Seven Easy Steps to Great Sourdough Bread

I have found that these steps for making sourdough bread overnight fit great into my evening routine. It is so simple after dinner to mix two cups of water and four cups of flour using Martha’s Sourdough Country Loaf recipe, with some salt and a dollop of starter. Sure I have to get up from watching TV three times to stretch and fold the dough, but then I can tuck the dough into the fridge and go to bed while the sourdough does its magic. In all takes about ten minutes. Then in the morning I shape the dough and bake it—the aroma of bread baking first thing in the day is the most delectable thing I know.

After my sourdough class at Abigail’s Oven, I went right home and went to work making bread. The process lasted well into the night. The steps I needed to take were clear:

“Simply make the dough, let it rise overnight, and bake in the morning. It requires very little effort with big rewards. The crust is golden and crunchy, and the velvety crumb is perfect for sandwiches and toast.”

Emilie Raffa,  Artisan Sourdough Made Simple 

• “Activate the starter and wait 4–8 hours,” the recipe stated. But I got home at 1 PM. That meant I could not start before 5 PM and it might be as late as 9 PM.
• “Mix the dough,” it said. “Wait half an hour, then mix in salt and a bit more water. Then wait half an hour to stretch and fold the dough. Do this two more times.” Okay, that was two and a half more hours. Hmm, …11:30 PM on a hot June night.
• The recipe said to “let the dough bulk rise for 8–12 hours.” So at least I could go to bed, or could I. Martha said something about warm days making it rise faster.
• I was up at 6 AM and it had doubled. I quickly turned on the oven, tried to get it shaped into a boule, onto parchment, and into the oven.

It was not a handsome loaf as you can see. It was about then I recalled Martha Levie’s suggestion to mix the dough and let it rise overnight in the fridge, then bake it in the morning. 

The next time I baked a loaf, I took her advice and it turned out great.

Wow! What a difference a long cold ferment can make. The chilled dough had a bigger oven spring and the longer ferment builds great flavor.

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7 Simple Steps For Great Sourdough Bread

Below are the steps Martha suggests for baking bread first thing in the morning:

• Mine goes on the fridge, out of the way. The coils on a refrigerator give off some warmth.
• If that does not fit into your schedule, then activate it in the morning before you go to work.  Just put it in the fridge before leaving for work. Then take it out of the fridge at dinner time to warm it up some.

2 Mix the Dough
• A  few hours before going to bed I whisked ¼ cup (50 g) active starter together with 2 cups (480 g) lukewarm water. Remember to replenish your starter with ¼ cup of water and 1/3 cup of flour and set it aside.)
• Then I stirred in 4 cups (500 g) of flour. (My personal choice is a mix of two cups of bread flour combined with 1½ cups freshly milled whole wheat or einkorn and ½ cup freshly milled rye).
• The dough will be quite stiff. Some mixing with your hands will help incorporate the flour more completely. 
• Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 30 minutes. This period is called the autolyse; it allows wet ingredients and flour work to form the gluten in the dough that will hold the gases during the long fermentation. This is done before adding the salt and t will help produce a better rise and a more complex flavor in the finished loaf.
Meanwhile, mix  1 Tbl salt with 2 Tbl water and work this into the dough after the autolyse using a stretch-and-fold technique to further develop gluten.

3 Bulk Rise 
• Let the dough rise overnight at room temperature (70°F [21°C]) or in the fridge for 8 to 10 hours. (Because this dough rises slowly while you sleep, you won’t be tempted to rush the process and check progress too often. Just go to bed and let the magic happen.)

• The dough should be doubled in size, but to be sure, give it a test by poking the dough with your finger. If it springs back to the surface without a dent, it needs a bit more proofing. But if it leaves a dent and doesn’t spring back, it may be over-proofed. However, if it springs back just a bit and leaves a slight dent the dough is ready to go in the oven.

Baking Day Steps

6 Score the Loaf
• Invert the bowl onto parchment (I hold my hand under the bowl with the parchment on my palm).
• Support the bread on parchment as you invert it
• Remove the batonScore the bread with a lame or razor
• Dust the top of the dough with flour.
• With your hands gently rub the surface spreading the flour evenly.
• Using a bread lame or a razor blade, score the dough with any way you’d like.
• Use the parchment to transfer the dough to the dutch oven.

7 Bake
• Bake the dough on the middle rack of your oven for 20 minutes, covered (or uncovered in an oven with a pan of boiling water on a lower rack, which is how I do it).
• If baking without water, remove the lid and continue to bake for 10 minutes to crisp the crust, otherwise total time with heat is 30 minutes.
• Then turn off the heat, but leave the loaf in the oven for 30 more minutes as it cools and the crust hardens.
• Transfer to a wire rack for final cooling before slicing.

While many folks like to eat bread hor, sourdough needs to cool completely before slicing to avoid a gummy center. Personally I like it the second day, especially when I have added rye, which takes a day to develop flavor throughout the loaf.

In the comment section below tell us about how your first loaf turned out.

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