Hi Everyone,
In London we have a bakery called "Gail's" which sells lovely bread. One of my favourites is the Dark French Sourdough. I have been in touch with them and have confirmed the recipe on their website is the very one you can buy in their bakeries. Just thought I'd share it with you. This will be my weekend bake.
http://gailsbread.co.uk/sourdough-starter/
Enjoy!
Making a French Dark Sourdough
INGREDIENTS
440g strong wholemeal flour
50g strong white flour
2 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
350ml ice-cold water
150g sourdough starter ["The starter for the French Dark sourdough, which is Levain de meule, has 56% hydration and we use the blend of t65,t85 and t150]
Whole tray of ice cubes
[Makes: 2 small (500g) loaves]
METHOD
Combine the flours in a stand mixer bowl with the salt. Add the ice-cold water and knead slowly with the dough hook for 10 minutes. Now add the starter and continue to knead on low speed for 5 minutes. Increase the speed to medium-high and knead for another 6 minutes. The dough should be fairly firm and still cool to the touch.
Take the dough out of the bowl, place it on a clean, lightly floured surface, and knead (see p.27 for more on kneading technique) it with the heel of your hand for a few minutes.
Let the dough rest: return it to the mixer bowl, cover the bowl with damp, clean tea towel and let it rest at room temperature for 1.5 hours. Knock it back with your hand to let out all the air that will have built up inside, cover the bowl with the cloth and rest it again for another 1.5 hours before punching the air out of it again.
To shape your loaves, cut the dough in half on a floured surface. Shape each piece in turn, pressing it down with your fingers to form a rough, plump disc. Pull the edges into the centre of the disc, piece by piece, then turn the dough over. You should have created a tight, neat ball of dough with a tense surface. Repeat with the second portion of dough.
Rest the dough again. Line a baking sheet with non-stick baking paper and dust it generously with flour. Carefully place the loaves onto this, spaced well apart to allow room for them to rise. Dust a little more flour and place a sheet of baking paper on top. Place the whole thing in a plastic bag roomy enough to cover them loosely. Inflate the bag so that it won’t come into contact with the dough.
Place on the warmest shelf in the fridge (usually at the top), and leave to rest for 8–10 hours, or overnight. Slow, cold fermentation is crucial to developing the full flavour and fragrance of a well-made loaf.
When fermented, remove from the fridge and place them – still wrapped – on the worktop, well away from any draughts. This next stage is all about gentle warmth and bringing the dough up to room temperature (around 20°C). Depending on how hot your kitchen is, this could take an hour, or more. Once it reaches room temperature the dough will become active and you should check in on it every 30 minutes to see how it’s doing until doubled in bulk. Poke the dough with your finger: it should feel like a slightly deflated balloon, but should spring back easily.
Preheat the oven to its highest setting, then place a baking stone or baking tray on the middle shelf to heat up. Place a small baking tin on the oven floor to act as a water vessel and let this heat up as well.
Uncover the loaves and let them breathe while the oven is heating. When ready to bake, take a razor-sharp knife, angle it at 45° to the dough and score four long incisions around 1cm deep in a square on the top of the loaf. As well as helping to create a beautiful loaf, these cuts serve a useful purpose: they allow the bread to expand evenly as it bakes.
To bake the bread, carefully pull the oven rack with the hot baking sheet or stone halfway out of the oven. Working as quickly as you can, gently slide the loaves onto the hot surface, spaced apart but close to the centre, and push the rack back into the oven. Tip all the ice cubes into the tin at the bottom of the oven and close the oven as swiftly as possible. The cloud of steam that develops inside the oven stops the crust from seizing up as the dough hits the heat, allowing the bread to expand and develop. It will also help to give you a crisp, shiny crust. After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 200°C/gas mark 6 for a further 30 minutes.
