Want to learn how to bake high hydration sourdough bread? Check out this video!
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High hydration is a popular topic among people sharing the interest of baking naturally leavened #sourdough bread. With a lot of water juicy bread with an open crumb can be achieved. It looks good, tastes great and rocks your world when you knock it off.
It is just this tiny thing - sticky #dough is not the easiest to deal with at start. Add a lot of whole grain to that and you will probably end up with a sadly looking flat piece of #bread you wish you never attempted baking. Thankfully there are methods at hand to deal with these troubles. For me this kind of bake was not possible when I started out baking about a year ago. Fortunately, thanks to social media and people sharing their skills, I have now mastered a few methods that makes all the difference. Combine these methods and boom - you got yourself a great bread which also is really pleasing to bake. I want to share some of these methods with you.
DOUGH RECIPE
Starter:
Mature starter (no feeding 5-6 days), 100% hydration, fed two times (1:6:6 + 1:5:5) before bake. Flour used is 50% whole grain wheat.
Dough:
200g freshly milled Emmer, whole wheat
200g Öland wheat, whole wheat
600g bread flour
870g water
25g salt
200g active sourdough
In total:
1100g flour, 970g water (88%), 450g whole grain (41%).
All mixing was made with the Rubaud method. Room temperature during bake was 22°C.
Method:
Add flour and water, mix 1 min. Wrap/cover bowl and autolyse for 1h 40 min. Add active sourdough, mix 2 min. Add salt, mix 6-7 min. Wrap, pause 35 min. Final mix 3 min. Transfer dough to tight container, I like to use a square shaped. Perform coil folds until you get a nice tight package, cover container and let the dough rest. After 1h perform new series of coil folds (shown in video). Pause 1h 15 min. Spray work surface + hand with water. Laminate dough as shown, keep dough covered. Bulk (time from adding salt) in total 4 hours. At end of bulk the dough surface should appear somewhat bubbly. Carefully transfer the dough to the work surface minding not to degas the dough. Split in half. Preshape dough as carefully as possible, aim for good surface tension. Cover dough(s) with linen cloths. Bench rest 55 min. Perform final shaping, again minding not to degas the dough. Prepare banneton(s) with dusted linen cloths. I use a 50/50 mix of rice flour/bread flour when dusting. Transfer dough to banneton and close/reinforce seams as shown in video. Wrap banneton and place in fridge at 3°C. Retard dough until you wish to bake, this time 21 hours. A longer proof gives the final loaf a more complex flavour. Cold dough also makes scoring a lot easier. Anyhow, when ready to bake preheat your oven, with a dutch oven in place, to 250-260°C. Gently empty the chilled dough onto parchment paper and score your favourite design. Check out @breadjourney for inspiration. Transfer the scored dough to your dutch oven, cover with lid and place in oven. Lower temperature and bake at 240°C 10 min and 230°C 15 min. Remove lid (and parchment paper if you like) and finish bake at 220-230°C until the crust turns golden brown. A deep colour enriches flavour (and looks awesome 😎). Transfer to cooling rack and wait at least 45 min before cutting into the loaf. I tend to wait 3-4 hours (or over night) before opening the bread. Open prematurely release previous moist and interferes with the final ripening of the loaf. So hold back just a bit, it’s worth the wait! 🌾
Good luck!
A special thanks, for sharing their skills and techniques, goes to:
Full Proof Baking: /channel/UCym_8JHA4htlFLIHGpNZGrQ
Trevor J Wilson: /channel/UCRK2AFfEfjhFcpYtu44Uzvw
Anna Gabur: /channel/UC6D4XkM0YcvLacNFrhNDR4w