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The first in a series of experiments on my 'Loaf 3' recipe.

Loaf 5 
250g white flour, 250g wholegrain wheat flour.
80% hydration
15% starter
2% salt

Experiment: Refreshed starter overnight. 

In the morning, did 1 hour autolyse, then mixed in starter & salt.

4 stretch & folds over 2 hours, then a bulk ferment at (cool-ish) room temp for about 5-6 hours.

Pre-shaped and let rest for 30 mins

Can you bring some bread for our old friends gathering?  Sure can, so this is what i put together  i chose to do 20% wholemeal breads,  some sticks using fresh compressed yeast with butter and an egg in the mix .

Much improved this week.  After last week I did some TLC to my starter.  I had been using it and then feeding it and sticking right back into the fridge until the next bake. I wasn't giving it any feeding before I baked.

I finally got around to having a go using a Beer Barm, the flour was 20% wholemeal flour with 80% Black and Gold  supermarket  flour.

Greetings Everyone,

     I am a 74-year-old man, and I recently began to experiment with sourdough starter.  Actually, I never baked bread at all until last week:  I baked some bread just to use up the free flour that I received from commodity (for the first time).

Quite a while back, I was seeking information how to get a chewier, more elastic crumb in my sourdough loaves.

I was advised regarding protein content of flour and going for a higher hydration, and I would like to say a big THANKS to the several bakers who advised higher hydration, because it really did the trick.

I learned to cook by going out to the garden and picking vegetables, and then going down to the hen house and seeing who had stopped laying, was ready to be dinner.  That taught me an improvisational style of cooking - cooking as a form of jazz - the garden produces similar products over a period of weeks, and one cooks variations on a theme, because every day the basket from the garden varies, but there are themes that carry over from day to day and from week to week.  That calls for improv bread. Certainly there is always pita, but . . . . 

The inspiration for this bread is David Snyder’s Fig Walnut recipe. I followed it pretty closely but I subbed out dates instead of figs since I had some that needed to be used up. I also used a stand mixer rather than doing it by hand. And of course, I can’t forget the yogurt to tenderize the crust!

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Levain:

158 g strong bakers unbleached flour

40 g freshly milled Selkirk wheat flour (Selkirk wheat berries)

158 g filtered water

40 g sourdough starter

I made this sourdough yesterday and baked it this morning. I really feel like it’s the best whole grain I’ve made to date.

Loaf 4 - 250gwhite flour, 250g wholegrain wheat flour.
70% hydration
15% starter
2% salt

Made sponge overnight by mixing starter (straight from fridge) with 200g flour and 70% water.
The next morning, did 1 hour autolyse with remaining 300g flour and 70% water.

Used scoop & stretch method twice to combine, then roughly 4 hour bulk rise with 5 stretch and folds.

2 hour proof on baking paper in bowl, covered with plastic.