You can read about this in detail in my free book called “The Sourdough Framework”. You can get it here: breadco.de/book. You can support the project with a donation, but there is absolutely no knead. I believe information like this should be free and accessible to everyone. The book is made for everyone who wants to understand the important details when making sourdough bread. Thank you!
I gave up on sour dough after baking what I called bricks. This video showed me where I may have gone wrong since they were very sour bricks. I’m now inspired to try again.
So after almost three years, I really thought I was doing pretty well with my sourdough loaves. Then I watched this and tried a few minor changes. My loaves look gourmet now!!! Thank you so much!
Thank you for so generously and honestly sharing your experiences baking sourdough bread. I really enjoy your videos! I have been trying to learn the art of making 100% whole wheat sourdough for over 7 months with many frisbees to show for it. Today I baked my first beautiful whole wheat loaf with very good oven spring without a pan. Not as beautiful as your loaves, but a huge step in the right direction. Your teaching on gluten development and starter acidity was a game changer.
Dear Hendrik, thank you for the detailed explanations in your videos! My sourdough has gone from you-wouldn't-call-that bread to beautiful loaves. You are a blessing!
For me, the fridge proofing is a life (bread) saver! I have some physical health issues and often times can’t get out of bed at least until I’ve taken my meds and they’ve started working. A lot of doughs have been overproofed this way 😅 also investing in a Dutch oven was one of the best choices I’ve made.
Twin! I’m so sorry to hear you’re in the same situation I am but I’m also taking comfort that I’m not alone. Just because we’re sick doesn’t mean we can’t contribute! I’m so excited to try fridge proofing as well! I hope yours went really well! Love and prayers ❤
after 2 failed attempts I just baked my first real bread, thanks to finding your tips! it even got an ear and blisters! I still made some mistakes along the way and had to improvise, but that was easier since I knew what I was looking for thanks to your videos 😅
Your English is so superior to my German. Back in the day, I spent a good bit of time in Berlin and Vienna and thought I was doing pretty well, but you’re wonderful.
I always enjoy your instructions. I bake almost every day, and just give them out to friends and neighbors. Great therapy . I enjoy your passion. The Polish baker, Chicago Chris
@@the_bread_code Yes, it's a good thing you showed this!! I somehow thought that if I used MORE 'feed' ( :5:5) it would be a weaker mix, because it had more flour and water, and less actual starter. Turns out it's the total opposite... so I really appreciate this video. THANKS!
I really enjoy your whole channel ☺️ My fermentation improved 100%! Tbh, I quitted Sd baking due to disappointing results/lack of free time. Seeing this vid made me start again 🙌 because I see so much I can improve on.
I've been making sourdough bread for about four months now, and am never ecstatic about my results, yet I always end up (like most people)with bread that tastes from good to great. This is largely because I bake breads that range from 70% - 100% whole grain. I've always had a challenge handling dough (compared to watching your videos) and I never get the spring that you get. Finally I broke down last week and made a bread that is 70% bread flour and 30% Einkorn flour. The dough handling was so much easier, and the spring and crumb were fantastic. Now, it's not nearly as healthy as whole grain bread, but it was a lovely treat nonetheless. Thanks for all of your tips.
Moin Brian. Awesome! I definitely think the kind of whole wheat plays a major importance too. I was in Bavaria last week and learned about the different quality of wheat. We have E-wheat, Elite wheat. It has more sun and thus can develop more protein. This way it can be inflated way more. I recommend you to give this a shot. I am still working on making better whole wheat bread.
@@ThatGuy-dj3qr Never tried spelt yet. I have too much to learn with wheat haha. But with modern spelt being a hybrid of wheat and spelt the recipes should be quite similar. Let me know how it goes! Cheers.
Such an excellent video!! I love the scientific approach to analyse exactly what is going on with the dough and how to correct common problems. I baked my first sourdough loaf last weekend, and although it wasn't an all out disaster, there is definitely some room for improvement. Your video has given me lots of ideas for how I can up my sourdough game!
