage where the loaf is properly proofed in the basket or dish. I line my baskets and dishes with the muslin cloth that is then dusted with flour, plain flour and some semolina ... no rice flour. So I know that the cloth will not stick seriously to the dough, no matter how wet it is.

My oven takes around 20 minutes to reach 230C. So when I switch the oven on I place the proofed loaf in the basket or dish into the Freezer. Mine runs at -18C and I leave that basket in there for 30 minutes. I know the purists will frown on this but this works for me.

With the basket in the freezer and the oven building up heat, you must prepare your tray, place some baking paper in the tray and boil the kettle. Keep a glass measuring cup handy that take 500ml of water. Have a pastry brush and a cup of cold water on your bench and your blade. Make sure your spray bottle is filled up.

Prepare for the flip

Time is up and the oven is ready. Take the loaf out of the freezer and place it on your bench. Dust the loaf with flour in the basket. Flip the baking tray upside down on the loaf. Move the banneton and tray to the edge of your bench so you can get your one hand under the proofing basket and gently flip the tray and basket over, right side up. Lift off the proofing basket or dish. Your loaf should be on the tray, covered with the cloth.

Pull the cloth gently off the dough. You should have a very stable dough on the pan now. The freezing has enhanced the outer skin and this is good for those times that we struggle to build enough tension into the skin during shaping.

On the baking tray

You must move quickly. Take the pastry brush and cold water and gently paint the loaf, you want it wet. This is what will create the sought after blisters during baking. Next you must slash it as you wish and then get it into the oven.

With the tray in the oven, pour a cup of boiling water into each small loaf tin. Be careful it can be quite feisty. Close the door to a crack and spray a good amount of water into the oven with the spray bottle. Close that door and step back. In the next 20 minutes the magic will happen.

Washed down

This is all you need to do in the oven. Everything needed should be in your kitchen already. If you have prepared a high hydration dough ... lengthen the time in the freezer to 45 minutes or so. Do not be too scared about this because freezing that dough will not affect the outcome, at worst it could lengthen your baking time.

So twenty minutes is past, now you need to check if that loaf is done. As a rule I work with 500gr flour and for that 20 minutes is fine. Now I turn the oven down from 230C to 190C and let it go for another 10 minutes. After this I pull the Bread from the oven and use a pin thermometer to measure the internal temperature. You want it over 195F ... if it is still a bit off, I put the loaf back in the oven, leave the door slightly open and switch the oven off for another 10 minutes.

The final test

I am sure if you read this carefully and think about it, you will realise that baking a good loaf is not that hard nor that complicated. I have ditched the DO method completely and only use my baking stone for pizza.

Most accidents happen when the loaf is tipped out of the proofing baskets. This when things can go sideways and you loose all that carefully built bubbles in your loaf. The freezer is your friend here. Many accidents and incidents happen in the transfer of the dough to the hot Dutch Oven ... it is not really needed.

Here are my other Sourdough Stories ... LINK

Enjoy your baking till I write another story.

Hier is my Facebook Page... Man Kos ... like it if you want.

Sourdough - Bake your Bread

I am going to assume that you followed my guide in growing your own starter (STARTER) and you rigidly stuck to the 100% hydration feeding plan. In other words your starter is 50:50 flour and water. I am also going to assume you have read my article in using your starter (USE) and you know exactly what to do to prepare your starter for baking.

This is what we aim for

You will need 200gr of your starter. You need to stick to the grams in this guide. We will make a bread dough from 500gr flour and 335gr water. This is a 67% hydration and gives you a very manageable dough. Do not be tempted to go too soft in the beginning because it takes some skill to handle very wet dough and it is an article for another day.

Here is the recipe:
1. Bread flour - 400gr - (There is 100gr of Flour in your starter which make the flour now 500gr)
2. Lukewarm water - 235gr - (There is 100gr of Water in your starter which make the water 335gr.)
3. Salt - 11gr.
4. Starter - 200gr

I know this is not the correct style of presenting a bread recipe but we are beginners and I am making it as easy as possible for any person to get a good bread.

