- Im new to this and I think I need some help please.
I have made a 100% hydration starter (50/50 Flour and water). It is alive and well, living in the fridge. It's bubbly, it smells nutty with a hint of wine or vinegar. A spoonful of it floats in water.
I have made Bertinets basic loaf for years - a basic "French" recipe using standard bakers percentages 500g flour, 350g water, 9g salt - and I tend to use 5g active dry yeast.
I am trying to incorporate my starter into this recipe, replacing the yeast with the starter. If I use 100g of my starter, I figure thats 50g Flour and 50 of water, so I top that up with 450g flour (not 350 as my typo originally said) and 300 water to make the totals for the recipe Im used to making. But there’s a problem. The dough starts off fine, nice and shaggy, fairly dry looking. I leave it to rest/autolyse for about 25 mins before kneading. But by the time Im kneading it, its becoming really sticky (the slightest touch and it sticks, coming away on fingers/scraper in long strings like melted mozzarella). It’s really slack, and strangely glossy, almost "waxy" in appearance. It rises well (overnight in a cold room), but when it comes to shaping/proofing, its impossible. It just splays outwards and resembles something like a soggy pizza base. It springs in the oven, but not properly, and it's inedible - the crust is pale and smooth with bubbles - resembles the surface of a moon. The crumb is shiny, spongy and moist.
Can anyone please advise me on where Im going wrong please? I could really do with some guidance.
You wrote that Bertinet’s recipe has 500 g flour to 350 g water.
In your recipe it looks like you have 350 + 50 or 400 g flour.
Did I misread something? Should it be 450 + 50 for flour?
Typo or mistake in the recipe?
Apologies. It’s 450 + 50 for flour. Definitely what I did in the recipe. That’s a typo, sorry.
There's no one way. You have a yeasted recipe and now it's going to be a sourdough. Whatever you do it'll be a different bread. But you want to end up with the same amount of total flour + water after substituting the yeast with starter.
"I have made Bertinets basic loaf for years - a basic "French" recipe using standard bakers percentages 500g flour, 350g water, 9g salt - and I tend to use 5g active dry yeast".
Original Recipe:
Sourdough Recipe using 100g starter @ 100% hydration:
This isn't the only percentage one can use but at 22% starter (100g starter / 450g flour x 100) you have a good percentage that falls within the more common 10-30% starter. Breaking the recipe down you end up with the same amount of flour, water and salt as in the original.
Now you need to adjust times to suit a sourdough. So something like...
1: autolyse the flour and water.
2: add the salt plus starter and incorporate.
3: bulk ferment till ready giving the dough 4x stretch and folds every half hour for the first two hours and rest for the remainder.
4: when the dough is billowy and aerated then go onto shaping and final proofing. I'd say at 22% starter you're looking at 4-6 hours depending! But as always watch the dough and not the clock.
Thank you. This is the ratio I’ve used (there’s a typo in my original post which hasn’t helped). Maybe I’m leaving it to ferment too long. I usually wait until it’s just a tad over double the size. For the sourdough I ended up leaving it in a cold room (about 15 degrees) overnight. It rose well up to the marked level in my bowl where I usually allow my non-sourdough recipe to rise to. But it looks different - there are quite huge bubbles making it rise, rather than a uniform pattern of smaller air bubbles. Equally my finished loaf just had massive air pockets (not in a good way), and was horribly rubbery/stringy and salty to taste. I’ve tried three times with same results.
Here is a nice recipe. It's plain like the one you're doing and a very good introduction sourdough with step by step instructions. See what you make of it.
P.s. what the recipe refers to as a poolish is actually a levain in sourdough terminology.
thank you I will give it a try. Looks like it’s a bread made with a levain that’s made with a small amount of starter.
sounds like you forgot the salt
Also, try cutting up the autolyse with the salt+starter before you knead. It's helped me a great deal.