Amazing video! Baking a good round dough is currently my greatest challenge in sourdough bread baking. I appreciate the wisdom and knowledge you share here. Sending you good vibes from Texas.
Moin and Gluten Tag. Check out my full sourdough starter from A-Z here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NMglhwp2lNs.html. No starter yet? Check out this tutorial: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZTHHI0iuamA.html. Other than that I have added some more info and links into the description. I would be curious to know - what is the tip that has been a game changer for you?
I've been researching sourdough and doing my own experiments trying to improve my frisbees since March. My own game changer was putting a bowl or large roasting pan over the loaf on the pizza stone, the other steps I was using to get steam in my oven had been less than reliable and a lot more effort than just flipping a cover over my loaf.
A lower hydration seems to work for me. But creating steam in the oven is a challenge for me. So most are Dutch oven baked. I am practicing the higher hydrations because I haven't been confident in handling it. Going to keep trying.
@@ArizonaBorn1358 I just tried 80% for my usual 50% white 50% whole wheat flour and I don't think I overproofed it because I did a 70% batch with additions that probably added 3-5% moisture concurrently and the 70+% one was nice and tall, the 80% one the same height but maybe 50% bigger footprint. Haven't cut in to check the crumb structure yet (they're only just out of the oven) but I'm sure they'll be as open as I usualy get. Keep playing with moisture levels till you find what works best for your flour and methods, my optimum with what I'm doing seems to be around 75%.
Thank you!! Finally not a frisbee - not perfect, but definitely bread-shaped, which cannot be said of the previous five iterations. Now all i have to figure out is which one of the steps did the trick lol
Moin Krisztina, lol, I had to type your name 3 times until I got it right 🤣. Where are you from? I'd say that 80% is the fermentation on time, everything else helps, but is not the driving factor. Please let me know when you did some more experiments. Thanks!
OH gawd. Mine has always been frisbee. Now that I have found your channel, I am learning loads from you and will updated again when I am successful at this. Ah wish me luck!
Overproofing was my biggest issue for quite some time till i realized that its not really the goal to get an inflated balloon in the proofing stage^^ thought that it wasnt overfermented cause i had 0 issues with sticking nor with sourness as i usually feed my starter just white flour -> mild taste, less sourness :) now i know better :) fully inflated balloon -> pops in the oven aaaand -> 🥏, semi inflated balloon (optimal fermentation -> expands in the oven -> great ovenspring 👌
You want that fully inflated ballon before the bake. You have many tiny balloons in your crumb, they should be inflated as much as possible. If you however overdo it, then they will pop before the bake, and your dough collapses again. Then during the bake they will increase in size even more and eventually pop. But that's good in that case, since the structure is persisted with the heat. During the shaping stage you have to be careful, if you pop them, you will even out your crumb. If you shape too tight, you will destroy the surface of your dough. Hope this makes sense :-). I'd say the most important point is the on-point fermentation.
The Bread Code jup in my case i used to proof it to max volume which just harmed my dough strength (i guess i overdid it😅) and made it semi-collapse in the first few minutes in the oven. Not quite a frisbee but also no instagram loaf 🙂
Hahah. Been there so many times! You can take a bread like that and make "Knödel" out of it. We Germans love that kind of dish. Plus, sourdough Knödel, even better.
I have been baking frisbees so far.. looks like I just add too much starter at the beginning and also use too much water so I’ll be adjusting that. Also thank you for showing how the dough should feel and look when you overproof etc. This is going to be very helpfull. I am a good cook but turn out a Terrible baker.
The 1.5.5 ratio worked for me! Thank you for the tip. One thing though: I scooped out a sample from the dough to watch it double. It never did. My dough did, fortunately, and I relied on my past experience of bulk fermentation.
