I have ben making sourdough for a while now, with OK results, using a pizza stone a standard oven and a tray with water. Hi Rona, I’ve found that using a lower hydration is best at altitude because the risk of overfermentation is higher. With some more practice on shaping, I can improve here to create some more stretching and higher ears, but the blistery skin and thin crispy crust were very welcome. I hope this helps! I performed my usual shaping, one smaller chunk of dough as a boule and the other larger chunk as a batard. I love all of your recipes and have sent many SD enthusiasts to your site. 10.5g fresh yeast. Cutting the bread before it has cooled to room temperature. Most beautiful thing I saw all day. Then a found three three recipes for high altitude sourdough bread. Hi Natlie! Further south and further east in South Carolina, for example, the humidity is typically 65-80% or even higher. Feel free to play with your own adjustments as well! Discard all but 50g of your sourdough starter (this discarded starter can be kept in the fridge and added to pancake batters or used to make crumpets). First thank you so much for sharing all your sourdough wisdom—it’s a godsend for us newbies! The two biggest changes are reducing hydration and shortening bulk fermentation time. I was SHOCKED when I lifted the lid and found a risen dough in the oven. When I noticed it began to fall in mid-afternoon after consuming the sugars in the flour all morning and started to smell sour, I would feed it. His might be a bit different, and since he’s still starting out, I would use 50g starter and feed it with 100g water and 100g flours. I have made this twice and both times the loaves turned out amazing! 🙂. Posted by just now. Tried a bunch of different things using recipes from FWSY and Tartine with delicious, but flat bread. Don't use freshly fed starter, it is not mature enough. I’m about to make my first loaf at altitude and came across your recipe! One adjustment I made with my cookies is to reduce the amount of sugar by 1/3. You can cover the loaves and leave them on the counter for 3-4 hours if you'd like to bake today. During the first two hours of the bulk fermentation, the dough must be folded six times, or every 20 minutes. Happy baking!! I would love to hear about your experience with baking sourdough at high altitude and also if you’ve played with any further changes. Do you know the rest The pieces now need to be pre-shaped. The moment of truth arrives and you’re taking the lid off your Dutch oven only to find that your bread didn’t rise at all, and is a wide flat disc. After about half a week or so I was able to step it up to 3 times a day (morning, mid-afternoon, before bed). I’m so glad you found this helpful. Repeat two more times for a total of four times. Open your jar and add 50 grams whole wheat flour and 50 grams white flour (all-purpose or bread flour). There are great YouTube videos with different techniques for this, but the goal is the same: to increase the surface tension without tearing the dough. My starter Goldie loves a daily 1:2:2 feed, but when I’m preparing to build a leaven, I feed her twice a day for two days to really amp up the activity. Without over-stretching your dough, perform a TIGHT envelope fold, but this time, eliminate the “stretching” step. This is the only adjustment I make! See my post on Scoring Techniques. It turns out, there are a few reasons my starter has been sluggish over the past almost 2 years, some of which I've only just discovered recently. Rotate the bowl a quarter-turn, and repeat. Hi, thanks so much for this information! Sourdough is one of the oldest forms of grain fermentation.. It’s believed to have originated in ancient Egypt around 1,500 BC and remained the customary form of … Hi Heather, Mix the dough with your hands for about 5 minutes. The flavors will get better as it’s allowed to ferment for longer. How many hours? Do this for each "corner" of your compass, then cover with a kitchen towel. Scones. Tried them all. Conversely, too little fermentation during the bulk phase. Coat the dough all over, lightly, with flour. This isn’t the worst thing in the world – those breads still taste pretty good – but it’s frustrating if you’re after better oven spring and more open crumb. Before the 1950s, most bread bakeries ran two shifts of workers because the I also decreased the heat to 400 F. I made deep cuts in dough and left it to rise a little before putting in the stove. The two changes I made that had the biggest impact on my bread were reducing my hydration and shortening my bulk fermentation. I am presenting this information as I know it to be true, and that is anecdotally. Hope this helps! You said to make it at 450 with lid. Before we dive into this, please know I am not a