And that is all you need to make a very special bread ... Flour, water, salt and natural yeast.

Now my advice to you is to weigh all these elements off before you start anything. Get your bowl ready and have a small dish with around 4 heaped tablespoons of flour in. Keep that on the side, you will dust your work surface and adjust your dough if need be.

I will now assume that you have everything measured out, your bowl is ready and you have a lid for it or cling wrap to cover it. Some people use a tea towel ... I don't like it because in warm climates a skin will form on your dough.

STEP 1:
PS ... DO NOT ADD THE SALT.

The mixture

Agitate the flour with a whisk or you fingers to get the flour aerated and loose. This helps the initial mixing and is good for the yeast.

Form a well in the middle of the flour and pour the Starter on. Take your time and scrape as much out of the container as you can. I usually measure my starter off in a measuring cup.

Mixed

Next you pour some of your water into the starter container and rinse it well to collect as much of the residual starter as your can. Remember it is your yeast and every drop has life in it.
Now pour this rinse water in your bowl plus the balance of the water.

I use a big wooden spoon to mix and bring the dough together into a manageable consistency.

Autolyse

Switch from the spoon to your hand and scrape and roll the dough till it is well mixed and you have picked up all the flour in the bowl. You don't knead it seriously, just gather and mix. Working with your fingers and pressing with the heel of your hand.

Chances are that your hand will be quite messed up. Use a metal spoon to scrape your hand as clean as possible and press the pieces into the dough ball.

That is it for now ... cover that bowl and let is stand for 60 minutes.
This is the AUTOLYSE Phase.
During this phase the "magic" will begin and you will be intrigued at what you will see in Phase 2.

STEP 2:
Open your dough ... take a few seconds and look carefully at what you are seeing. That shaggy ball has now collapsed and spread over the bottom of your bowl, the surface should look shiny.

First fold

Now comes the part where you actually need video but I will try my best to describe the process in words. Use your imagination as you read.

Set your timer for 8 minutes.

Fold complete

You are standing at your workbench with the bowl in front of you. Press the dough down gently with your fingers to create some indentations in it. Now sprinkle the salt over the dough.
Dip your fingers in lukewarm water and loosen the dough at the 12 o' clock position. Work your hand in under the dough and now very gently lift and stretch upwards, do not tear it, and fold it over to the 6 o'clock position ... closest to your belly.

Salt mixed in

Take a moment and look at that dough ... you will notice that it can already stretch remarkably ... this is part of the "magic" ... the gluten is already developing without kneading ... developing naturally.
(This is the basis of the concept that is applied in the NO KNEAD Breads)

Getting the dough manageable

Continue with the Stretch and Fold (S&F) on each quarter ... total of 4 folds.

Ready to knead

Now dip your hand in the water and start pinching that dough from one side as if you want to separate small balls. After one pass the dough should look like string of beads, well roughly and with a good imagination. inch Process is discussed HERE.
Take one end and fold it over to the other and pinch again. Feel free to wet your fingers if the dough is too sticky.

Testing the gluten

Here comes the phase where experience will be your biggest ally. Percentages will now fly out of the window. You need to work this dough to end up with a ball that is soft but hold it's shape and can stretch well without tearing. You are going to work the dough to develop the gluten and you are going to add flour to get the consistency right. If you have followed my guide, the chances of a too dry dough are extremely slim. But should it happen you just dip your fingers in lukewarm water as your work the dough.

Knead complete

Now comes the kneading ... if that dough is too sticky, sprinkle some flour over it en work it against the side of the bowl in circular motion, adding flour to get to a manageable consistency. As soon as the dough is manageable ... dust your work bench with flour and tip the dough out onto it.

Beginning to stretch and fold

Now you need to knead the dough well ... it takes around 8 minutes. Kneading styles do differ and each person develops his or her own style. The main thing is that you need to press and stretch the dough. Adding little bits of flour until your dough is no longer sticking to your hand or the workbench.