Moin Anna Moï, you are most welcome! Feel free to reach out with more questions at any time. Interesting. I am wondering why it did not? Maybe the temperatures were different? Or the starter has not been properly mixed? Could also be the shape of the container. Here is this is the best trick I am using to continously make amazing bread 😎
I have started baking sourdough six month from now and with your methods, it did not just rise... it have a nice ear and the pimples. I used to make frisbee almost every time without knowing why, tasted amazing anyway. I know now thats a too acidic starter, overfermentation and not enough surface tension. Thanks you soo much, I'm very happy!
I have struggled with achieving dependable rise in my breads since the pandemic (and my sourdough bread baking) began. I was almost at the point of giving up. I refuse to bake bread exclusively from white flour, but I also don't want a 600 gram brick. First I cut back from 100% whole grain to 77%, but still had issues. Then I cut back to 50% whole grain, but still had problems with consistency. This was when I really lost confidence. Then I bought a stand mixer, ostensibly for my wife (who likes to bake desserts). I began using the stand mixer for about 6-8 minutes aas I introduce starter and salt into the dough (after a 2-3 hour autolyse). I am finally getting a consistent rise and a nice open crumb with 60% whole grain breads. Now I will start bumping that up to see what my upper limit will be. Maybe I am already there. Time will tell. I finally got my mojo working. 😁
Moin Brian. That's great to hear. So in your case kneading seems to have done the trick. Try doing an overnight autolyse on your next bread, it adds a lot of strength as well to the dough and contributes to a more open crumb.
@@the_bread_code I tried an overnight autolyse but lost some of my oven spring. It would seem that two-three hours is optimal for my flour mix (44% whole Spelt, 44% enriched white flour, and 12% whole rye). I have read where rye is best not autolysed so I am trying to achieve a compromise on my time.
This is so helpful. I like how you give the rationale for what you do. Your instructions on shaping are particularly helpful. "Gluing the bread together' is a helpful framework. I've been under-gluing.
Moin Gi2110, wow, thank you so much for the nice words. That truly means a lot. Please at any time reach out with more questions. Cheers from Hamburg and greetings to Argentina.
@@the_bread_code Ohhhh Hamburg, I love that city so much, it's beautiful! I used to have a boyfriend from Hamburg many years ago and I went to visit him once, he lived near Bolivarpark... As regards sourdough I have sooooooo many questions I might explode like a loaf without scoring. I should watch all your videos in some kind of logical order. I have an American neighbor who introduced me to your videos. We're still in lockdown in Buenos Aires so he left a bag with sourdough bread and a jar with sourdough hanging from my door and he sent me a link to your video "the last sourdough recipe..." 😁 It was like having a baby without even having been pregnant or thinking about adopting! Suddenly I had a baby to look after and I didn't know anything. This was about 4 loaves of bread ago (or 1 month). I'm happy of having been introduced to this awesome world. This bread is perfect for our national infusion, "mate."
@@Gi2110 Awesome. Glad you enjoyed the city. Haha, wow, that's a good recommendation by your neighbour, thank him for that from me, very nice! There is so much to learn, so much to experiment. The wild yeast makes it interesting and challenging. Every sourdough is somewhat unique and you have to experiment and try. I love it. At any time please feel free to reach out with questions!
Thanks for the video. I think I managed to get it like yours during the stretch and fold section although slightly more wet. I am doing about 70% hydration. What I am struggling with is after the bulk rise where the dough seems to have lost all strength when put on the table. I am guessing over proofing. I have done that by mistake several times now. What I end up is me swearing trying to somewhat transfer something into the banneton!
@@the_bread_code I work in a kitchenware shop sometimes, and customers often ask me to help them solve their sourdough problems. Well, now I will refer them to your channel without hesitation. Tschüß
So all the six steps before did not ruin the dough nearly as much as step 7? Like you do in most videos, you need to see the impacked of each step isolated.
