Nineteen things I've learned from six years of experimentation with whole grain and wild yeast

 

In 2017, I posted an article on what I'd learned after three years of trial and error with baking whole grain sourdough bread.  It's now 2020, and as I predicted, I kept on experimenting and have grown wiser.  So here, after another three+ years is the updated wisdom. 

 I had been baking no-knead bread since Mark Bittman popularized the technique he learned from Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York in 2006. All purpose (or bread) flour, water, salt, and a measly quarter teaspoon of instant yeast. Time—24 hours. A little attention once in awhile and bake in a super-hot covered dutch oven that brought a spectacular oven spring and crackling crust. The result was an incredible bread that rivaled any local bakery. Friends and family would ooh and aah.

Pretty soon I’d moved on from white flour to a 50-50 mixture of whole wheat and white bread flour. This was more robust as well as healthier, but it never quite rivaled the airiness and taste of a white flour loaf, but really didn’t want all that refined white flour. I would experiment now and then with different flours, checked out Jim Lahey’s book “My Bread”, but didn’t go beyond.

Michael Pollan’s book “Cooked” came out in 2013—a transformational book about the transformational nature of cooking. It is a cookbook with four recipes, one per chapter: fire, water, air, and earth – the ancient four elements. The “air” chapter concludes with a recipe for sourdough bread and was inspired. Sourdough is not just an alternative to commercial yeast, but also transforms (there’s that word again) the wheat so that it is more digestible and nutrients are more available. In short, sourdough bread is healthier. And it tastes good.

I made my own sourdough starter, which just needed a little patience and a little attention. I read books, some of which were confusing and some overly prescriptive. The time commitment seemed intrusive—when was I supposed to go to work? But I got over the hump, and now I’m a bona fide bread nerd who sometimes grinds his own grain, feeds his sourdough like a pet, and gets a little downcast when I resort to bought bread because my old bread ran out before I could create another loaf.

My sourdough starter is now over six years old. I’ve learned a few things along the way.

The most important lesson is that there are as many different ways to bake sourdough bread as there are bakers, and that once you get a feel for it, it’s hard to mess up. One loaf may be a little better or worse than the last, but the bread is most likely to be very good.

So, to help you get from the “there’s so much information out there, I’m overwhelmed” stage to the, “OK, I’m ready to give this a try, and I can’t mess up too badly” stage, here are some of the lessons that I learned, as of today.  Since I keep experimenting, tomorrow I'll be even wiser.  

(Note--this introduction is pretty much the same as three years ago).

No knead bread is an excellent way to get started.

1. Getting Started. No-knead bread is an excellent gateway. If you love making it, by all means continue. And if you’ve never baked, it’s a great place to start.
2. References. There are some tremendous references, some easier to understand than others. Start with one, but try others – there are different approaches. I heartily recommend Josey Baker Bread for its good humor, relaxed approach that encourages flexibility and experimentation. The website http://www.thefreshloaf.com/ is a great online community of bread bakers. And breadtopia.com, has great, detailed instructional videos as well as a terrific online store to get baking supplies such as the clay baker and oven gloves, as well as an active, informative, and welcoming forum.
   
3. Learn from doing. At first, it pays to adhere strictly to the formulas and the methods, but you’ll eventually get a feel for what works well for you and be confident enough to branch out.
4. Be prepared to have some crummy loaves. Try not to be too sad and chalk it up to experience.
5. Timing is flexible, and the refrigerator is your friend. Baking bread takes a lot of clock time, but the active time is not much. You do have to be around at certain milestones, but there’s a lot of flexibility, and the flexibility increases when you make intelligent use of the refrigerator. Creating a baking schedule that works around your other commitments takes a little forethought, and a little experimentation on weekends when you can commit to being around, so that you can get a feel for where you can push and pull the schedule.
6. Temperature matters. Pay attention to the temperature in your kitchen (or wherever you let your dough rise). I got the timing down on my go-to loaf one winter, and then spring sprung, and the warmer temperatures led to more yeast activity. By the time I got the loaf in the over it was tuckered out, over-proofed, and I had flat tops on my loaf. There’s a big difference between a 63 degree kitchen and a 75 degree kitchen!
7. When experimenting, change only one thing at a time. If you want to have any idea of the effect of different ingredients, ratios, and techniques. This is way harder than it sounds. Taking good notes will help you remember what worked and didn’t, and provide a basis for what to try next. I used a spreadsheet until I got a good feel for what I was doing. And ultimately, just try some new things and see how they turn out and don’t stress about it too much.
8. Making Sourdough Starter. Making sourdough takes a little faith and patience but once you have a starter, it’s pretty hard to kill. After awhile, you get to know how to treat your starter so it so is ready when you are. I learned how to make starter from Peter Reinhardt’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, but there are lots of places to show you how. I use rye starter. With low gluten, it’s less messy and easier to handle than wheat flour. You can also buy starter online, or now in the midst of COVID-19, you probably have a friend that has one to share--ask around!
   