You want to be able to stretch a piece of dough so that it becomes almost translucent before it tears.

Fold and form into a tight ball with a smooth stretched tight surface.

Place back into the bowl and cover. Set your timer for 30 minutes.


STEP 3:
During this phase you will Stretch and Fold the dough on all four quarters every 30 minutes and do it 3 times.

First fold

After the 3rd time you need to leave the dough in peace for 2 to 3 hours or so, until it has risen to between 2x and 3x its original volume. Remember this is long fermentation process and things does not happen fast. This is now the Bulk Fermentation phase. This process can be 5 to 6 hours long. Depending on the humidity and temperature in your kitchen.

STEP 4:

Dividing the dough

This is now the Splitting and Shaping phase and it can be very confusing as well as frustrating. It is my suggestion that if you are not a bread maker with reasonable experience, you watch some videos on Youtube about this phase.

Tip your dough onto a lightly floured work space. Decide on the size of your final bread and split the dough with a dough scraper or sharp knife. With this size of dough, I would suggest that for your first time, you split it in half. That gives you two decent size loaves and you can bake one after the other if you want to experiment with your oven and baking method.

Once you have divided your dough, fold and shape it loosely and leave on the bench for 10 minutes. This is called Bench rest. It gives the dough a chance to relax after the dividing.

Shaped in a basket

This is a very nice stable dough and you have the choice to bake free form on a sheet, molded into a traditional loaf pan or in Dutch Oven (DO) ... DO refers to the baking of the bread in a pot with a lid. Usually cast iron but ceramic or glass is also used.

Preparing for baking in a pot

I am going to assume that you will bake free form on a sheet pan. Your most important mission is to shape the dough in the form you want, round or long. Then you fold the dough into itself to stretch the top surface nice and tight.

Dust you sheet pan with flour and semolina if you have it or cornmeal. (Mieliemeel) ... this will prevent it from sticking to the pan.

Place the shaved dough on the sheet and cover loosely with plastic to prevent drying out. You are now in the final proof phase.

This phase of final proofing is between 30 minutes and one hour, depending on temperature and humidity.

Now is the time to switch your oven on, 230C is what I aim for. My oven takes around 20 minutes to reach that temperature. By the time the oven is ready, the dough should also be ready. Keep an eye on the dough, you want it rise to 1 and 1/2 times it's original size. DO not over  proof now because it might fall flat when you place it in the oven and have no power left to rise again in the oven.

STEP 5:
Now is the final stage and you are close to the end.

Your oven should be ready at as close to 230C as you can get, your dough has puffed up nicely. Now you can get creative but it is all for the show ... spray the bread lightly with your spray bottle of water, slash a slit into the top of your dough with a very sharp blade. Do this by holding the blade at a slight angle, you want the slit go slightly at an angle in under the top and not a straight slit as if you want to remove the guts from the bread. Almost as if you want to peel a piece of the top off. Or you can leave the slashing out ... it is all for the looks. Later, when you are more experienced, you will play around with scoring.

Dust the top of the loaf with your flour filled shaker and put it into the oven. Be careful not to slam the pan because that will let your loaf deflate.

Close the oven door for 30 seconds and then open slightly and spray around 10 squirts of water into that hot oven. Do not be shy. The more the better. Close the door ... set your timer for 10 minutes and relax. I usually use this time to clean up and to get the bench ready for when the bread come out. You should get the aroma of baking bread soon.

On 10 minutes, open the door slightly ... be VERY CAREFUL ... there could be a lot of steam escaping. Spray a few more squirts into that oven ... the spraying is what builds the crust. Set your timer to 20 minutes. You need to keep an eye on that bread now, if you see it go very brown at around 15 minutes of total baking time, turn you oven down to 210C.

The bread might go through some serious or slight shape changes now, all depends on the strength of the yeast and the proofing. DO not panic .... everything is now out of your hands.

