My best of the experimentation process (so far)

March 02, 2018

My best of the experimentation process (so far)

I decided to venture further afield just for experimentation sake before trying the Vita Lives Free recipe again. I stumbled across The Perfect Loaf after literally spending hours and hours and hours on you tube and the internet. The Perfect Loaf and Maurizio’s approach was complex but understandable and his results looked and sounded unreal.

The hydration levels are high. Very high. Hydration is the ratio of flour to water in a dough. Maurizio operates at almost 90% for this recipe. Therefore almost ½ water to flour. That’s a wet mix.

His recipe also takes almost 3 days to complete. In saying that most of the time is spent proving. Other recipes take 2 days anyway. It’s only a few more hours of fermentation in various stages.

So I adjusted the recipe to accommodate my French flour and came up with the ratio of:

600gms T55 (good quality high grade or strong bread flour)

275gms T110 (good quality stone ground rye flour)

755gms water as per the recipe

18gms salt as per the recipe

150gms mature liquid levain as per the recipe.

I made my liquid levain as per his recipe too ALTHOUGH as I wanted to start the actual recipe the next morning I let the liquid levain prove at room temperature overnight. Room temperature here would be around 18 deg being winter. If I put it at a higher temperature in the oven with the light on it would have overproved.

Anyway great. The next morning it was lovely and bubbly and gorgeous. Off I set to make The Perfect Loaf “best sourdough” recipe. But, then we had to go to Dijon. So I had to stop after the initial 2-3 hour fermentation (after the folding process before mass fermentation) to put it on hold for 5 hours. If I had let it bulk ferment at room temperature I was concerned it would overprove. I’d prefer an underprove which I can correct to an overprove which I cannot.

So at this crutial point of the process I put it in the fridge to slow it down.

When we arrived home 5 hours later. The dough was completely unrisen so it had slowed it down a little more than I had anticipated. I therefore brought it back to room temperature and shoved it in the oven light on to see how it went.

It popped back to life and after a further 3 hour period and a few more folds it was ready but it was SOOOOOO wet.

It was wet to the point I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t shape it and I couldn’t give it the much needed strength for it to form it’s proper self. I’m OK at working with high hydrated doughs and I think this was just a little more wet than it should have been and it’s either my flour or the longer bulk fermentation time. I will find out next time I try the recipe out.

Anyway after the dough is formed it goes into floured proving baskets. What I will say is this: I managed to shape it enough to get the stronger side down and the weaker side pinched up. Although it didn’t have the usual final strength and shaping process it did at least have some sort of strength in that the weaker side was up (ie the side that the bread sits on ) which is the side the folds during the whole process are based around, stronger side always at the bottom, folding from the top side which is then turned upside down.

I baked it as I usually did and when I got the best TASTING results (not the best looking results) and that is in a preheated non stick heavy frying pan in the oven with a pan on the bottom as a steam pan. I have decided the dutch oven thing just doesn’t quite give me the crust I’m personally after.

Tipping the bloody thing out was a mission to say the least. It was so wet. It stuck quite a bit and it took both me and Andy to try our best and we managed to do a pretty good job. It was a sort of shove it in the oven and hope for the best scenario. At this stage I did not have high hopes at all. I was disappointed because so much time and energy goes into each loaf. While each loaf is like Christmas it also carries stress so this sourdough thing is a bit of a roller coaster. A love hate relationship I reckon but it becomes rather obsessive.

I baked it. It looked good when I took it out. I tipped the 2^nd loaf (it also stuck a bit) into the preheated pan and baked that too. That looked OK too. I waited. I cut. I jumped for joy. And then we tasted. Ooooh la la……. One of the best sourdough breads I’ve eaten. EVER. And that is including some of the extremely extremely good restaurants we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy.

The crust. It was crunchy. The perfect amout of crunchy. Slightly chewy crunch, more crunch than chew and thin. Such texture from such a thin beautiful bubbly crust. The crumb. It was beautifully open, evenly open. Not too open so that all the butter falls through but open to perfection. The crumb was bouncy and shiny and webbed like a beautiful thing. These 2 loaves were things of pure beauty. They could look a little better. With shape and strength they would be a little rounder and not have the kinks they do but if this is the best I ever get to do then so far this whole sourdough endeavor has been worth it. Next update soon….