"The Adventures of Breaddie Boop" — a Journey to Sourdough and Beyond – Pt 3

125g starter (peak)

500g bread flour

360g Brita filtered water

12g sea salt, natural uniodized

Ambient room temperature 73⁰.

Fri

● 10:00 pm — fed starter 50/115/100

Sat 

● 10:00 am — Perfect rise and webbing. Maintaining peak well past lunch.

● 2:30 pm — Mix starter 77⁰, water 93⁰, salt, and flour until shaggy dough forms. Temp 83.8⁰F. Rest 60 minutes. 

**Fed starter immediately after mixing dough. Will watch how fast starter rises to help guage BF time. Beginning volume 265 ml.

● 3:30 pm — S&F 1 (1 hr)

● 4:00 pm — S&F 2

● 4:30 pm — S&F 3 (2 hr)

● 5:00 pm — S&F 4. Rest and continue bulk ferment. Temp 75.3⁰

● 5:30 pm — Check rise. (3 hr) Starter at 325 ml.

● 6:30 pm — (4 hrs) Laminate and Preshape. Temp 79.7⁰F.

● 7:00 pm — Final shape. Rest on counter. Starter is at 450 ml.

● 7:25 pm — Dough temp 72.5⁰. Cold retard begins. Starter is at 475 ml. Final BF time is 5 hours.

Sun

● 1:30 pm — Remove dough from fridge. Score immediately. Transfer to hot DO (stove and Dutch oven preheated 30 minutes). Bake at 450⁰ for 35 minutes with lid on, drop temp to 400⁰ and bake 10 minutes without lid. Check temperature for doneness.

"The Adventures of Breaddie Boop" — a Journey to Sourdough and Beyond – Pt 2

I think I may have figured out where I've been going wrong.  I'm not doing the bulk ferment long enough and I haven't been doing a proper cold retard either.  Yes, I should know better.  So today I'm going to try to take the time to do things right.  I fed my starter at noon, and as soon as it finishes peaking, I'm going to mix my dough and do a proper bulk ferment as well as refrigerate it overnight.  Then I'm going to bake it tomorrow which is Sunday.  I'm actually going to try to bake it in a dutch oven this time in my toaster oven.  I'm really hoping this will work.

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10/5/24

Trying a different feeding ratio. 1:3:2 — 50g starter, 150g flour, 100g water.

I just realized this morning as I was emptying the last of my flour into my container, that I had accidentally bought the wrong kind this past week and have been using all purpose flour instead of bread flour. I'm wondering if that's why my loaf last week was such a flop.

9/18/24

I decided to create a second post because the first one had gotten too long. A lot has happened since my last update. About mid May I had to put my bread making on hold due to some things going on with my family. Around this time I had ordered a kit for making sourdough that included two proper jars. Breaddie now has a new home. I also made some more adjustments to the ratios of bread flour to rye flour. I now only do about 20% rye. Anyway though, she ended up hanging out in my fridge from around the middle of May until the middle of August without being messed with. I think I might have gotten her out and did a discard and feed once or twice during this time but did not bake. I'm really not sure at this point with everything that was going on though. I recently decided to experiment with using her and some recipes in my bread machine. Thankfully when I got her out and woke her up she performed beautifully. I am still working on how to possibly make a real sourdough loaf in the bread machine. My main problem is that the loaves have come out a little too dense. I think if I just my technique and bulk ferment longer I might be able to do it. I will keep you guys updated and try to do a little better.

This is my most recent loaf and it did pretty well.