I too am beginning to get better results after taking much of your input and watching a lot of various videos and bakers and trying to distill it all into a process that works for me. My perspective is that there are so many important steps and each can be a point of failure (or bad technique) so if you are inattentive it’s easy to get bad results, each step along the way matters and you gotta up your game as much as possible. I just recently realized how important the Pre & Shaping is to Oven Spring. Also, you don’t mention oven temperature but I have seen ranges from 425 to 500 degrees but for me, baking Very Hot is best. Also, keeping a log of each step with times and dough temperature helps… Thanks for your great content.
Keeping a log of each sourdough bake you do, as many variables as you can stand to record and keep doing it each time, and results, is one of the most important things you can do for your sourdough baking. Even if you make what you consider to be perfect now, one day a loaf may come out of your oven that is an entire tier above it, and you will want to know what caused it.
I love the technical details. I also appreciate how this technique is different from what we do in the USA. However, homemade bread is like pizza - it’s ALL good, just some may be better than others.
The Bread Code Actually it was my ignorance. I knew only recipes where flour, water, and starter were added together as “step 1.” I have since seen a different method on youtube, which is the same as yours. ❤️ 🍞❤️
This video was very helpful. I finally followed your recommended 1:5:5 sourdough ratio and got a solid result despite my challenging flour mix. At the beginning of the quarantine, we bought 25 pound bags each of rye, spelt and whole wheat, but it was hard to find all purpose flour. We now can buy all purpose, but we are trying to use up all of that high protein flour. Lately, I have been making my bread using 40% all purpose, 20% spelt, 20% whole wheat and 20% rye, with a hydration between 75% and 80%. The dough is always sticky and hard to work, but the bread tastes quite good and reminds me of a German Mischbrot. And now finally I got some good oven spring after following your advice in this video. Recently, we have started using some of the rye flour to make your Schwarzbrot recipe (meine Frau kommt aus Mecklenburg), but I wonder if you have suggestions about how we can use our spelt, rye and whole wheat flour without having such sticky dough. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here is the latest result. Shaping and scoring could have been better, but overall I am pretty pleased (und noch wichtiger meine Ehefrau ebenso). photos.app.goo.gl/hoz9nn6g9Jjx5JRf7 photos.app.goo.gl/s9HLVL5CgsP3Tk8PA
Moin David. You nailed it, 2 beautiful loaves! Well done. My rye bread typically has around 65% hydration, just as a reference. Rye in general is quite tricky, even when milling it it sometimes creates a sticky mess in the actual mill. Rye is the hardest grain to mill. When mixing the dough it also becomes very sticky, this is normal. One consideration you could do is, go for around 90% hydration. The dough will be quite watery. Rather than proofing the dough in a banneton, proof it in a loaf pan. I love the high hydration, it makes an excellent chewy crumb. Hope this helps. Cheers.
Love you video. Been self teaching my self sourdough. I can make a great frisbee and a great loaf pan. Can’t wait to try your methods! I really appreciate it.
Amazingly thorough video. Really appreciate the side by side comparison. Been running my own experiments for baguettes testing different factors. Very interesting!
Moin Tomcha, thanks a bunch, you are most welcome. I feel the side by side makes it easier to understand. What are your best tips for baguettes? I still struggle with them. I proof them in a linen, but I never get that beautiful ear.
I'm just a beginner and don't know if I can offer anything you don't already know. I've just begun testing different flour to water ratio, warm vs cool water, activating yeast vs straight into the mix, proof lengths, fold vs kneading, baking temp, etc... Basic stuff. I think I might try your method of testing in small jars with rubber bands. Great idea!
Hi! Great video, but it would be easier to follow if you named each dough (eg good dough, bad dough) and put it in writing on the screen when you worked on either one :)
Moin! Thanks for all the dedication you are putting into this. One more thing, you said we can use the discarded sour starter to bake a delicious bread too. Could you share the link, please!? Thanks!!!