9. Sourdough care and feeding. I use a teaspoon to a tablespoon worth of starter each time I bake, and then if the starter is looking reasonably active, just toss the remainder back in the fridge in a covered container until the next time I bake, usually within a week. Every other time I bake, I refresh the starter by removing all but a teaspoon of it, and add 50 grams of water plus 50 grams of flour (rye). Then I leave it on the counter for a few hours to get active, and then toss back in the fridge.
   
10. Skip the levain and the salt-free autolyse. Many techniques call for building a "levain" from your starter and a portion of the flour.  And many also insist that you must not include salt in the dough you build or it will affect the quality of your bread.  These are both steps that I've found I can live without.  I simply take my starter and all the other dough ingredients, mix together, and let "autolyse" for 30 minutes to an hour before creating some gluten structure with the stretch and fold technique.  I've found no discernible difference between this and adding those time consuming steps.  Keep it simple.
    
11. Making two loaves is no harder than making one loaf. If you make two loaves worth of dough, you have a few directions you can go.  
    - You can bake two loaves, and immediately slice one up and put it in the freezer.  This means you don’t have to worry about getting your next loaf baked before you current loaf runs out.  

    - You can also freeze the dough from the second loaf, then, just pull it out, defrost, form into a loaf, and bake.

    - You can split the second loaf into two half-loaf size dough balls and freeze them separately.  Then use it to make flatbread on a sheet pan or rolls in muffin tins at some point in the future.
    

    
    

    

    Making two loaves is no harder than making one loaf.

12. Think ahead. If you want a steady supply of home baked bread, you need to think about the next loaf while you’re still eating your current loaf. Think a few days out. But if you keep a sliced loaf in the freezer, you will always have your own bread around.
13. Sandwich loaves make sense most of the time. Boules (big round loaves of bread) look beautiful. But loaves in loaf pans are a lot easier to handle, taste as good, are less messy, and are also beautiful. You can bake any bread in a loaf pan. With loaf pans, use a light coating of oil on your work surface to shape your loaf instead of flour. It works just as well, and is a lot less fussy and easier to clean up. Stack a second loaf pan upside down on top of the first is a lot easier than covering with a tent of foil.
    
    

    
    

    

    Sandwich loaves make sense most of the time.

14. Clay Baker. The best is getting a clay bread baker for oblong loaves. Superb! Use rice flour for shaping the loaf at the end—it doesn’t get gummy like wheat flour (no gluten) and is easier to clean.
    
    

    

    This covered clay baker makes the best loaves!

15. Whole grain. When I started with sourdough six years ago, the artisanal baking books were oriented towards white flour. But the best books are now moving towards whole grains. Even now, so many formulas include quite a bit of white flour.  I bake exclusively with whole grains, and have been super-pleased with the result. 
16. Fresh milled flour. For awhile a local farm was selling red fife wheat berries at a reasonable price, and I would always grind my own flour.  They stopped showing up at the farmers market a few years ago, so I started using King Arthur whole wheat flour, which results in excellent loaves.  If I can find another reliable local source, I may switch back to grinding.  
     
    

    

    Fresh milled flour is a great option and gives you lots of flexibility with grain types.  That's my little tub of starter in the foreground.
    

    
    

17. Salt and Flavors. A little more or less salt can make a big difference in the taste. Too little, and it’s noticeably bland. Too much, and you just think “salty”. Pay close attention to the salt amount in the formulas. I’ve found that 12 grams for a loaf with 510 grams of flour and 420 grams of water is perfect. That’s 2 percent in bakers percentage terms.
    When it comes to complicated flavors, I like to keep it simple.  My one exception is an occasional hankering for a turmeric and black pepper loaf, pictured at top, that provides an unusual yellow color but with no additional effort.
    
