Home made Sourdough Bread

This recipe is still in an experimental phase and the article is still work in progress.

• Rye flour (as much as you want to make) to give you an idea 500gr makes a small loaf for our community of c. 7 to 9 people this is gone pretty quickly. We consume about 2 loaves per day on days when people eat bread for more than 1 meal.
• luke warm water (check with you finger it should not be hotter than body temperature)
• sourdough (we were lucky enough to get some started dough from the neighbour but you can also make your own)
• salt - 1 tablespoon for every kg of flour
• seeds - whichever you prefer or grow easily in your area, here we have an abundance of sunflower seeds

The sourdough starting dough should be stored in the fridge until you want to make the next batch. This should be in an air tight container, a recycled jar does the job fine.

In a large bowl, take the sour dough and add it to half the amount of flour you will be using to make bread, for example if you want to make a 1 kg loaf you should mix the starter dough with 500gr of flour.

Add lukewarm water and mix, the texture of the dough should be very liquid like porridge. In this case I used 1 liter of water for 700gr of flour but not all flours react the same so keeping an eye on the texture is more important than exact measurements here.

Once mixed cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel. Depending how how much you want your sourdough to grow you can keep it in a warm place such as kitchen for 24 hours before baking for maximum growth or in the cooler pantry for the same amount of time for minimum growth.

After the growing phase you can scoop out a couple of big spoonfuls in a jar for the next time you make bread. Make sure the jar is clean, you can also sterilize the jar, seal it and put it in the fridge. If you are part of a family like ours it is also best to label it.

Add the rest of the flour to the now proofed mixture, remember if you started with 500gr you will now need to add 500gr more. Stir the flour in with a wooden spoon. You may need to add more lukewarm water to the mixture until it is no longer sticky.

Mix in the salt 1 tablespoon for every kg of flour.

Leave the dough to proof for 30 min.

If you are using bread molds now is the time to oil them. You can line the thin with seeds if you like.The mixture can be in this case quite wet.

If you are not using a mold you should make the dough firm and non sticky to the touch. I have only tried this in a mold.

If you are using a bread making machine it is important that you look at the manual for the machine to figure out with setting works best. In my case this was a total fail when using the usual setting for the shop bought mix. Further research is required.

If you are using a gas oven use gas mark 4 / 5 which is about 180 degrees Celsius or 360 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for about 1 hr 30min. The oven we use here is not a fan oven and it is hotter at the front and doesn't circulate the heat.

If you are using a wood oven start baking at 200 degrees. You can use a cooking thermometer to measure the temperature.

….

26th September 2017 - the first 2 loaves did work out.

Loaf 1 - 700gr, baked in gas oven - mixture too wet, the outside crust was perfect but the bread didn`t rise, when sliced the inside was too compact and not cooked.

Loaf 2 - 700gr, baked in bread machine - mixture was too wet, the loaf was uncooked both inside and outside, whilst cooking the mixture rose but the machine didn`t cook it for long enough, wrong program used. When sliced the bread was way too uncooked but good consistency expected if it had continued cooking.

Result: inedible bread, was able to dry out and feed it to the chickens

25th September 2017 - success!

Loaf 1 - 1kg, baked in gas oven gas mark 6, the crush is a bit too well done, the temperature should be lower and the bread cooked for longer. I will try the next one with gas mark 4 or 5 and cook for at least 30 minutes longer. To check whether the bread is ready I put in a knife as I would check a cake and checked whether the middle was still uncooked. The result is edible even with the cripsy crust.

Loaf 2 - 1kg, baked in gas oven gas mark 4, cooked for around 2 hours, still unsure as to when to know when this is done. We haven't cut into the loaf yet. The result is good but the crust is too thick and the bread is slightly drier than I would like it.

18th October 2017 - more testing

Now adding a glass of water when baking the results are nice soft bread, sometimes too soft and we lost the crunchy crust completely

Will be trying to have the glass cup only some of the time.