Hi all this is my first post so be gentle.
I have been baking sourdough since January 2010 since building a wood fired oven at home.I normally bake once a fortnight around 13 loaves at a time.
My family and friends like my bread but I know it is quite heavy.
I have had sourdoughs that are quite light in comparison to mine.
My bread recipe has 40% leavon (100% hydration), I am thinking of increasing it to 50 or even 60% will this work?
and if not any tips on making my bread lighter.
I will post some photo's of my oven and bread once I work out how to.
Thanks John
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Replies
Could you post the rest of your recipe? Usually 20 % sour starter is enough to make a good sourdough.
My pizza dough on the other hand uses 67 % sour starter to flour ratio. It's yummy
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=15570866&l=969102d010&id=825315245
Thanks for your reply,
I always make a big batch which is 10,500g ,this gives me around 13 / 800g loaves which we eat,give away and freeze for later.
Anyway 10,500 finished dough consists of 5,603g plain white ,400g wholewheat, 400g Rye,4097 filtered water and 128g sea salt.
Like I said tastes nice comes out well just a bit to heavy.
Regards
John
My current favourite light SD bread is a semolina loaf I adapted from one posted by Susan on Wild Yeast. My recipe is here, as well as a link to Susan's original.
I modded this bread again yesterday, leaving out the olive oil and adding 30gm of organic wholewheat flour to the mix. It was possibly even better than the first time. Olive oil will keep it softer, though, so you might prefer to retain that.
Anyway, you could try this semolina bread recipe by making up a small quantity of dough first, just to see if it's the sort of thing you're after. It's probably the most flavoursome light SD I've made. Very nice crust - easy to chew, but great flavour.
Cheers
Ross
[quote=Johnny Famous]
Thanks for your reply,
I always make a big batch which is 10,500g ,this gives me around 13 / 800g loaves which we eat,give away and freeze for later.
Anyway 10,500 finished dough consists of 5,603g plain white ,400g wholewheat, 400g Rye,4097 filtered water and 128g sea salt.
[/quote]
I input these numbers into a Baker's Percentage calculator and I get 64% hydration. I would say the easiest change would be to increase the water of your dough. Try a starting point of 67% hydration and see if that makes a difference.
Thanks Ross,
The Semolina loaf looks awesome I will be giving that one a crack.
Regards
John
In her book "Cook Wise" Shirley Corriher says if there is moisture/steam in the oven it keeps the crust soft longer, allowing the bread to rise in the oven more. Your wood oven may be a very dry environment. Have you tried putting a container of boiling water in with the bread as it bakes?