I am currently writing a book on sourdough. It's a deep dive on why you should do things, not just a collection of recipes. It will allow you to bake the perfect bread at home with your flour and your setup. The book is completely free because I believe it's essential information. The first 30 pages have been written, you can get it for free here: thbrco.io/book. Happy to hear your feedback. And to you nerds, you can see the source code here: github.com/hendricius/the-sourdough-framework
Thank you so much for the protein diagram. No one ever mentioned that about protein on flour. No wonder my 65% hydration was so difficult to work with, the flour had only 10% protein
Your camera perspectives and clean audio are great for learning. I am using your videos extensively to help me create better bread, and I feel very confident your tips are working!!
Great video! One thing about the fermentation time. 6-12 hours might be fine for European weather, where ambient temperature is around 22 C; but where I live, under the Tropics where average temperature is 30-33 C, fermentation happens twice as fast. More than 3 hours and the yeast starts destroying the gluten networks. So ambient temperature is an important factor when trying to build the dough structure.
Ich bin nur durch den Algorithmus auf dich gestoßen (ergo das ist mein erstes Video). Sau stark, wie simple und informationsreich du die Hilfen erklärst. du hast einen neuen Subscriber👍🏽
The best video. He covers every problem I have when making dough. I mean, who can love kneading, when it requires a 15 minutes straight of struggling? Love ❤
Thank you Hendrik. One more awesome video added to my download collection! This one is a real gem! I still don't know how you do it, but you somehow read people's minds, and show us what we've been wondering about in silence. Thank you my friend. You never cease to amaze me!😊 🤩😛
You’re a bread nerd! I love the content and information. I have been baking some baguette type of bread, the Mexican variation of it called bolillo. I always failed in the kneading technique even when I followed the recipes but with your info I was able to do it perfectly! Thanks 🙏🏽
Finally I’m starting to understand bakers percentages and feeling like experimenting with my hydration. I just really kneed to work on my conversions for kilos to grams lol
Wow, excellent tips! I've been working with high hydration doughs lately, and they are a battle, your tips will certainly help. I'll also be remembering these for my pizza doughs this summer.
These were great tips. I will try a couple of them tomorrow. What I am finding is that using any flour on my hands during the stretch and fold or on my counter does not give me the bread texture that I love. I only use a small amount of water every time I work with the dough. For me personally it works out so much better. I am however going to add the water slowly when baking tomorrow and see if that makes a difference for me. Thank you again for the great advice!
Thank you for this video! I make a pretty good loaf of sourdough bread, but with your tips from this video I will move to a better sourdough loaf. I have learned so much from you!
Thank you very much for this video. I have learned a lot. Sometimes my bread is very good, sometimes it's not. I realized that occasionally I make some of the mistakes you listed, especially with water. I think I will do much better from now ;-)
Just found your channel and your book! Smarter, not harder! As a Dane, I like this 😂 Living in Sicily though, and they like everything to go sloooow 😅 Okay, my dough is really sticky, can’t get it to be a ball 😳 I’m having a hard time using the table and making the ball, cause it sticks to my hands and table! Obviously not good at it yet as well. Does it matter what surface it is? Mine is a kitchen island with a wooden top. If it doesn’t matter, should I just keep trying? My hydration is 80, I use my machine for 3 minutes and take the rest by hand. But here I also use water on my hands… is it too much 🤔 I do have a nice window frame though… Many questions! Tomorrow I’ll make an experiment with lower hydration, I’ll add the water bit by bit and try more with the ball making! I’m so overwhelmed with all that is not working for me right now and it seems to get worse for each try 😂 Vielen Dank 😅 Freya
Excellent video. I enjoy making bread, rolls mainly. They usually look great but dough a little bit dense, lack the nice air bubbles. Most recipes I follow suggest lot shorter rising times of around 40 minutes.
Guten Tag aus Venezuela, It is a great and straightforward video. Thank you very much. In my very first attempt applying your indications, I improved my little baguettes and I am sure I will be making them even better in the next occasion. It is key to work dough by understanding it. Thank you again!
I think we should all try to include a play on words in our comments like C did the day before yeasterday. A poor effort but the best I could come up with quickly. You are always informative and I just might start a sourdough culture. Made focaccia yesterday but put toooo much confitted (spelt right?) garlic on top and had to fight it to remove it from the baking pan. Keep up the good work for us novices. Sue in a rather cool England. 🤣
awesome channel and awesome video man, i'm just a some amateur, curious guy from İstanbul-Turkey and really just wanna say you're doing amazing job in here, there are 2 favorite channel for myself, one of it is you and the other is "ChainBaker" both of you guys are amazing :)
Thank you for sharing your passion for baking. I was wondering, what kind of mount / camera do you use for filming your hands folding the dough. Thanks!
