The Sourdough Series: The Second Loaf

Welcome to this week’s Sourdough Series post! We are continuing from my previous post about my first loaf. I am going to be sharing the progress from my first loaf to the loaf I now make with consistent results to show you that this process is really a journey and it takes time! But as I mentioned, the outcome is so worth it. Not only for how delicious the food is, but also for your health. This is a small but powerful step into making your own food from scratch and it can be a great place to start if you are looking to make more things homemade. Not to mention I promise you will come to love how therapeutic, rewarding, and fun sourdough can be.

Now, back to my loaf journey. In my last post I shared the MANY problems I faced with my first loaf. She was dense, doughy, and flat…not the best sounding loaf now is it? After this loaf I did a lot of research to find out where I went wrong and things I could change for my next loaf. I found out that my bread was under fermented because of our doughy it was and it had huge air pockets on the inside towards the top. So, first thing I wanted to test was a longer bulk ferment time (I did 4 hours per the recipe instructions on the last loaf). I also wanted to start paying more attention to Richard’s peak activation time so I wanted to wait longer than the 2 hours I gave him after feeding on the first loaf. Next, I had read that using bread flour versus all-purpose flour for the loaf may give better results. Bread flour has its name for a reason, it is a good flour to use for things like breads, pizza dough, etc. It is good for these types of baked goods because bread flour has a higher protein content than all-purpose flour which allows for stronger gluten development where gluten provides that sturdier structure. Whereas all-purpose flour has less protein and less gluten formation which is good for softer bakes such as pastries, cakes, muffins, cookies, etc. So I also wanted to switch to using bread flour to see if that gave me a better result. Lastly, I wanted to slightly change the bake time to see if my bread could also have more rise time in the oven.

Now, this is all truly experimentation and lots of trial and error. I am VERY new to this and am no where near an expert so I am quite honestly guessing my way through. I try something, do research, try something else, and repeat this process until I get a result I’m happy with. If you are starting your sourdough journey with me, please let this be a humbling experience and not a frustrating one. It’s okay to make mistakes and not have all the answers! Trust me, I am telling myself this too. I am a perfectionist through and through so this process has actually taught me a lot about patience, learning, and perseverance. The most important part is having fun with it (and you get lots of bread to eat throughout the process…bread is bread and its good even if it’s not perfect). So my recommendation is to find a recipe, try it out, write down what went wrong, research your findings, make some changes, and try again. At this point on my second loaf I wanted to stick with the same recipe and make some minor adjustments from there. So for this time around I stuck with the same recipe, fed Richard a little earlier and marked his peak activation, used bread flour instead of all-purpose, increased my bulk fermentation time, and increased my bake time. Here was my step by step:

1. I fed Richard 6 hours before baking. This was definitely passed his peak activation (which I marked was around 4-5 hours) but wanted to see when he started to drop back down to know his window of activation. I only did 2 hours the first time and he definitely rose a lot more over the 6 hours and was still bubbly and active by the time I mixed my dough.
2. I made my dough using bread flour, water that was 75 degrees F., sourdough starter, and salt.
3. I followed the same recipe I used last time so I did coil and folds again. I performed 2 folds (one set) every 30 minutes 3 times. I did notice that the bread looked a lot smoother so the stronger gluten formation from the high protein bread flour seemed to be making a difference.
4. I did a bulk fermentation of 6 hours (the recipe called for between 4-6 hours) rather than the 4 hours I did for the last loaf. It definitely rose more so I was super excited about that! I covered it with plastic wrap again to avoid the dough from drying out and that worked great again.
5. I shaped the dough using the same methods in the recipe where you fold once and pinch the seam down the middle. I had forgotten to get rice flour (that is said to be the best type of flour to use on your bread banneton to prevent your dough from sticky and also help it form a nice crust during the second proof). I read that you could technically substitute the rice flour for all-purpose, so I did a light dusting of all-purpose flour around my banneton. I wrapped it up with plastic wrap and did the second proof in the fridge overnight for 12 hours.
6. After the 12 hours I did notice the all-purpose flour coating did go a little doughy and the top part of my loaf felt sticky so this was my sign to get rice flour for the next round to see if that helped my loaf get a better smooth crust before baking.
7. I baked the loaf the next day using the same temperature and same time to preheat my dutch oven. The only difference I did was baking an additional 5 minutes after the lid was taken off. So I baked my loaf at 500 degrees F. for 20 minutes with the lid on and then 15 minutes with the lid off.

Immediately after baking I was SO happy with the results! The loaf definitely rose more, it felt lighter when I picked it up, and it had a nice golden crust. I did notice that still felt pretty dense when I poked at it but it was a HUGE improvement from my first loaf. I let it cool on a drying rack for about 2 hours before cutting into it (which is recommended by pretty much every bread baker I have ever researched. No matter how bad you want to cut into a freshly warm loaf, I read don’t do it sadly). Now when I cut into it after the two hours, I’m going to be honest I was devastated. The loaf was still an improvement from my first, but there was still a thick doughy layer on the bottom and then the top was filled with huge air pockets again. It was really doughy and dense when I taste tested it, but the crust was a lot less tough than my first one. Now I know I was all preachy about letting this be a fun, humbling experience but I was pretty upset after this bake I’m not going to lie to you. I was ready to throw in the towel. I didn’t think I was cut out for bread baking, I thought Richard wasn’t thriving as much as I thought he was…I spiraled. BUT despite my little breakdown, I was determined to make a good loaf. I didn’t spend over a month starting my own starter THREE TIMES to give up so early in the game. So, I went back to researching.

The number one thing I kept seeing was that my bread was still way under fermented. I was shocked by this since I had gone to the max number of hours recommended by the recipe I was using. I thought a bulk ferment was 6 hours was insane, but I came to find out that this is no where near enough time for a sourdough bread to ferment. Sourdough is a MUCH longer process compared to conventionally yeasted breads because the natural bacteria and yeast need time to fully breakdown all the sugars in the flour whereas conventional store bought yeast is already processed and cultivated to act immediately when it’s mixed with water and sugar. Learning all this, I wanted to try out a different recipe since after 2 tries of the original recipe I used I was still getting the same doughy, dense results even after making changes. Now, this recipe probably works great for the person that wrote it and other people who have similar environmental factors or active starter. But for me, I wanted to see if a different recipe could give me better results for my environment and starter. After doing some research, I found a recipe that called for a bulk fermentation between 8-12 hours. This was DOUBLE the amount of the fermentation time I was doing with the other recipe. So knowing that my bread’s issue was under fermenting, I wanted to try out this new recipe that called for a much longer bulk fermentation period.

Stay tuned for next week’s post to see what those results were!