Helllo!! I'm sooo excited to share with you my first recipe here on Substack, my basic go-to sourdough bread. This is a 50-50 whole wheat sourdough, meaning it contains 50% whole wheat flour and 50% regular bread flour. For the whole wheat portion, I'm lucky enough to get my hands on some freshly milled Hard Red Fife flour from grains grown here in Canada. But you can use any whole wheat flour that's ideally high in protein (13%–14%). And as for the bread flour, I like to use Bob's Red Mill artisan bread flour.
What I love about this recipe is that it serves as a great base recipe for other sourdough projects like pizza and focaccia and is delicious with literally any inclusions you can think of (cheddar is my favorite). Through trial and error, I found that a hydration of 77% works perfect with my flour. Hydration refers to the amount of liquid to flour in a recipe (385/500 =0.77 x100 = 77%). At this hydration I’ve created a dough that is easy to work with, has great crumb and a great oven spring, but you can tweak the amount of hydration to what you like best!
Leaven: made from your active starter, to act as the rising agent be mixed into the dough. The leaven is made from a small amount of starter and equal parts flour and water. It is left to sit for about 8 hours or overnight to ferment before mixing the dough.
For the Leaven:
10 g active starter
50 g water
50 g Hard Red flour (or whole wheat bread flour)
Mix all ingredients in a bowl and let sit covered at room temperature for 6 to 8 hours or overnight if it’s more convenient. To test that the leaven is ready, conduct the float test. If a spoonful of the leaven floats, it is ready to be made into dough. If it sinks, let the leaven sit for longer.
For the Dough:
100 g Leaven
250 g Hard Red Fife flour ( whole what bread flour)
250 g Bread flour
370 g Water 1 (75°F-80°F)
15 g Water 2 (75°F-80°F)
10 g Fine sea salt
Autolyse
Mix the leaven and water 1 in a bowl, you can use a danish dough whisk or your hands for this step . Once it is mostly dissolved, add in the flour and mix with your hand until a shaggy dough is formed. It doesn’t need to be well mixed – just make sure there are no bits of flour remaining. Let the dough rest in the bowl for 1 hour.
The autolyse phase gives the flour an opportunity to fully absorb the water, allowing the dough to become more cohesive and workable. Autolyse also encourages active gluten formation without kneading.
Mix in the salt and water 2, pinching the dough between your thumb and fingers. The goal is to squeeze balls into the dough, incorporating the salt while breaking up the gluten network that has formed during the autolyze phase. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, then begin the stretch and folds.
Bulk Fermentation
The majority of sourdough’s strength and flavour develops during the bulk fermentation phase. Depending on the temperature of your kitchen this can take anywhere from 3-5 hours, or longer. During the first 2 hours of bulk fermentation, we perform a series of turns and folds. Complete one fold by sliding your hand between the far edge of the bowl and the dough. Grab the dough and fold over toward you – this is one fold. Turn the bowl and do this again on the new side, turning the bowl and repeating until the dough firms up, which should take 3 to 6 turns. Repeat this process three more times at 30 minute intervals. If after 3 folds you notice that the dough is still very loose then you want to preform an additional stretch and fold, this will give your dough more strength.
During the remaining 1 to 2 hours of the bulk fermentation, just leave dough to further ferment and rise at room temperature.
At the end of bulk fermentation, the dough should be light and have increased in volume by 20 to 30 percent. If it hasn’t, let the dough rise for up to another hour.
The First Shaping
Scrape the dough onto a floured work surface. Using a dough scraper fold the dough in half so the floured surface is on the outside. Work the dough into taut rounds to build surface tension. Sprinkle a little flour on the round and let rest for 15 to 20 minutes.
The Final Shaping
Using a bench scrape, flip the ball of dough so that the floured surface is face-down. Using both hands, grab the edge of the dough closest to you, stretch it out lightly and fold it up to the middle of the dough. Fold the right side over, then the left and finally fold the top edge to meet the others in the middle. Repeat this process on all four corners.Then grab a little of the dough at the sides near the top and stretch it over the center, so the dough crosses like shoe laces.Do this from top to bottom. Take the bottom and gently roll the dough up to the top and try to seal it slightly when done rolling
Line a bowl or round basket with a tea towel or couche . Cover with more flour than you think you’ll need. Place the dough round, floured side down in the lined bowl and cover lightly with a towel.
Proofing
You have a couple options for this – you can let the loaf proof on the counter for about 3 to 4 hours or let the loaf proof in the fridge for 8 to 12 hours.
I prefer the fridge as it slows down or retards the fermentation, providing more predictable final product and resulting in a more sour flavoured loaf.
Bake
Turn your oven on to 500°F, putting the dutch oven pot and lid in to warm up. Keep the dutch oven in the oven for about 30 minutes after the oven has come to temperature. Pull out your loaf from the fridge and flip onto a piece of parchment paper. Score the loaf with a sharp knife or razor blade.
Carefully slide the loaf and parchment paper into your heated dutch oven. Lower oven to 450°F. Bake covered for 20 minutes, then uncover the Dutch oven pot and bake for another 20 minutes.
Transfer the bread to a wire rack and let it cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting into it.
Enjoy the bread on its own or with your favourite spread
!