Danke endlich hab ich es rausgedunden. Beim Shaping, also beim zusammenrollen zuwenig Druck/Spannung gegeben seither explodieren die Brote. Keine Änderung am Rezept und Fermentation. Yeahhhh ich bin glücklich.
Thank you for your amazing videos they have helped a lot of people including me! 1) When proofing in the fridge can we bake the dough right after we take it out or it has to be in room temperature? 2) what if we immediately shape the dough after kneading it and put it in the banneton to ferment and proof at the same time?
Hey George. Excellent questions. 1) It should be directly baked out of the fridge. It is still cold. 2) Then it wouldn't ferment enough. It wouldn't be as airy as it could be :-)
Maybe make a video where you show what happens if you make only one of those mistakes. Would be easier to troubleshoot, if you know the results of every different mistake
Do you feel like if you had baked that overproofed high hydration loaf with the lid (steam) it would have done better? That severely limits oven spring in my experience.
Thank you a lot for your tips. I have baked three or four loaves of sourdough bread so far but they haven't been as good as I've wanted. I hope I'll make some progress in my home bakery due to your film.
Hi! excellent video. I have a question: whats the best way to check the final fridge proof timing? May I have to see a double volume in the final proof too? The 'finger test' seems a little tricky. Thanks in advance
Hi Jose. Excellent question. The finger poke test is tricky, but give it a shot. It will enable you to have a much better understanding for the proofing stage. I am not sure about the size increase, I have not measured this. If you do some experiments please let me know, I would love to see the results 😎
Amazing as always. Since I see your videos my bread has increased quality. Main things I've learnt with you not to overproof and cover bread with pirex bowl (in my case) to guarantee humidity.
Your example frisbee was still better than my worst 2. I had one that spread out over a pizza pan and only baked up about 2". I had another one I tried in my low-end Dutch Oven that can only handle oven temps to 350 F due to composite handles; it was slightly higher but basically looked like a cake.
Haha. Thank you. You will get there. Spend extra attention on the fermentation process. Try opting for a 50% size increase during the bulk fermentation. It should help a lot!
This video shows your great dedication to sourdough and it’s very well appreciated, but honestly I found your video misleading in many aspects. A 95% hydration with 1,1,1 is perfectly possible, you just need to give it a different timing and a different process than a 65% hydration dough. Also calling it the bad dough from the beginning together with a bad process such as over proofing it and baking it with no steam. Just the fact of being 30% more hydrated, It does not rise as a lower hydration dough because is heavier but this does not make it a bad dough a taller bread is not necessarily better. It would be great if you could do a head to head experiment explaining the proper process of each dough with different starter ratios but with same hydration or a dough with sane starter ratio but more hydration. Anyway, you’re a very talented youtuber but just wanted to point this thing out, specially to new bakers. Cheers!
Moin J G. Thanks for the excellent comment. I agree, a ceteris paribus approach would have been better. My main goal was to show the different mistakes that people do in each step :-). The aspects I was looking at for determining a good dough were: 1) Oven Spring, 2) Crumb and 3) Crust. But I totally agree with you, this depends on every individual baker. This is just what I personally enjoy. Cheers from Hamburg.
This was helpful. Thank you. I'm still trying to make a good loaf from high-hydration dough. I got cocky and tried 80% hydration, and ended up with a flat blob!
The sky is the limit! Oder in meinem Fall der Deckel vom Schmortopf. Dank deiner Tips ist mein Brot erstmals beim backen so weit hoch gegangen dass der Topf zu klein war!
Hello from Canada😁! First of all thank you for a wonderful, extremely helpful educational videos. Two questions, do you use rye starter for this particular recipe? And what if the best starter , in you opinion and experience, to use for wheat and rye/wheat breads?
