Hello!
To introduce myself, I'm a 54 year old former pilot who has stumbled upon "the world of sourdough" and baking perhaps ironically not as a great lover of bread, but more as someone who like to understand things. My wife suggested before Christmas break this year that perhaps we could learn to make bread over the holiday, so as the resident "researcher" at our house, I jumped in and started trying to figure out what to do. Here we are a few weeks later with our own starter (unnamed as of yet) and orders placed for a Sourdough Home and Proofing box, with 20 lbs of French T65 flour patiently waiting to be used (I ended up reading an article on how French wheat may be healthier for some people - my wife and kids all have Crohn's disease so we are trying to manage our ingredients so as to eliminate things that could potentially be a source of GI issues for them) .
I've baked a few loaves already with not-great results (organic KA bread flour was used up until this point). The flavor was mild and not very sour, but the bread had none of the large airy bubbles one sees from good bakers. I suspect I have a number of issues based on the reading I've been doing. I never realized how many variables go into sourdough baking and I think that's what has drawn me in - the desire to learn and understand the process and develop my own by figuring out how to control the variables. This is what led me to buy the Sourdough Home and proofing box - it became pretty obvious that my environment must be NOTHING like the one used by the person who wrote the recipes I initially have used, so I started researching ways to improve that, and well, here we are!
I'm still working on getting a grasp of all of the terminology, so please be patient.
What I'm looking for (I think) is a T65 based sourdough recipe that has thorough instructions to start from. I understand that I will need to adjust it for my environment, but I need something to use as a solid foundation to build from. My starter seems healthy (but went in the fridge yesterday after a week of daily feeding using the KA flour) and I will switch over to the T65 and begin using the "Home" and proofing box once they arrive. Ideally, I'd love to find a schedule/process that (for now at least) lets me do most of the prep work in an evening with baking happening early the next day. I'll likely bake primarily on weekends (prepping on Fridays).
FWIW, I'm is the US (southern Maryland to be precise) if that matters.
Thanks in advance for any advice! I'm happy to be a sponge, so if I've missed anything obvious, please let me know.
Cheers!
My most recent loaves (not great, but not terrible for a new guy!):
Welcome to the world of bread baking. I'm also a former pilot - I'm a tail-dragger (and glider) guy: I soloed in a J-3 and got my license in a PA-12. I would compare most home bread-making as closer to low-altitude VFR flight as opposed to IFR flight on ATP routes. This means that you want to pay attention to the ground, the nearby horizon, and the local weather. You can go the ATP route but as you know, that takes a lot of training and flight hours. It's also less fun.
All T-65 flours are not alike. I have some imported T-65 right now, and it has proved to be tricky to handle - if you use slightly too high hydration, it falls apart over time. The thinking here on TFL is that there may have been a poor growing season in that part of France and it affected the wheat. The miller isn't compensating by mixing in other wheats. If the hydration is kept low, it works fine.
All things considered, I suggest that you stick to standard US flours until you feel you have things under control. Think of your first long 3-leg cross-country. You needed to get a certain amount of experience in controlled conditions before being signed off for it. With bread you don't need to get signed off, and any disaster will have no real consequences, but it's a similar idea.
From the pictures I think that your bake looks pretty good. The loaves have a good height and the crumb looks quite decent. It didn't expand much in the oven, which suggests that the hydration was low and the proof on the long side. Or your starter might not be active enough yet.
Know that those large, irregular holes in the crumb you mentioned are not all that common, and many bakers don't really like them. You are more likely to be able to get them with a smallish loaf at a higher hydration. They are also affected by the shaping technique, and that takes a lot of practice.
Good luck and keep asking questions!
TomP
After that overview, I have used my French T-65 to make baguettes. I don't have a lot of experience with baguettes and mine are usually just so-so. Here is the recipe and process I used:
Recipe
--------
- 300g - T65 flour (100%).
- 180g - water (60%).
- 80g - starter (27%) (90% hydration, 80% KA bread flour, 20% atta,
a few grams rye bran).
- 6g - salt (2%).
overall hydration: ~65%.
Process
--------
- mix all ingredients, rest 40 minutes.
- knead/stretch. Rest 30 minutes.
- S&F. Rest 30 minutes.
- S&F. Rest 45 minutes or so. Into bulk tub. rest 1 hr.
- Coil folds in tub.
- Total bulk ferment time: ~6 hours.
- Divide in 3 pieces, 195g ea.
- Light preform, rest 10 minutes.
- Shape. I used the standard couche method to support the loaves during proofing, although it's a little tricky with only three loaves.
- Proof 45 minutes. Preheat oven 450°F.
- Bake on steel with initial steam, temperature to 425°F.
- Total bake time 25 minutes; 450°F last 10 minutes for more browning.
An all-white starter would have worked just fine, I'm sure. "S&F" means Stretch -and-fold. Exactly how you do them is not usually very important. Here are a few pictures of these loaves:
As an analyst you will find that you will produce most of your own data, and over time you will make sense of it.
My first suggestion is to get a sample of a known-good starter so that you have something to work with. Then scale your maintenance sample size to somewhere around 30g which is plenty big enough to make to make a lot of levain overnight and from that as much bread as you can handle. Feed your homegrown starter in parallel with your known good starter (btw the King Arthur starter is widely used as a place to start - no pun intended). There is a lot to learn from comparing starter growth behaviors.
Second, stick with the KA bread flour until you can routinely make a loaf that you like. Then you can begin to diversify your inputs. That will take a few months if you are baking a couple of times a week.
Third, T65 is a difficult flour to work with and is a challenge even for experienced bakers. Do not get discouraged but stay away from high hydration formulas until you can routinely make a good loaf at 65%. It is easy to overmix.
Lastly, don’t trust any advice until you have demonstrated to your own satisfaction that the underlying assumptions are valid. Sourdough baking is dominated by wives tales that sound logical but are not based on science. Read the journal articles, and study them to understand why. Many of the best are as old as you are. It is a new science by comparison.
Doc
Plus, since you're in the exploration phase of baking bread, keep notes of each bake. Include things like the formula, process steps, temperatures, results, etc. After you've accumulated a few months' worth, you'll probably be able to see some patterns emerge. Correlations between inputs and results will be more apparent. Some might related to environmental conditions, such as "Wow, fermentation is going a lot faster since things warmed up than it did when the weather was colder." Some might be process-related, like "Huh, most of the bakes I liked best occurred when I autolysed the dough." And so on.
Best of luck to you as you progress with your baking.
Paul
THANK YOU to everyone who has weighed in! Today has been a crazy day at work and I don't have the time at the moment to reply in the way you all deserve, but I will get to that as soon as I possibly can.
Again - THANK YOU!
I agree with previous comments regarding hydration when baking with T65 - keep it low, at least initially, overall 65 - 68%. Also, do as the French do, refresh your levain in 2-3 stages before baking and make your levain weight 40-50% of your main dough flour weight.
Here is a post I made last year about using T65 to make an authentic French style pain au levain - maybe somewhat advanced for you at the moment, but it might give you some clues:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/74692/pain-de-tradition-au-levain
And add in 0.1% of instant yeast to your main dough - as permitted by French law.
Lance