2026-04-29 Sourdough Bread

In the style of my father.

Ingredients

For Initial Feed

• 80g water
• 80g flour (any type)

For Bread

• 300g water (90°)
• 10g salt
• 100g starter (100% hydration, whatever that means)
• 450g bread flour

Instructions

Feeding

1. Afternoon before take starter from fridge to activate. It should start to bubble after a few hours.
2. Just before bed, weigh the jar + starter; discard down to about 45g starter (440g including gifted jar WITHOUT LID). You can keep discard in the fridge for other purposes. Then add 80g of any kind of flour and 80g of water; mix vigorously.
3. Let sit overnight in a warm place. It should double or triple.

Baking Bread

4. I'm the morning mix water, salt and starter; mix.
5. Add bread flour and mix to a shaggy composition.
6. Cover the bowl and let it sit in warm place.
7. Every 30 minutes or so do four stretch and folds with wet hands or coil folds. Dough should be smooth. Cover and rest between.
8. Finally let rest so the start to finish time for the morning is about 5.5 hours or so. Dough should spring back when gently pushed. Finally, lay dough out on counter and use a bench scraper to fold sides over the top. You want to build tension in the smooth side. Fold in half, turn and folds in half.
9. Sprinkle with lots of flour. Line pan with flour.
10. Lay dough in pan smooth side down.
11. Cover and put in fridge overnight.
12. In the morning, place cold dutch oven in oven before preheating starts. Then set oven to 450°
13. When the oven comes to temperature, turn the bread out onto parchment paper.
14. Cut an arch across the loaf "with a sharp knife held at an angle."
15. Replace bread into dutch oven with lid on, place dutch oven back in oven oven. Bake 20min.
16. Remove lid, then bake another 20 minutes.