Calling everyone who wants to learn to make sourdough!! Have you tried sourdough and failed? The dough hasn't risen? It was too sticky and went everywhere? It was too dense and rose like a brick? Maybe you've looked around online and decided that it's WAY too much work, but deep down you kind of want to give it a shot? Come and bake along with me!
The MOST important thing to understand about sourdough is that it's more of a CONCEPT than a recipe. Sourdough is so forgiving!! As long as you give it plenty to eat, it won't die. If you make bread with whole grains and ferment it (rise at room temperature) for at least 7 hours, it will be on plan. THE END!! The recipes give you the best chance of success at making your loaf awesome, but they're really just guidelines! If you forget a step, or don't follow the recipe exactly, the sourdough doesn't usually care. There are big ideas, like kneading, that are required to make your sourdough loaf rise nice and high, and to be soft instead of dense-as-a-brick. But the exact amount of kneading, the exact amount of water or flour, the exact length of rising time... those are all personal preference, and are almost infinitely adjustable.
In this video, I took 2 days and filmed every single step of baking Glenda Groff's Honey Oat Sourdough bread. From start to finish, you'll get to bake right along with me as we mix the starter on day 1, then on baking day we add ingredients, mix, rest, knead, fold, shape, and finally bake the dough! You'll see what the dough looks like at every step, I'll talk about fixing problems you may encounter, what to do if you over or under measure your ingredients, how to know when the dough's texture is right, and lots more.
In fact, there's SO much more, that I'm afraid I did too much talking. BUT! I wanted this to include everything I could think of to make your sourdough baking a success! If I can't be there in person to answer YOUR questions as they arise, I wanted to answer all that I could think of as I went. So PLEASE bear with me as I explain, and re-explain (and possibly over-explain!) because if you can internalize what I'm teaching, you'll only need to bake along with me once or twice before you'll know what to look for on your own, and can take these principals and apply them to all your sourdough baking!
I made Glenda Groff's Honey Oat Sourdough bread on this video, so if you want to bake right along with me, go over to Glenda's website to see her recipe, then gather your ingredients and bake-a-long! I start the day BEFORE you want to bake, and make up a recipe-sized starter in the video. If you already have 1-1.25C active starter (starter that you fed 12-24 hours ago), you can bake the same day and skip over the first part of the video. I explain all about that on the video. In a quick list, here's what you'll need:
Healthy, unfed starter (last fed 12-24 hours before)
Your favorite starter-feeder flour (mine is 1 part each of unbleached/white whole wheat/rye, yours can be 50/50 unbleached and wheat or 100% whole wheat) I talk about these choices on the video as well.
water
oil
honey
vital wheat gluten (optional but highly recommended for whole grain baking)
sunflower lecithin (optional but recommended)
oat four (rolled oats, ground in the blender - I skip these!)
white whole wheat flour (I love King Arthur)
salt
Stand Mixer with dough hook (Kitchen Aid or similar)
Deep sided/narrow bowl to rise in (narrow bottom & steep sides help the loaf keep its shape while rising. I use the 8C Pampered Chef Batter Bowl)
lid for bowl or plastic wrap
silicone spatula
parchment paper
butter to grease the pan(loaf pan only)
Your choice of baking pan
Covered Baker: Dutch oven, clay baker or deep glass casserole with lid
Loaf Pan: metal, glass or stoneware loaf pan
Baking Sheet: any flat baking sheet
Gather everything together and get ready to bake with me! Here is a rough schedule, so you can plan your day. YOU won't be doing all that much work - you'll add ingredients to your mixer, watch it mix, then do a very few, easy steps, then let it rise. BUT, the dough does need to rise for 7 hours. So you won't be doing anything to it, but you do have to wait for it to rise... all day.
The day before: you'll need about 5-10 minutes to mix up the starter, ANYTIME the day before. It can rise anywhere between 12-24 hours before you mix up the dough, so you can do it in the morning, afternoon or even after dinner.
Baking Day: You'll want to start in the morning if you want to have the bread out of the oven and cooled by dinner time. Sample times below:
8am - mix ingredients into starter and adjust (15 minutes) then rest 20 minutes, then knead 8 minutes = appx 45 minutes total, including rest
8:45 - rise 2 hours
10:45 - 'Letter fold' to strengthen gluten and distribute gasses (1 minute active time from you. This step is optional but gives the lightest resulting bread)
10:45 - rise 2 hours
12:45 - shape final dough, 5 minutes active time
12:50ish - rise 2-4 hours (super flexible here, 3 hours is great!)
3:45-4ish (or 5ish) - Preheat oven, transfer dough to oven. Bake appx 45 minutes.
4:45-5pm (or 6ish) - remove bread from oven, COOL AT LEAST 30 MINUTES!
5:30-6:30 - ready to eat!
Every one of these steps is covered in details in my video!! Let's start baking sourdough!!
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