Following up to my previous post, I’m really curious what your go-to method is for baking a single sourdough loaf.
Currently, I’m using a Dutch oven (cast-iron pot) and a spray bottle to add some extra moisture to the dough. But definitely getting mix results.
Drop a comment below. Let’s learn from each other 👇
I’ve had great results with the cast iron Dutch oven method. Looking at your previous thread, I don’t think you should be trying to match your steam oven methods 1:1 with the Dutch oven. Instead, focus on dialing in what works for each method. However, I haven’t used a stream oven myself though, so I can’t really compare.
My experience has been that sourdough has a lot of different steps you don’t necessarily need to do, but each one helps make the end result better and better. The biggest leaps for me were using a tall cambro container to accurately judge rising times, and putting the dough in a banneton in the fridge overnight prior to baking to form a better crust.
I’ve found that a set recipe for bread doesn’t give the same results every time. The temperature in the room, the humidity, the activity of the starter, and probably a dozen other factors, all affect the final loaf.
I use the ingredients as a starting point and adjust the dough as needed during the initial mix, and as long as everything feels right at that point, the final result should be good.
Of course, in a non industrial setting, all loaves are going to have a little variation, and you can learn to embrace it.
@LastYearsPumpkin @Dontbesourdough
Also, the flour is never quite the same as it was previously: it gets affected by age, packing, storage, humidity…For me, making a loaf is always a science experiment. Even when I make loaves in the bread machine with identical quantities as previously the result can be different.
I had a bread machine decades ago but gave it to my neighbor because it drove me crazy, I was incapable of making bread without seeing and touching it. It was a Schrodinger’s box, put ingredients in and sometimes get passable bread, sometimes not. No way to tell until the end. I hated it.
The neighbor loved it though.
@RBWells
I bake both in the machine and the oven. They create different types of loaf. The machine is also useful for kneading and the first rise of dough for my focaccia. Like any tool, they have their uses, strengths, and weaknesses.
Modern bread machines are more multi-use than earlier ones: they can be used to make jam, yogurt, sourdough starter, dough, pasta dough, even rice wine.
True,
Do you bake the loaf in an oven? Or do you use a Cast Iron pot?
I do the bulk of the baking in a lidded, cast iron pan, then a couple minutes with the lid off to brown up the crust.
I do not add water to the cast iron pan at any point.
My dough is always refrigerated for at least 8 hours before I bake, so the dough is pretty firm at the start of the bake.
I do 2 loaves, not one, but yes results vary. For “the sourdough” (as my kids call it, to distinguish it from the other breads I bake with the starter) yep, cold dough into searing hot cast iron dutch oven. Almost always an overnight rest in the refrigerator.
The biggest change for me was being more intentional about shaping the loaves before putting them in the baskets for overnight rise.
As others have already said, using a standardized process won’t get you standardized results because the flour, the temperature of the room, the humidity, your body temperature, your starter, none of these are precisely the same every time. But in general if the dough strengthens and rises, I get a good result when it bakes. Not always a spectacular result, but rarely a brick doorstop.
Nice! Do you freeze one?
Can you elaborate on the biggest change in shaping the loafs?
Thanks!
No, I have a family so it all gets eaten. And before I did sourdough, my experience was with no knead bread (which you just sort of dump into the pot) and loaves where the pan was doing the heavy lifting (I still make those sometimes) so I was casual about shaping.
Now I try to get the loaves tight before putting them in the banneton. Pinch all the seams as I am shaping, not just the final ones. Will flatten gently and reshape if needed, instead of trying to preserve the rise I err on the side of getting a good tight(ish) shape, most of the time.
My best method is cast iron dutch oven preheated 15 minutes at 450°F, and instead of spraying, I add a 30g ice cube. This gives better blistering and it’s easier to plop a pre older ice cube than to maneuver a sprayer around hot iron. Lid on for 20 minutes.
I bake two at a time on a baking steel in an open oven with steam trays at the bottom, and for the initial part of the bake because it is an electric oven I plug the vents with foil to keep the steam in as I can’t turn off convection on this oven.