scientist! We will see what happens–Fingers crossed! I would like to use this recipe and divide it into TWO loaves instead of 3—should I make adjustments to the baking time? As I was re-reading Tartine Bread the other week in preparation for my last post, I realized just how important managing your https://www.theperfectloaf.com/guides/how-to-stretch-and-fold- My quantities (using all purpose flour) are 1kg flour, 550ml water, 23gms salt, which make two loaves. As a result of over-fermentation, again, the crumb may be dense due to the lack of leavening power of your dough. Day 1 (evening), mix the final dough. This has been so helpful in adapting to recently moving to 6000ft – thank you! I’ve had my starter at 140% hydration for years and have been baking this way since we’re in a drier climate but thinking of experimenting with 100% ratio again – I’m just thinking it’d be too sticky and dry… My 140% starter has a pancake batter consistency at 6000 feet. I’m glad you had such great success with this guide! I had to adjust cook times a bit but this is the first sourdough that I have made that has not turned into a hybrid hockey puck/water cracker. High elevations are notoriously drier than their sea-level counterparts. Hello! I followed the baking method listed in my previous post while only changing a few of the percentages in order to match Tartine Bread's sourdough recipe more closely. There have been times when I’ve tried to make a lower hydration dough (60-65%) and it was just impossible because my flour soaked up every ounce of water and was still dry! Because of this factor, I like to shoot for a 70-75% hydration. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong! Hubby and I took a loaf out in one evening! Gumminess could be caused by: A breakdown of the gluten during fermentation, if the dough is over-fermented or if the starter is over balanced toward bacteria and under balanced toward yeast. Bake: Place your scored bread inside your preheated Dutch oven and bake covered for 25 minutes and uncovered for another 25 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 200 F and the crust reaches your desired color. After shaping when the boule and batard were placed into their bannetons, they were jiggly and full of air. Hi Audra! He told me that my dough is likely over-fermented even though I was following the recipe exactly, and that it was probably due to being at elevation. I think it's safe to say, and you can just see in the pictures, this was hands down the best pair of sourdough loaves I've baked. Do the same for the remaining piece(s), then lightly dust with flour and cover with a kitchen towel. Given the lengthy and warm ferment the dough’s very sour flavor did not complement the toppings. The taller your loaf, generally, the easier it is to achieve a great crumb. This is called the bench rest. … Hi Colette, thanks so much for this amazing review! Hi Angela, thank you for this review! Amazingly, my breads came out better, taller, and more consistent as I shaved more time off the bulk. Conversely, if I feed it too soon it will not build the required strength. I just ordered a 4-qt, so I think that will do. One of the secrets to managing my starter is to refresh it with whole grain rye flour to keep its activity high. My starter was so healthy I just couldn’t figure it out. I waited a little over an hour and have now moved on to the bench rest. You can literally see the oven spring movement from the bottom of the loaf to where the score was done down the middle. The High-Elevation Sourdough Bread recipe below is based on these experiments and discoveries. Finally a high altitude recipe that works! Hello! Step 4. Sourdough fermentation may also degrade gluten to a greater extent than baker’s yeast . For instance, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of sourdough starter, a leaven can be prepared 8-12 hours before the dough will be mixed by combining 1 Tablespoon of sourdough starter with ½ cup flour and a scant ½ cup of water. 18+ Pre Fermented Dough Pics.Bulk fermentation (also called the first rise or primary fermentation) is one of the most important cutting bulk fermentation short might mean your dough won't be sufficiently fermented and you'll. Beast. Thank you so much for this. Wonderful, Peter! If you live at elevation, you'll have to make some adjustments to your sourdough recipe in order to achieve consistent results. I just made your original recipe this morning, and it’s excellent. We talked to two expert sourdough bakers about the questions new bread bakers face when they first start experimenting with bread fermentation and yeast cultivation (i.e. Mix your sourdough starter into a batch of scones for some added texture and flavour. Wow, thank you for the information, I can hardly