Dang son! It really helped, i made a killer pizzas today thanks to your tips! I've been trying to make highly hydrated doughs before, but it ended as a disaster. Now i had my revange XD
Vielen Dank. On behalf of the (many?) home bakers living in the tropical/subtropical regions of the world, I would really appreciate a video on baking in a humid and warm environment. Summers in Europe and North America are like winters here.
It's part of my troubleshooting section in the book already. Last chapters in: thbrco.io/book. If you have more questions please send me an email! Thanks a lot!
I think that last tip was the best. Didn't realize why my dough balls end up looking bad and still being sticky. I'd imagine this would help them proof more vertically than horizontal. Unless that's just a normal thing. Idk. Somethings wrong with my dough
I have noticed that wheat helps with gluten and yes I come back to it 15 minutes later twice, to fold over until it gets the consistency I like 👍🏽 after time I end up braiding and scoop and pull for tension…just love bread making..always find new things to perfect it into my style 😃🙏🏽🙋🏻♀️👍🏽
I might be confused. Do I add my yeast into the dry flour and then begin adding my water slowly? Or do I add some water first, then after stirring around with my hands, do I then add the yeast? Sorry, but I am still needing this clarified. Thanks very much! I enjoyed the video and would like to improve my bread baking skills! And this video seems really inspiring!
There are two types of yeast. I use instant dried yeast which goes into the flour, the other type goes into water and you wait 10 minutes for it to ferment, with the yeast that goes into the flour make sure not to put salt on top of the yeast because you will kill the yeast, hope this helps.
Something many bakers do, cause we learn it in school, when making rye bread. Use 20-30% rye, the rest wheat. It gives you somewhat of a gluten network while still having a decent rye flavor.
I'd recommend no autolyse. Just use less starter/yeast. You get the same effect. The key is to have a slow fermentation. You get the benefits from the autolyse too just by having a slower process.
Nice one, goes beyond the basic "start with 10-15% less water" recommendation. I think your viewers might also appreciate to hear about the importance of temperature: Lower temperatures decrease the water-binding capacity of flour, so it's best to store it at room-temperature. I have one question for you: When you perform the window-test for the different hydration levels with 100g of flour each, do you still knead every test-dough as usual?
I understand that mixing the water into the flour gradually is optimal but I mix my water with my starter in the bowl first and then add my flour. It's been so much easier that way. I'm going to try and figure out how to make all of this work! Because I, too, am lazy!
@@zacharymichael4673 I do that with all of the ingredients. Because it includes the starter it's called "fermentalyse ", although you likely already knew that.
@@simplybeautifulsourdough8920 Guess you could always mix the starter and water separately and add that mix to the flour? Maybe I'll give that a go and see how it does.
@@zacharymichael4673 That's actually a good point. I always mix the starter and water, then add the flour and salt. But I can do it the way you suggest and combine the best of both worlds. 🙂
15 vs 50: Maybe you might add text on the screen to accompany the vocals so nobody will get confused. I've been enjoying your videos even though I'm presently on a 1-9 record for successes over attempts. I will keep trying. Also, what brand of flour are you using? All the flour I've found is just at 3g for protein; the flour you are using is 13g, that is just beastly compared to what I have come by locally.
Hi there. Ioved these tips and all make sense, but I couldn't quite execute them. When you place the dough on the counter to roll it, round it and smooth it to make it less sticky at what point in the bulk fermentation is this, or is it before? Your dough looks to be well through fermentation, which is fine but then isn't there a danger of de gassing the dough? Also, When adding the water slowly I find it tricky. Once the dough has formed a ball and I leave for 20 mins it doesn't easily absorb more water, so I end up with a squelchy mess. Any insight you can give here would be very appreciated. Thanks. Lee
Hi Lee! I make the dough round before the bulk fermentation! Regarding the water - yes, it creates a bit of a mess. But it sounds like you have added water in too big steps.
Crap I screwed up the water adding part today I'm afraid, my dough can't be lifted from the counter and is horribly sticky, although the hydration is "only" ~70% which isn't that high for 12% protein bread... I've put that in the fridge to work it tomorrow! Thanks for the video, very useful!