At around 25 minutes total baking time the bread should be ready. These time will vary from oven to oven and you need to get familiar with your oven. Fan driven ovens are hotter than normal ovens and you need to adjust for that. I work with a fan driven oven.

If you bake in a pot ... be sure to remove the lid after 15 minutes.

Take the bread out of the oven when it looks ready. You want a good dark crust. Pick the loaf up with a tea towel and knock the bottom ... it should sound hollow, if not ... back into the oven for 5 more minutes.

Measuring internal temperature

Lately I use a probe thermometer and measure the internal temperature. You want it between 196F and 206F.

Final result

Now you can stand around and admire your bread while it sits on a cooling rack. The general rule is that you should not slice that bread before it cooled down for at least the same period of time that it was in the oven. If you cut to soon you may find that you are compressing the hot dough and spoil the crumb and texture of the slice. You have spent a lot of hours to get here, be patient. Admire your creation and talk to it, take some photos and feel good ... next time you are going to better equipped and you will surely make some adjustments.

Well, that is it ... your sourdough bread is done ... alt hat is now left is to haul out the fresh butter and sink your teeth into it. If all went well, bread will never be the same to you.

This guide was written based on my own personal experience and I can assure you that for every step I have described, you will find dozens of pieces on the web where it is refuted, denied or rejected. That is unfortunately the nature of the sourdough beast. The most important part is that you understand the processes and get yourself familiar with it. Then you broaden your gathered wisdom and experiment and get innovative. No matter what is said or written, the basics are simply ... water, flour, salt and yeast ... and depending on the relationship and handling of the dough, you will get a wide variety of possible outcomes.

My mission is to encourage people to bake their own bread and do it by using the long fermentation and natural yeast way ... that is how our ancestors did it and they did not suffer from all the modern carbohydrate related ailments.


Enjoy your baking and cooking till I write another story.

Here is my Facebook Page ... Man Kos ... like it if you want.

Sourdough - Using your Starter

If you followed my guide on Making your own Starter it is now necessary to give some guidelines on using the Starter. As usual with me, it will be a naked guide with tons of fables and urban legends stripped off ... only the bare basics.

Measured out for the dough

Man Kos (Dude Food) is on a mission to preserve our traditional way of preparing food and hand in hand with that, I want to see more men baking. Making bread is actually very manly and the perfect way to manage your stress levels in an age where men are far removed from the benefits that hard physical work and brutal fighting brought to our lives. No, now we live in an era where our brains are stretched and mashed and our fights are with economic realities and political madness. So, join me and step into your kitchen. A place where you can satisfy your urges to cut, slice, dice and manhandle things without going to jail.

But don't despair ... I am also well connected with the realities of the female battles and baking bread can bring peace and tranquility to a highly agitated mind.

Making Sourdough bread is such a long lazy process that you can totally relax and build up the anticipation of that marvelous aroma that will fill your kitchen, the crusty cracking as you cut the crust and then that wonderful soft and almost elastic crumb ... smother it in fresh butter and then the feeling of serenity as you bite into that slice ... all things that we desperately need more of.

I am going to assume we will bake a bread that calls for 500gr of flour. It is a manageable size and can feed 4 to 6 people easily.

Float test in cold water

The backbone of sourdough is the long fermentation periods involved ... this is what makes sourdough bread special and makes it miles more healthy than standard fast rise yeast bread. Over time the bacteria breaks the carbohydrates down to get to the sugars locked into it and you end up with a changed carbohydrate that is far less negative than what modern refined carbohydrates are. Side by side to the carbohydrate changes is the change and development of the gluten and the awesome development of flavor and texture. And that is why you must learn to bake sourdough bread. For hundreds of years bread, in a vast variety of shape and form were the staple food of man without almost all of the negative effects of modern bread ... without bread, mankind may have been very different today. There are many reports that indicates that most gluten sensitive people can tolerate sourdough bread without problems.