Moin Victoria, thanks for the excellent question. Yes, it is rye that I use mostly, just because I like the taste. You can definitely use a wheat starter too. Rye works well as it has more yeast on the hull. This makes it easier to setup a healthy rye starter. But you could do the same with wheat. Wheat has easier baking properties, so baking with a rye starter is a little more challenging :-)
I love your channel man - this has helped me more than the most popular people on YT that get more credit for their few sourdough vids. That said you gave me confidence to try again today, - your frisbee is still 2-3x the oven spring than mine, which when cut looks like a biscotti LOL... that’s what I get for trying with 85% hydration on my first two attempts. I just have this thing where I need seeds in my bread so I thought doing a higher hydration would be good so the seeds can soak up moisture and theoretically bring it down to a lower hydration but it’s too pro for my nonexistent bread shaping techniques. Wish me luck on today! Subscribing & binging your vids now!
Moin Brumle. I feed the starter 1:5:5 in the evening, then use it directly in the morning. If your starter is too slow, you can reduce to 1:3:3, if it is too fast, try 1:6:6, or 1:7:7 (depends on your temperature too). Then you can mix all directly in the morning :-). Make sure to use the sample jar to closely monitor when the dough is done fermenting.
I appreciate the idea of using less madre with the starter. It must be a great thing, but for now it's making my bread into frisbees. I had nice puffy bread with 1:1:1 before. Maybe I need to wait more?
@@deneb3552 Maybe not. I learned over the years that the starter is a living thing and it gets more and more active up to a certain point. My starter is a few years old and I have to admit I'm not doing anything scientific with it - it sits in the fridge, sometimes for weeks, completely ignored and then I feed it every now and then or I bake a bread when needed. I always used to put a good measure (like a 2-3-3 or so) into my baking but over time the starter got so active that is chews that up in an hour or two. I was able to do 8 hour bulk ferments in 90 degrees (F) and still get a nice oven spring a and open crum. Today, not so much anymore, after 4 hours in 90 degrees the dough almost runs out of the pot like a pancake batter. My tip - follow his tips and make your starter stiff. I had success with starters that go sour quickly by using less hydration for the starter. So something with 1 part starter, 2 part flour and 1.5 part water (or even just 1 part water) will give you something very stiff, but the lack of "liquidity" will favor the yeast in your starter and not the bacteria, so you get something very active but not something very sour that affects your gluten structure.
Hallo and thank you for your amazing videos . I have a very strong starter , almost 3 years old . Until now I feed it with 1:1:1. My breads came out very good until 2-3 months . Now they become a little stiff. This is why I will now try your method. One question please : when comes the salt ? Thank you, we will be in touch
There's so many videos on building dough strength, but if your dough already had a window pane effect after autolyze because you're using flour with 15.5% protein, is not really helpful. It's an entirely different story with the flour that's readily available in Germany with around 10g of protein.
Haha. Yes. That's also one of my messages, flour is king. It's the single most important ingredient together with your starter. Check out: blog.the-bread-code.io/tutorial/2020/08/20/sourdough-flour-in-germany.html for my flour. Also - I have had great success with T550 Aurora with 12% protein, I just went for roughly 60-65% hydration. The bread was amazing too.
@@the_bread_code Did you say you feed your sourdough overnight to be ready to use in the morning? mmmh, mine takes 4 hours to double so I would have to creep out of bed in the middle of the night...
Moin Bread code, thank you for this and masterclass sourdough video. That did the trick with oven spring for me! :) Would you help me figure out what accounts for that blistery shiny crust ? My sourdough usually ends up with very tiny, practically invisible bubbles and lack some of the shine on the crust comparing to your good bread.