18. Covering the bowl. Some sources say cover your bowl with plastic wrap, a towel, or a plate and some have different covering methods for different stages. I found that the plate works pretty well for all uses, and it’s easier to clean up. The “shower cap” bowl covers from Breadtopia are even better!
    
19. Keep at it. Read books, blogs, articles. Try different formulas, grains and methods. Share your enthusiasm (and sourdough starter) with others.
    
    

    Jeff's Current Go-To Sandwich Loaf

    
    

    Yield: 1 oblong loaf

      Total Time: 23 hours, or more. 

     

    This is my current go-to bread that I don't even have to think about.  Since I do keep experimenting, my current go-to loaf a month from now may well be different. Store the cut loaf cut side down on a cutting board.  Don't wrap in plastic.

     

     Ingredients

    Grams Bakers Percent Notes Rye starter 20 4% Give or take. A teaspoon to a tablespoon depending on how fast I’d like to ferment or weather conditions. Salt 12 2% Water 410 80% Tepid Whole Wheat Flour (King Arthur, or freshly milled hard red) 510 100% Optionally, replace 100 g. with another type of flour. Seeds (flax and/or sesame) 80 16% Hot water for seed soaker 80 16%

Method

 Start in the morning or early afternoon.

1. Mix seeds and hot seed soaker water in a bowl and set aside.

2. Mix water, salt, and starter in a large bowl.

3. When all or most of the seed soaker water is absorbed, add it to the starter bowl and mix.

4. Add flour to the starter bowl, and mix until combined. Cover, and let sit for ½ hour, up to two hours for a modified autolyse.

5. Do 10 aggressive stretch and folds.  After a 1/2 hour, do four gentle stretch and folds, then repeat at 1/2 hour increments.  Note that there's a lot of flexibility in the timing.  If it's 45 minutes or an hour between stretch and folds, that works too!  Don't stress.  Overall, let ferment at room temperature until bed time, then put in the refrigerator overnitght.

6. In the morning, remove from the refrigerator, and do one more set of gentle stretch and folds. Cover and let ferment at room temperature until “doubled in size” or thereabouts. Make sure it’s visibly risen quite a bit. In the summer, this might happen by lunch time. In the winter, by late afternoon or early evening. If it’s cold, put it in the oven with the light on.

7. Form into a loaf following one of two approaches and bake:

• Banneton and clay baker:

  • Dust an oblong banneton and the counter with rice flour.

  • Form dough into a loaf and put seam side up into banneton. Cover banneton with a towel.

  • Preheat oven to 500 degrees (F) (or 475 degrees on convection), with clay baker in the oven.

  • When the oven comes to temperature, pull the clay baker out of the oven (carefully, with sturdy gloves!), open the top, invert the loaf into the baker, make one confident slash along the vertical axis of the loaf, replace the top, and put back in the oven for 30 minutes.

  • At 30 minutes remove the top and bake for 20 more minutes, until the bread is at least an internal temperature of 205 degrees (F) AND it is a deep brown color AND it sounds hollow when thumped. In my experience with my oven, these all happen reliably at the 20 more minutes, but your flour and oven may be different, so pay attention to the clues.

• Loaf pans:

  • Preheat the oven to 500 degrees (F) (475 degrees on convection).

  • Oil one loaf pan and the counter, and form the dough into a loaf.

  • Put the loaf into the prepared pan seam side down, and cover with a second loaf pan.

  • When the oven reaches temperature, make one confident slash down the middle of the vertical axis of the loaf, replace the top, and put into the oven for 30 minutes.

  • Remove the top loaf pan, and bake for another 20 minutes. If you smell any burning during this period, reduce the heat by 25 degrees.

  • When the loaf reaches at least 205 degrees and is deep brown and the loaf sounds hollow when thumped, remove from the oven and from the loaf pan.

8. Let cool for at least 2 hours before slicing.  Resist the temptation—the bread is still baking.

9. Slice, eat, and store on a bread board face side down. It will keep this way for at least a week.