Sourdough with Leaven
This coming week I am on a restricted diet for an upcoming medical procedure so I am not allowed any whole grain breads. So I am making a white sourdough using Chad Robertson’s method for Tartine Bread.
The process starts with making a leaven the night before mixing the dough and letting it sit out on the counter overnight. His goal is to keep the acid level low in the leaven and the bread, a non-sour sourdough. To achieve that he uses a small amount of starter, 1 tablespoon, to 200 grams each of water and flour for a recipe that makes 2 loaves of bread. Then only half the leaven is used in the final dough.
I have adapted his process to suit my schedule. I like to bake between 8:30 and 9:00 in the morning. I found that if I mix my dough on the morning before that it finished bulk fermentation by late afternoon. I would then form and shape the loaves and put the in the fridge until the next morning. I found that 16 to 18 hours in the fridge the bread was more sour than I like. I needed to keep the time in the fridge between 10 and 12 hours to keep the dough from getting too sour. That means into the fridge between 8:30 and 9:00 pm or later.
So what does that mean for my process? That means I need to mix my dough in the early afternoon. If my leaven sat from 9:00pm until early afternoon the next day it would be too sour and possibly losing its leavening power. So I make the leaven with half the water and flour at 9:00pm and then refresh it at 9:00am with the same amount of flour and water as the night before. By early afternoon it risen beautifully with out forming too much acid. Normally I use my 50-50 mix of all purpose flour and white whole wheat flour but because of my temporary dietary restriction I used bread flour only which worked fine.
Bulk fermentation took 6 hours with the kitchen at 74F. From there the dough was pre-shaped, rested on the work surface for 30 minutes, then final shaped, into a lined banneton and into the fridge for 12 hours.
After proofing in the fridge overnight the dough went into a cold parchment lined dutch oven, was slashed, covered and placed in a cold oven. The oven was turned on to 450F. Timing was started when the oven reached the set temperature and the bread baked for 20 minutes with the cover on and 20 minutes with the cover off.
The flour used for this loaf was King Arthur Organic Bread Flour. I have no affiliation with them.
The Formula
| Ingredient | Amount | Bakers % |
| Leaven 9:00pm | ||
| Starter | 10g | |
| Water | 50g | 50% |
| Bread Flour | 50g | 50% |
| Leaven 9:00am | ||
| Water | 50g | 50% |
| Bread Flour | 50g | 50% |
| Dough | ||
| Leaven | 100g | 20% |
| Water | 375g | 75% |
| Bread Flour | 500g | 100% |
| Sea Salt | 10g | 2% |
My Process
- 9:00pm, weigh ingredients for the leaven using 50% each of the water and flour.
- Mix starter into the water then mix flour into the water. Combine to a smooth mixture.
- Cover bowl and let rest on counter overnight.
- 9:00am, mix remaining water into the leaven, then mix the remaining flour into the leaven.
- Cover bowl and let rest on counter until early afternoon.
- 12:30pm, weigh out ingredients for the dough.
- Combine the leaven and 350g of the water in a mixing bowl. Mix to incorporate.
- Add the flour to the water mixture a couple of large spoonfuls at a time using a dough whisk to incorporate. Eventually you need to use your hands. Continue to add and mix until all the dry flour is incorporated into the dough.
- Transfer the dough to a container for bulk fermentation and cover.
- Let rest on the counter for 40 minutes.
- Add the remaining 25g of water and half the salt on top of the dough. Perform several stretch and folds to incorporate. Add the remaining salt to the top of the dough and again stretch and fold to incorporate. Don’t worry if all the salt and water are fully incorporated, as the dough is worked more and bulk ferments it will fully incorporate.
- 1:50pm, bulk fermentation begins.
- Stretch and fold the dough at 30 minute intervals until a good windowpane test is achieved. This time took 5 times. Let dough continue to bulk ferment in covered container.
- Dough will increase in volume by about 30% during bulk fermentation. From this point on handle the dough gently to preserve as many of the gas bubbles as possible.
- 7:50pm, volume has increased and dough is soft. Remove dough from container to un-floured work surface.
- Using a floured bench scraper shape the dough blob into a rough ball. Flour the top of the dough and using the bench scraper flip the dough on the work surface. Shape the dough into a tighter ball. Then flip the dough over to a very lightly floured area of the work surface. Using your hands rotate and draw the dough ball across the work surface to further tighten the ball.
- Flour the dough and cover with a towel. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
- Final shape the dough to the desired shape, this time was a boule and place seam side up in a well floured linen lined banneton.
- 8:40pm, place banneton in a plastic grocery bag and into the fridge to proof overnight.
- 8:25am, line dutch oven with 10” parchment circle, remove dough from fridge and invert into the dutch oven gently. Slash dough with lame.
- 8:30am, cover dutch oven and place in a cold oven. Set temperature to 450F and turn oven on.
- Wait for over to reach set temperature, then set timer for 20 minutes.
- Remove cover from the dutch oven at the end of the set time. Set timer for an additional 20 minutes.
- Check the bread for doneness at the end of the time. If necessary, rotate and bake for an additional 1 to 2 minutes.
- Remove from oven and remove bread to a cooling rack. Let bread cool for at least 1 hour before slicing.
So there you have my timeline and process that I followed for this loaf of bread.
My only issue with this loaf of bread was that bottom crust over browned and is very difficult to slice through. The rest of the crust was great as are the flavor and texture.
We had this bread the night it was baked with butter and used it to sop up tomato sauce from our plates with dinner. We had it toasted with butter and a fried egg with a runny yolk on top for breakfast the next morning. In both cases it enhanced the meal.