Moin Olga. The trick is to ferment on point. The bubbles come from a lot of water during the bake, low temperature at the start (fridge proofing) and then the perfect fermentation. Focus mostly on the fermentation process and it should get better :-)
I note this clip is now over a year old so don’t know if you will get to read this. At one stage you said that for the 1:1:1 dough that there was more acid than for the 1:5:5 dough. The ratio of yeast to acid/bacteria remains the same no matter at what ratio you add the starter. One thing that you have altered is the ratio of fresh flour to starter. Therefore I am not sure that we can say that one preparation is more acid than another. I think we can say that when you activated your starter you provided five times more food to one preparation than the other. The one with more food per initial starter will therefore take longer to consume all the food. So I would say that the 1:1:1 will be ready to mix in with the rest of the ingredients to start the bulk fermentation of your dough. I think overall the greatest difference was made by over proofing the 1:1:1 dough. Food for thought!
Excellent video. Glad I found your channel. Wanting to start sourdough. Think I'll be binge watching your channel before I give it a go. Thank you for sharing!
Great question. At room temperature. In my experience having the dough for 24 hours at room temperature works very well. After that the seed starts sprouting and this pretty much converts the flour too much. Hope this helps 👍
I've never heard of someone feeding their starter the night before and using it after it has reached its peak and started deflating. Yet those loafs look perfect...
Servus! This is the video to watch! I was not getting that you take one part starter from your main sourdough starter jar and then add 5 parts flour and 5 parts water. I had been pulling the starter straight from the main starter. That is the single most helpful tip for me. Vielen Dank!
so this means the expensive 'sourdough' bread I have been buying from the supermarket and thought was good quality is actually not that great since it is kind of flat...
It depends a little bit on the kind of bread. If it is rye, then that is normal. For wheat based I think yes, it might not be that good. Whole wheat is a different story.
Rounds of applauds here please!! You really hit points where is the sweet spot and isn’t. Although I want to have a heads up; hydration is not the exact factor to a frisbee loaf. It would be a bit tricky to tell whether the dough is over-fermented since it tends to look like one for beginners, I found high-water content actually helps to speed up bulk fermentation step which is efficient but nothing else. I’ve been in journey of making sourdough for two years so now I finally graduate learner’s stage, all I want to share I’ve obtain from the past is: 1. Play strong on your starter game by using fibery, high in protein flour i.e. rye, spelt or even plain wholewheat, 2. Be keen to control temperature during whole process and care to use a thermometer every seconds so as to boost the sense of what environment and setting around you is optimal. Anyway thanks for great content and video, please keep more of those coming!! Love from NZ
Moin. Thanks for the feedback and points. Yes, you are right. High hydration works, if you add enough dough strength. But both in combination will lead to a frisbee. On the thermometer, yes, you are right too. That's a great suggestion. Especially to understand how important temperature is in the whole process. I prefer to use the small sample hack these days, it makes things a lot simpler. This paired with finger poking really allows me to ferment on point in most cases. I'd also add the overnight autolyse has helped me to make more open crumb bread.
I couldn’t agree more with you on the autolyse process!!! It enables fermentation to proceed within the exact anticipated time and dough strength. My latest batch was actually on a wee test in regards of oven spring and tall-looking loaves, I made three boules out of one bulk and baked one straight away after bulk fermentation as I couldn’t wait for a tasting :) Even though it was about 75% risen which was totally fine to have a proper oven spring, it came out about half way between frisbee and a lovely eared one haha and I baked 18hr retard boule following day morning and it was tall as. 24hr retard boule was also fantastic with more chewy, lacey crumbs but less sour taste which surprised me frankly. I genuinely look forward to watching many experienmental videos in the future to get help with :) thanks heaps
I just took my sourdough from the oven, I followed everything well, but there isn't much ear, maybe my knife wasn't sharp enough or didn't cut deep enough? Would you plz take a look at it? I have a photo of it on my Instagram and fb. ( Soulpainter 777) thankyou so much for your wonderful videos and your endearing laugh🥰
Moin Debbie Ventimiglia, you are most welcome! I just checked, I think you did not ferment the dough long enough. Did you extract a sample? That's really a great way to make sure that your bread has fermented long enough. I would recommend to do a 50% size increase first, then work your way up to 100%. It depends on the protein in your flour.
