ruthhiller's blog

I have been working at using a higher hydration dough and went back to the basic country loaf recipe from Tartine Bread. The other day I was preparing to bake and made a leaven and left overnight. I did the drop test when I was ready to start making the dough and was disappointed that the leaven dropped a bit in the water. I decided to go ahead anyway to see what would happen. I let the flour and water plus leaven autolyse for approximately 4 hours, did a slightly longer bulk fermentation with 4 sets of folds every 30 minutes and 2 sets of folds every hour.

I decided to do another bake with a higher hydration so used 775 grams of flour with 600 grams of water so 77% hydration and really pleased with the results. It resulted in a softer lighter crumb with various sized holes. All in all a delicious tasting bread and texture. This novice baker is feeling happy!

I am somewhat new to sourdough baking and spent the first month or so working on my starter. When I eventually felt that my starter had become active enough to start baking I perused recipes and watched videos and filled my head with everyone else's sourdough expertise. I have made many breads which were okay and tasted good but I felt my dough was too wet as it didn't hold its shape and the crumb was a little gummy. So I started reading through many sourdough blog posts and decided to tweak the recipe I have been using. 

Recipe:

Starter: