Sourdough bread

I have been making sourdough bread for a couple of years, at first with varying degrees of success, sometimes well risen, sometimes flat and dense. Even if well risen, at the first day the bread texture is soft and fluffy, then becomes dry and hard, not totally satisfactory. 

This year I made a few experimental changes and eventually, during the last 6 months, able to make consistently good loaves, no failure at all. Here below are my key points:

1.Use a good sourdough starter - even though it is possible to make a starter from flour and water yourself, it is much easier to get a good result if you ask a sourdough bakery for a small amount of starter. A good starter helps a lot.

2.The starter is better to be fed with white flour, not wholemeal. The best is to refresh it everyday, like in the bakery. For me this is not possible as I do not eat so much bread. The next best is after the refreshed starter has risen, keep in the fridge until the next use. If going to be used in next 3 days, can simply take it out in the morning to warm up before use. If the starter stayed in the fridge more than 3 day, better to refresh once before making bread.

3.In refreshing the starter or making dough, use more water than normal, to a level that it forms a wet dough, sticks to your fingers and is much better to knead with a plastic kneading tool. This is sourdough starter mixes with 180gm water and 280gm flour. The dough rise better with more water. I now use half to totally wholemeal flour.

4.After adding water and flour, also add a good pinch of salt and a generous tablespoon of olive oil. I notice the texture of bread is much better after addition of oil, especially the days after, with toasting, the bread is back to fluffy soft, not hard dry.

5. First knead around 20 times with the plastic tool, cover the bowl with a well fit glass lid, leave near a warm area, my room temperature is around 20-24 degrees and is enough to rise the dough. The best is to come back after every hour to give it 20 times kneading with the tool.

6.You will notice the dough starts to soften and expand, after typically 3-4 hours, it will be soft and loosen enough to place in baking paper lines baking tin, wrap in big plastic bag and keep in the same warm area to rise to final size of loaf. This will take another 3-4 hours.

7.When reached the final height of loaf (roughly 4 times original size of dough), spray the top with a lot of filter water and bake at 220˚C for 15 minutes, lower to 200˚C for 15 more minutes, perfect loaf ready.