When the bread is fully baked, turn off the oven, open the oven door slightly and leave the bread in the oven for a further 5 minutes to let off some steam – quite literally. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. This cooling down period is a crucial part of the baking process, and can’t be rushed, no matter how impatient you are to taste your bread. Leave the bread for at least an hour before you slice it and dig in.
to have a direct link to the recipe, do you? I started digging through the site for it but finally gave up.
Doesn't the link work for you? I've edited the post and have put in the recipe.
So thank you very much for posting the recipe.
If my math is correct it's about 68% hydration which is likely the reason you won't need a banneton for the refrigerator fermentation. I certainly will be interested in the results!!
with a very nice flavour indeed! If I can even get somewhat close then i'll be happy.
I'll keep you posted.
Can't wait to see your version. I like it when the pros tell you their recipes
When I first tried this bread the tang was just perfect and I had found exactly what I want in my breads. If you can shed any insights into the chemistry of this bread from the starter to the dough to the fermentation process and to how it all adds up to that special flavour that'd be most helpful. The recipe on the site did not have the detailed starter information. They very kindly gave me the breakdown of their 26 year old starter which I have added to the final recipe above. If you can offer any guidance to building my Levain (I've left it too late for anymore than one build) bearing in mind I haven't yet sourced the exact flour and only have bread and whole-wheat string flour I'd be grateful. My starter is 50% hydration 80% bread flour + 20% whole rye.
bread except generally. The starter is 150 g of a mix if white and whole meal flour. They call it a starter at 56% hydration. If the starter is stored in the fridge it would be much different than a starter kept on the counter or a levain built for this bake on the coubnter from a small amount of fridge stored starter. Since they are a bakery that makes this bread every day I would think it is a counter made and maintained starter and used at the peak as a counter levain. That means as best guess, it is slightly mire sour than a white starter and or levain made on the counter.
Sine the temperatures are low in the UK I would suspect that is still pretty yeasty with a more normal 10 to 1 yeast to LAB value, 19% pre-fermented flour is about right for a cold clime but once it hits the whole meal dough the hydration goes to about 73% for the dough without taking into account how much water is in the ice cube tray and how cold the ice makes the dough. But it sites there a long time trying to ferment in the cold ice water and the temperature in the UK twice before being shaped for the fridge.
With the dough and temperature that cold and only bei g left to ferment for 4 hours total that seems pretty fast even for me in in my 91 F kitchen but they are letting ot=y [roof for hours and in the fridge and then the next morning. Having the dough come to room temperature in an hour after a fridge proof would be e be very hard unless the fridge was very warm. Still, you will be watching the dough and not the clock so it doesn't matter.
Even with the whole meal, since there is no high temperature levain or gluten development or fermenting going on I wouldn't expect this bread to be very sour but the cold should up the tang some. I'm guessing that this bread would be a nice well fermented whole meal sourdough bread.
Happy baking Abe
Your thoughts are always very much appreciated. The levain was built with...
3g starter (50% hydration)
57g water
100g flour (80g white flour + 20g whole wheat)
My starter seems to have taken on a new strength. It's been two weeks since the last feed and within 10 hours-ish had grown by 150%. My plan was a small inoculation for a good feed and to time it well for the final dough. Wasn't sure how much more it could rise but was going out for a few hours and couldn't watch it. Refrigerated it for a couple of hours and pulled it out of the fridge before leaving. My thinking is that it will take time to warm up and complete it's maturing for when I arrive home. That was 5 hours ago. It should be ready by now. But I do understand that even after peaking there's plenty of life left in it. Exactly when you catch it will just effect the flavour etc. Can't imagine it'll be totally defunct even if 20 hours have passed.
I would love to know exactly how much time I have for each stage. Right now I just go by educated guesses, some guidelines I've picked up and luck.