I have 2 questions: 1.Is it not preferable to wait 20 minutes between adding starter and salt? I don't understand why some bakers insist on that. 2.When converting a liquid starter to a stiff starter, do you put it right away into the fridge after feeding on day 2 and 3? When i follow your chart, it looks as if you don't put in the fridge the 1 st day, but then the 2d and 3d day and then before you bake, you leave it outside? I keep mine in the fridge now that it is ready, then before baking, I feed it and wait till i see it gained in size and shows bubbles, but it seems to take really long. I have it in my fermenting station on high temperature at the moment to speed it up. I have listened to one of your videos where Karl de Smedt mentioned that you should not let it rise longer than 6 hours, but mine would not be ready yet. What do I do wrong? Can one keep it at a high temperature? Thanks for helping me out on this. I am so thankful for the videos you post and watch all of them. Thanks so much. Greetings from Luxembourg.
Hi claudine ...... what is hi temperature? Please specify ........ The yeast in the starter multiplies best at 28degrees celsius. Then follow the 12h ... 6h .... 3h feeding rule. That gives you a strong starter. Cheers chris
Thanks for the video, my English not perfect 🤧 but I wanna ask a thing. If the dough is too sticky and after 6 hours is not very elastic and shrinks... What are the possibile mistake? Thanks
Can your tips be used to make poolish? since another utuber showed his poolish but 99% i tried it was never even close to becoming what he showed. My poolish and subsequent dough becomes wayyy to sticky.
Yes! Just use 20% on the flour as poolish. So for 500gs of flour make 100gs of poolish. Buut - personally, I think poolish is overrated. I'd recommend to just use a tiny bit of yeast instead.
Just with 2 wetted hands. I go under it and quickly move it to the container. It should work without a problem. Else you might have used too much water for your flour or you didn't knead enough.
@@the_bread_code thanks for the quick response! Yes I've been testing very high hydration pizza doughs ( 75-80% hydration using 00 flour) and I'm struggling with transferring the dough from one place to another without deforming it, even if I manage to form a ball successfully. I've tried increasing kneading time with no success.
Hello M. 80% hydration is too much. Please believe me. In Napoli they use 68% water and no oil. The best method is : thursday morning mix the 00 flour with 60 % hydration and only 2gram of yeast. Let sit at room temp. During afternoon or on evening of thursday you add the remaining water in which also your salt is. Knead that for 6 min. Put in covered container and put in fridge. It is in fridge all day friday. Take out on saturday after breakfast. Form into separate balls portion of 240grams. Put those balls on bake tray, cover it and let sit in cool room in cellar basement till evening. Take to kitchen at 6pm for 8pm dinner. Enjoy. Chris.
After this the process of "bulk fermentation" starts. Whenever I see the dough flattens out I apply a stretch and fold to the dough. After the 6-12 hours you then proceed to shape your dough. Afterwards you proof it to then bake it. Hope that helps.
@@the_bread_code I think I’m still confused. So what you were doing the minute marker of four minutes and 13 seconds this was at the beginning, and then you proof the dough from anywhere 6 to 12 hours, then after that you proof it again? So you’re proofing it twice?
This is why I don't understand why many videos show the flour going into the water, better to do water to flour little by little, the golden rule of cooking is you can add but not take out.
I have a question. What would happen if I tried making bread using all of my saved discard and only enough flour and water to get the correct ratio? Thinking of doing an experiment and I thought of you because you are always experimenting with different techniques. Let me know what you think. Thanks
For 1/2 cup starter half cup water full cup flour starter mix i regenerate and mix all residual starter with three cups water to seven cups flour and yield two loaves per day. I am trying two cups water to four cups flour plus all residual starter, will see what happens.
Hey, ich fliege bald in die USA und möchte meinen Sauerteig mitnehmen. Da du Bread Pitt ja auch schon auf Reisen genommen hast, wollte ich fragen ob es irgendwelche Komplikationen bei der Einfuhr geben kann? (Laut der TSA darf man Brot mitnehmen aber Border Control sagt Bakterien Kulturen gehen nicht...)