believe the difference. Whole wheat and rye flours provide more nutrients for your starter and ferment more actively, but working with rye flour makes starter maintenance easier than whole wheat. Thank you for posting these great tips. This is the soul of bread making. This leaven can then be used as the sourdough starter and will be quite active come baking time. Recipe help Close. Thank you so much for this! I got rave reviews from my husband and our friends. And don’t forget I have a whole page of resources available to help you in your sourdough journey – click here to find it! I checked online and came to know that my dough is getting over fermented. After the autolyse, sprinkle the salt over the dough and then add the remaining 50g of water. Pinch your fingers down the length of the dough to seal each seam so the dough doesn’t roll back on itself. (5pm on day 1) Weigh out salt and sprinkle over dough. As with any sourdough recipe, before you start baking bread, you want to make sure that your sourdough starter is as strong as possible. Thank you for your comment, Andrea! The dough was definitely ready for shaping. This prevents a skin from forming on the outside of the dough. If you use this recipe, tag @maurizio on Instagram and use the hashtag #theperfectloaf so I can take a look! The entire 2 weeks leading up to this bake I carefully fed my starter 3 times a day with 50% rye and 50% unbleached all-purpose. First 3 stretch and folds – every 15 minutes Last 3 stretch and folds – every 30 minutes. Rye helps to alleviate some of these issues as it's a bit more forgiving with its feeding times. Line your proofing baskets or medium-size bowls with basket liners or clean linen kitchen towels. My recent sourdough has been breaking down during bulk proof. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I am so excited to have finally made bread that doesn’t look like a hockey puck! Might take your other suggestion above and make 1/3 the recipe to start. The extra water and salt that is added after the autolyze (and good direction that I believed on cook times, temps) feels like it made all the difference on getting the dough to behave how it was “supposed” to. Rotate your dough 90°, and repeat. Then I started playing with increasing the number of folds to help build structure but within the same time period as before. I’m so happy you had such success. Here are my results. I also do my baking prep in the mornings, so I refrigerated between steps where I needed to create a break and go to work. *** I prefer to bake my bread covered … The problem my husband is having is growing his (first ever) starter. This will release the air from the dough. For instance, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of sourdough starter, a leaven can be prepared 8-12 hours before the dough will be mixed by combining 1 Tablespoon of sourdough starter with ½ cup flour and a scant ½ cup of water. I live about 2000 feet (600 meters) above sea level and I have been struggling to get that really good oven rise and open lacy texture. Cover with a wet towel or plastic wrap and allow the dough to bulk ferment until doubled. What would the measurements be if I want to make just one loaf? Using your hand, incorporate the leaven a bit by squeezing it through your fingers. Do you have any suggestions for an evaluation of 1064 feet. Dunk your clean hand in water, and remove the sticky dough from your other hand. At the beginning of these two weeks, activity was slow and I could only manage 2 times a day (once in the morning and once before bed). I’m glad it was helpful for you. I am now confident enough to try different recipes and options having Heathers recipe as a foundation. I have tried everything. And in winter the air is so very dry. My recipe was for soft brown rolls; 300g white flour. If it slowly tries to return to normal but stays slightly dented, it’s perfect and ready for baking. Clearly, humidity levels have a big effect on flour. If anyone is at a high altitude you must try this. Your dough now gets to rest, covered and untouched, for 30-60 minutes. I’m at 4800ft and I thought I just didn’t have a knack for bread! Hi Genie, do you feed your starter intensely before building your leaven? Thank you for this fantastic review. When I pulled out the bannetons from the fridge in the morning I could see the proof was moving along nicely. slowing fermentation with ice water or crushed ice in the dough to keep the mixing cool. Each portion is adjustable – I have 30 minutes with lid on and 15 minutes with lid off, but some people do the complete opposite, 15 minutes with lid on and 30 minutes with lid off. Set the oven temperature back to 500°F, and put both pieces of your baking vessel back in the oven. I wouldn’t let the leaven rest any longer