10 g of starter that is roughly half flour and water. So for a 3 stage levai I would feed it 10 g each of flour and water for the first stage or twice the flour in the inoculation amount. 4 hours later I would feed it 20 g each of flour and water, twice the amount of flour again and then four hours later I would feed it 4 g each of flour and water and this should double in 4 hours or less. This gives me a 100% hydration levain and 70 G of new flour in the levain and 75 g overall including the flour in the starter. For a loaf of bread that is 500 g of flour, this levain works out to be 15% pre-fermented flour - perfect for the winter but twice as much as I need for the summer.
Temperature and the original amount of starter for the flour used are the main factors in how fast the levain will be ready but even this is really just a rule of thumb that works for my 10 week stored stiff rye NMNF starter from the fridge. You can take your just built 12 hour levain, stir it down and it will double again in 2 hours or less. What does this mean for a bread baker.
Well,for one thing you have just doubled the amount of yeast and LAB you are adding to the mix so things will go faster as a result since you are starting out with twice the oomph in that 150 g levain 14 hour levain and in the 12 hour one you could have used. So to keep the overall time the same you could actually make twice the bread with the same levain amount using the 14 hour levain or have it make one loaf a lot faster after the levain hit the mix. Generally speaking these breads should be the same taste wise.
But, if one loaf was made with the 14 hour levain instead of the 12 hour one than you would expect it to be just a bit more sour. The reason is that LAB out reproduce yeast by about 6-7% at room temperature so the LAB to yeast ratio is greater in the 14 hour levain and this alone will make the bread a bit more sour.
Knowing the science of sourdough can really help you craft the kind bread you want or what kind of kevain the bread you are making really needs. Whole grain breads need a different levain than white ones and rye ones need a levain that has a high acid content and the ability to make more acid.
Tartine bread is crafted with science in mind. Chad uses a 'young' levain one that is not anywhere near fully ripe - and hour or so after feeding his counter starter to make the kevain. Since the levain isn't ripe, it will take longer for it to ferment and proof the dough which means mire flavor since slower is more taste. Other bakers reduce the levain amount and use it young to accomplish even mire flavor - but it takes more time.
We all forget that our particular starter has its own, unknown wee beasties in it, they are not the same nor do they produce the same bread from a taste point of view. But the general science if LAB and yeast is what we have to go on so it really is just a rough rule of thumb.
Happy baking Abe
One question... Actually many but one for now :)
It's this young Levain issue. I've always been taught that a Levain should be active and vigorous before going into a dough. That is why we feed it and allow it to peak. A young Levain sounds weak and immature and seems to go against this idea. If I used a young Levain from an unfed starter that has been in the fridge for a few weeks I would think it wouldn't produce good bread.
So what I'm thinking, and this ties into your style of building a Levain, is that in order for this to work one should introduce a feed or two prior to this young Levain and allow them to mature fully. Then with this last feed one controls the flavour by using at certain times. Is this correct?
So my dough is doing its first rise. To tide me over I popped into Gail's on my way home and bought a 1/4 of a 2kg loaf (they have an option to divide a huge loaf) and I'm have it toasted with a mature cheddar cheese.
SFSD style breads,. A a commercial baker who bakes every day with his starter on the counter, his starter is always fit and up to speed ready to go. but he uses it to make a young levain that sits for 60 to 90 minutes before he uses it young. I.m nit sure how much ripe starter he uses to the flour in his levain. All he is doing is tryi9ng to keep the sour low even as he slows down a normal process of using a ripe levain that would ferment and proof the bread faster. He is crrating a differnt flavor profile doing this.
I have to build my levains over 12 hours because the timy amount g=f starter I use may have been stored for 165 weeks in the fridge and is naturally slow. My 3 week stored one doubled in 2 hours after the 2nd feeding this week and the first feeding was all bran at 20% starch vs the normal 75% starch of the HE flour of the 2nd feeding. So even though there was much less food for the wee beasties to eat, the 91 F temperature put it into overdrive for reproduction rates and increasing LAB to yeast ratios dramatically - 13 to 1 in fact- and since the starter was only 3 weeks stored in the cold, it was still raring to go..