It is very important to realize that the type of flour used in your starter can have an influence on the performance in your bread and the type of flour used in your bread can also have a big influence on how you use your starter. For this guide I am going to assume we all worked with plain unbleached bread flour.

You also need to make peace with the fact that ...
Sourdough bread making is not an exact science.
There are lots of variables that will affect your dough and you need to be aware of it.

Here are some of the more prominent factors that will affect your dough:
1. The type of flour used in your starter.
2. The type of flour used for your bread.
3. The pH of your water.
4. Your water temperature.
5. Your Kitchen temperature.
6. The humidity in your kitchen.
7. Overall hydration of your dough.

Let's touch on hydration ... this is the percentage of water in your dough when measured against the flour.
1kg Flour and one liter of water (1kg) is a 100% hydration. You will have a very sloppy dough and will need some serious experience with handling dough to get a bread out of this one.
75% Hydration is generally accepted as the upper margin for styles like ciabatta.
63% Hydration is generally accepted for more manageable dough that can be shaped quite easily and can final proof after shaped and give you a decent bread.

Around 80% hydration dough

The higher the hydration, the more prominent the holes will be in your bread but at the same time, the trickier it gets to shape and bake. Such a soft wet dough can become a real nightmare if you are not experienced enough to manage it. I will suggest you start off at around 65% and learn the feel for the dough and then go wetter as you get better with the dough.

Now let's talk about the starter it self. It is early morning and you are all fired up to bake a masterpiece. Here is where the importance of your  feeding program will become really important. I am going to assume you followed my guide and your starter is a 100% hydrated starter. In other words you have equal parts of flour and water in weight in that jar. For my example I will use 200gr starter in my bread. You must understand that the weight of your starter is not really cast in stone, the more you use, the quicker you will see your bread rise but it can and will also affect the taste. 200gr on a 500gr flour bread is more or less generally accepted as a good balance ... actually most recipes will suggest 180gram starter.

Now you know that the 200gr starter is roughly 100gr water and 100gr flour. So if the recipe suggested 65% hydration, you must reduce your flour with 100gr and your water with 100gr. That means 400 gr flour and 225 grams of water should give you a dough that is very close to what the recipe was aiming for.

Now I know there will be many that will see my logic as bush baker logic but that is fine ... the concept is close enough to the detail science to give you a good bread. So your recipe called for 500gr of flour and 325gr of water. You deduct what is in your starter and there you go. Quite simple. This is also a good guideline if you have a bread recipe that was written for instant yeast and you want to turn it into a sourdough bread.

Back to the starter ... I now do a 120 gram flour feeding of my starter and obviously 120gr of water. This is 240gr paste ... I will need 200gr for my recipe and there is some leftover. I wait for the starter to double at least in volume before I scoop out the 200gr. This way you know that you have a good volume of very active bacteria in that leviant. That is right ... Starter, Leviant .... same thing. Generally it is accepted that once you have scooped off your starter that goes into the dough, you will hear it to be referred to as Leviant. Simple semantics.

Another talking point is ...  
"Use your starter when it is at it's maximum rise."

Although this is the ideal, it is not a matter of life and death. The role of the starter is to get the yeast bacteria into your dough. Adding starter to your dough is very much the same as giving your starter a massive feeding. If your starter has already maxed out and on it's way down when you get to it, it is still fine to use it. You will just need a bit of extra time to allow the bacteria volume to build up in your dough.

The float test is there to ensure that you have a lot of activity and that means you have lots of live bacteria.

There are people that publish that they only use very small amounts starter. All this really does is to slow the rise process down and they have to wait longer to get to final shaping. So you can use the volume of starter manage the bulk fermentation period. If you are in a hurry, use more starter and reduce your recipe flour and water accordingly. If you want to bulk ferment overnight for morning baking, reduce your starter.


Be accurate when you weigh out your starter for the dough.

This article is only aimed at the use of the starter and will not cover the actual dough processing ... that is an article on it's own.

In my next story we will make an actual sourdough bread.

Enjoy your baking and cooking till I write another story.

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