I baked 4 loaves of sourdough bread this morning. I was flabbergasted to see that I hadn't baked any sourdough loaves since last November - more than 5 months! I know there was was a focaccia in there somewhere, but still, no actual loaves of bread.

Anyway, I still know how - they appear to have come out well, though none have been sliced yet, so we'll see. But they do look nice 😆

The dough:
flours:
* 70% King Arthur Baking Special Patent Flour
* 25% Breadtopia Organic Wholegrain Rouge de Bordeaux wheat (milled with a Mockmill 100)
* 5% Breadtopia Organic Wholegrain Rye (milled with a Mockmill 100)
74% water
25% liquid levain (100% hydration)
2.1% Kosher salt

Overall hydration ~77%

Process:
Autolyse the flours for 2 hours. Add levain and do Rubaud-method hand mixing for 5 minutes. Rest dough for 30 minutes. Add the salt and do Rubaud-method hand mixing for 5 minutes. Rest dough for 30 minutes. Perform 1 set of strong stretch-and-folds. Rest dough for 30 minutes. Dump dough onto countertop, stretch as large as possible without tearing. "Laminate" the dough by folding it over on itself multiple times. Let rise in container for 45 minutes. Perform 1 set of coil folds. Let rise another 45 minutes. Perform a 2nd set of coil folds. Let rise another 30 minutes. Perform 3rd and final set of coil folds. Let dough continue rising for another 40 minutes. Turn out dough onto countertop, divide and pre-shape. Let rest for 20 minutes. Final shape into batards, placed in 8" / 20 cm bannetons. Final dough temp 77 F / 25 C. Cover with plastic bags and cold-retard in a 36 F / 2 C refrigerator for 18 hours.

Bake:
Preheat oven and Challenger Bread Pans at 550 F / 288 C for an hour. Reduce temp to 475 F / 246 C. Mist loaves with water and cover, baking in enclosed baking pans (with steam) for 20 minutes. Remove the covers, reduce heat to 450 F / 232 C and bake uncovered for 25 minutes

#artisanbread #baker #wolfgangsmockmill #baking #bakingbread #bread #breadbaking #breadtopia #breadmaking #breadporn #rye #kingarthurflour #levain #rougedebordeaux #naturallyleavened #realbread #sourdough #sourdoughbaking #sourdoughbread #sourdoughstarter #sourtothepeople #theperfectloaf #wildyeast #opencrumbmastery #challengerbreadpan

Re: idea that Fediverse won't work for business, I think it can work for great businesses with loyal customers, like #KingArthurFlour. Not only great quality with consistent results, their baking hotline=top notch. I'm going to try reverse creaming today which saves a couple steps. Instead of mixing dry ingredients, moving them out of the bowl to cream the butter and sugar, you keep the dry ingredients in the bowl and add the butter to it. Low risk of overmixing until you add wet. Genius!

"Rebecca Sharpless, author of 'Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South,' notes, 'Southerners learned to prefer individual portions of breads served hot, while in the North, the food reformers were horrified and thought it should be served cold. Cold sliced bread was what good people ate, and Southerners were barbarians.'"
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2023/01/30/history-of-american-biscuits via #kingarthurflour

Merry #Christmas #kerstdag!

#ChristmasBake #baking #KingArthurFlour