My dough rises well with my sourdough starter. After 3.5 hours it reaches the top of my wooden banneton. But as soon as i remove it, it loses it shape and collapses. It also sticks to my banneton while i dust the thing heavily with a mix of Rice and patent White flour. The dough feels quite sticky. I bake it in a so called cloche. I follow a recipe from a dutch bread bake book. For one Loaf it says 65gr flour, 20gr starter and 65 gr tepid water. Leave that for 10 to 12 hours (overnight) and then mix with the other ingredients. 425 patent flour, 25 gr whole wheat flour, 270-300 grams water, the mix from the night before and 9 gr salt. I mix everything with a kitchen machine except the salt for 3 minutes. Then let it stand for 20 minutes, add the salt and mix for an additionel five minutes. Then i put it in oiled bowl and do two stretch and folds after 45 minutes qnd 90 minutes. Then leave it for 3 hours. After that i pre-shape it, let it stand for 20 minutes and shape it into a boule. Then i put it in the banneton and let it rise for 3.5 hours. After that i remove it and then what happens i mentioned earlier. It sticks and collapses. I'm getting a bit frustated now . What is maybe important to mention is that i keep my starter always in the oven with the oven light on (except when the oven is needed for other cooking of course). I also use keep the mixture made the night before in the oven with the light on during the night and also let the proofing and rising happen in the oven with the light on. It gaves a nice warm consistent temperature (to my mind at least). Also when i bake the failed dough there are definetely air bubbles, espescially under the crust. But it just doesn't keep its shape. Also today i used the minimum recommended time for profing and rising 1.5 hours and 2 respectively. Sadly the result was the same, a bread that collapses as soon as it is taken out of the banneton and also sticks quite a bit too said banneton. Can aanbody help me out and tell me what i'm doing wrong and how i should change/improve it? Some help woud be appreciated. Kind regards, A increasingly frustrated Dutch wannabe home baker.
My initial thought is that the dough is definitely overproofed, but this seems to be proven wrong by you testing the minimum proofing time. How long does it typically take your starter to reach peak? You typically want to adjust your times according to the activity of your starter and the ambient temperature. As my starter peaks in about 6-7 hours for your ratio, for example, leaving it for 10 to 12 hours before use would mean that it would have been way past peak and not at all at full potential by the time I would start baking. Also, I always hear the tip about proofing in the oven with the light on, but I find that that can get too hot in my experience. Have you tried testing the temperature of the oven after an hour or so with the light on?
@@aweehee thank you both for your quick replies. What do you mean exactly with how long does it take for my starter to reach peak strength? I normally feed my starter around 5 or 6 am, so its has some time to feed/get more active and then make the starter mix (65gr patent flour, 20 gr starter, 65 gr water) around 10 or 11 am, just before going to bed. in the recipe it says the mixture should be prepared 10 to 12 hours in advance and i always stick to that.
@@anonymousanonymous9370 basically, you want to use your starter when it reaches its maximum volume. This is around the time it loses its dome shape at the top and is a bit flat or slightly indented. Of course, you can use it a little before or a little after peak, but typically you want to aim for this point. Feeding your starter when it's at this point also helps keep your starter healthy. If you have time, it's useful to at least once observe your starter every hour or so after feeding so you know its behavior. Is it hot where you are right now? Because starters are so different, you have to make adjustments to sourdough recipes depending on your situation. What flour are you using, by the way?
@@aweehee my starter is based on biological whole grain flour from a mill. at the moment it varies a bit between 10 and 25-ish degrees here in the Netherlands. we had the occasional hot day, but generallie it's between 10 and 20 degrees celsius here at the moment.
Can a ‘00’ at 13% handle more water than non-00, and if so, how much? Or, are the percentages you state for ‘00’, and general mill should be a lower percentage of water?
Typically the more outside of the grain you have inside the flour more water your flour can soak up. The percentages are for a 0 or 00 flour. So for whole wheat you might have to add even more water compared to what I have shown.
Hey B. 1.always use good flour. Not the cheapest one. 2.go for 60% hydration. 3.next time try 65% hydration on your pizza. 4. Also 70% hydration is nice ....but not for beginners. 5.use less yeast n let it rise for 4 hours. Then make pizza portion 230gram dough balls n let those sit for 4 hours. Then stretch em out for pizza. Cheers chris.
Yea, making bread is another level of science. I tried it, but i just don't have the time or will to learn all that next to all the other things i gotta learn... :(
Oh patty. It is not that difficult. It is fun. And you just do it and see what happens. Usually it tastes good any way you try it. It only becomes complex when you want the super hi rise fluffy bread. That takes some practice.
Oh my! I just checked the protein on my Gold Medal flour, online it says it's 13% but on the package it says 3%!!! My heart is sunken and I'm lightweight pissed!!! That is sooo low!!!wtf that must be why my dough is so sticky😭😭😭😭
Have gluten free bread recipe or gluten free sourdough bread recipe ? Very hard to make Gluten free bread soft and tasty … we always end up with a bread that as heavy as a brick and horrible taste … Hope u can help us thanks 🙏🙏🙏🙏
A recent video by Adam Ragusea contradicts some of the statements made in this video with respect to pizza dough. Not to say that they are wrong. Just saying that more discussion and experimentation should be performed to support the conclusions.
@@the_bread_code "What oil, sugar and yeast do in pizza dough (in varying amounts)". I like the experiments he does. Follow scientific method relatively well.