Bread

Wayfair with an interesting discount

I'm using an enamelled cast iron pot at the moment, but it's oval and the lid is on the thin side. It's also serving as a casserole pot and I quite like something dedicated to baking as I find it dries out the cast iron making it a bit shit for cooking. Also like the idea of a shallow bottom and deep lid for even better crusts once the lid is off

Yeah and it's also easier to do your cut on the top with a shallow bottom

This one turned out ok, it's my first sourdough for which I got a decent rise. My starter was pretty sluggish until I included rye flour into its feed, which perked it right up. This loaf is a no-knead sourdough with half white and half rye flour and a couple of tablespoons of treacle. I followed this recipe from breadtopia, but left out the seeds and orange zest. It's quite moist though (as all no-knead loaves seem to be). I'd love to get a slightly drier more open crumb. I'm not sure whether I should just aim for a drier dough, or whether I need to start kneading.

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Staub also make cast iron pots with black interiors; it mimics straight cast but is actually porcelain coated.

Rye holds a lot of water so you often get a wetter, more dense bread so you could try using less rye in your mix and you might get the results you're after. Though tbh your pic looks pretty decent.

I've had good results with 50:50 rye:wheat in the past. I just basically combined the two recipies I posted a little while back and made it up as I went along but tried to keep the flour/water/starter ratios for both flours the same. Obviously the end ratios were different but for example if I added 100g rye flour I made sure I had 100g rye starter and 100g water.

Hmm, at that price it's tempting - how big a loaf do you make in it?

Agree, that's looking great for a rye loaf.

I've had good results with rye mixed with strong white flour, think it gets a bit more rise that way

Cheers, it is pretty tasty. What I'd love to achieve is a Campaillou (which does contain Rye), with a very open texture, whereas this is a much chewier crumb (it's not very tearable). One major difference seems to be that the crust on my loaves goes soft very quickly, whereas other breads tend to harden with age. Also it's quite tricky to toast; the centre of the slice stays very moist.

Cooking it a bit longer will help with crust and toasting.

I find I get a chewier crumb when I use less water/steam in the oven (not the bread itself). My thinking is the more water in the oven to make steam the lower the oven temp and higher humidity means the crust forms more slowly which allows water from within the loaf to escape for longer. Less steam, higher oven temp, faster forming crust which locks in the moisture, steaming the dough from the inside which makes it more chewy.

Could be complete nonsense mind, im no expert, just my observations.

Also rye contains very little gluten so it's not going to get a real open structure with big bubbles as the dough can't support it so you need to add the gluten, normally by mixing in strong white as you are already doing. Might just need some experimentation to get the ratios right?

Also also you could try developing the gluten you do have further. Either kneading more or letting the dough rest before shaping and proving

1st attempt. Rise is a bit flat. Dough seemed very wet, possibly because my starter was too wet, also I used strong white flour, will try all purpose plain next time and bit more/ finer salt.

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Strong white is what you want! What goes in your starter, half and half flour and water?

Looks pretty good for a first attempt tbh!

Well it tasted alright, so I must be doing something right, you'd just struggle to make a decent chip butty with it (who am I kidding, although I could probably monetise the sourdough chip butty pretty nicely round here).

Well it tasted alright

Mission accomplished then! I figure so long as my loaves are edible it doesn't really matter if they are sometimes misshapen, under/over proved, etc. They still taste better than the shop and much cheaper!

Paternity leave has been good for improving my sourdough technique. This one from the weekend has some spent brewing malt, sunflower seeds and rye additions.

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A two-day method, gives two loaves.

Day 1 - morning, take starter out of fridge and feed a tablespoon or so of flour, a little water so its like 100% hydration or a bit looser.
Evening - mix leaven with 1tbsp starter, 50g Rye, 50g wholemeal, 100g water. Cover at room temp. Feed starter jar again and put back in the fridge. I find it can go a week before reviving as above.

Day 2 mix dough by first adding water to the leaven, mixing well, then flour. Other additions go in after first turn.
The above recipe, base dough (this works great without the additions):
200g leaven (i.e. all of it)
800g strong white bread flour
100g Rye flour
100g Wholemeal
750g water (50g reserved until after autolyse and added with the salt)
20g salt
Additions:
200g spent malt grains
50g or so Sunflower seeds (did it by eye)

Hour zero. Mix dough ingredients by hand. Autolyse.
Zero+1. Add salt in 50g water, mix again. Turn and fold into plastic box. Cover between turns.
+1.5 turn and fold (add additions)
+2.0 turn and fold
+2.5 turn and fold
+3.0 turn and fold
+4.0 turn and fold
+5.0 turn and fold, turn out onto bench top, divide, roughly shape, rest
+5.5 shape into bannetons floured with coarse cornmeal

Prove ... this I play by ear. I find if the bulk fermentation has been going great guns (e.g. a warm day) then it only needs an hour or so. I've had quite a few spectacular overproved cow-pats. Putting it in the fridge will not slow it quickly, so in this weather I've not been retarding overnight.

Preheat oven for at least half an hour. I have one stone and one cast iron frying pan, and I bake both together in a fan oven. I chuck a small cupful of boiling water into the baking tray on the bottom just after I put the loaves in. The uppermost one always gets slightly better rise.

245degC for 20 minutes
220degC for 25 minutes

Looks delicious.

High hopes for this. Used about 2/3 the amount of starter as last time, which over-proofed. Much slower and more manageable proof time, in the fridge all day then out for a bit, folded, back in the fridge overnight, out for about an hour this morning. 20 mins in cast iron pot with lid on at 240 and about 25 without lid at 225.

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Looking good!

I got given a baking stone recently and it's actually made a difference to the bread. This may be beacuse I'm pre-heating the oven for longer to heat the stone or it may be actual stone-related improvements. Either way my bread has got better with the same recipe/method :)

thats some pro-level baking right there!

It's getting colder, remember to extend your proofing times accordingly

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5381/sourdough-rise-time-table

Wow! That's a good one