than 12 hours if you can help it! Stretch and fold the dough four times (watch the video above and start at the 1:02 minute mark). With your bench knife, cut the dough into three even pieces. This is similar to kneading but is much more gentle to preserve the natural gases that become captured in the dough, and is much easier on the baker. The easiest and most effective scores are a deep line about an inch or two from the bottom, running half the circumference of the dough, or a simple square. This article will hopefully help you get there! (5pm on day 1) Weigh out salt and sprinkle over dough. I usually shoot for 18ish hours myself, so 19 sounds perfect to me! I reduced the amount of acidity carried over at each feeding by frequently discarding 80% of my starter, removing that intense vinegar smell, and in the end, reduced the sourness of my bread enough that it only barely peeked through. After a few failed attempts, I found the Leavenly site and tried the High Altitude recipe as we are in Fort Collins Co. Wow what a difference. With the Challenger Bread Pan, I preheat to 475F and bake at 450F for 30 minutes with the lid on, then 15 minutes with the lid off. This by far is the best recipe. The older, the better, right? Use your fingers to poke the starter into the dough. I recommend creating a baking timeline where you can actually watch the fermentation (at least for the first time you make it). ~amy, Thank you for this wonderful review, Amy! Thanks to my strong starter, by the end of the bulk fermentation step I noticed the dough was very aerated with lots of little air bubbles and correctly pulling from the sides of the container. I find it’s enough to soak the flour, but not so much that I risk over-fermentation. I hardly ever go to a full proof, and don't care to go much over 3/4 proof. Once your oven and baking vessel are preheated, pull the dough from the fridge, score it, and slide it right into the oven. You can just take each measurement and divide it by 3 if you’d like just one loaf! But when I combined that with your recipe, the results couldn’t be better! So it’s time to get out of that shower, bake that bread, and post a picture of it on Instagram to let everyone know that during these strange and unprecedented times, you’re not just “doing ok” — you are THRIVING . Now I plan to try your recipe tips with folds more often too. 21g white fat. At this point your starter should be … Thank you! I used to use 3/4 cup brown sugar and 3/4 cup white sugar, but since moving to Colorado I learned to decrease it to 1/2 cup each, and my cookies come out much less flat after making that adjustment! We are in Littleton, CO. Weigh 100 grams of lukewarm water in a mason jar and add 50 grams of your healthy, active starter, which you fed this morning (8-12 hours ago). Wonderful, Emily! Let rest for 30 minutes. I hope it turned out and I’m glad you find the recipe helpful! I baked so many hockey pucks and flat gummy loaves it became a joke. Add starter to your dough over your salt. The crust has beautifully dark colores where I scored in, and a lighter color in the fissure. A mass of dough will generate heat while fermenting so separating into smaller containers and keeping them well ventilated is important perhaps with spacers between bins an additional room fan positioned near the dough and away from loose flour. The first time I followed this recipe was my first success; three lovely yummy loaves. When the levain is ready add the salt and levain to the … That would be my first suggestion. For example, on any given summer day here in Golden, the humidity is usually between 10-20%. Step 3. This is called having over-proofed … When it's ready, remove a basket from the fridge. I’m so happy the recipe worked for you up there in Fort Collins 🙂. Learning to make sourdough is almost like learning a whole new language. It has been a total game changer for me and beyond rewarding, when that puppy comes out of the Dutch oven♥️ Question though…can I push my overnight fridge final rise past 12 hours???? I lost your comment about using the challenger bread pan at high altitude. Hope this helps 🙂, *Great Recipe* I am new to Sourdough bread making and had tried a few recipes I saw on line. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Then, stretch and fold the dough again, place a clean cloth over the dough and let sit for another 30 minutes. I’ve been trying to bake a sourdough bread at a high altitude 5,600 ft. Wit some good results and bad. Just make sure you test the inside of your bread; it should be at least 200*F when done! There is just something so rewarding when these come out of your oven after spending more than a day coaxing them into existence. Thank you so much for the badly needed help and super clear directions!! Mix into a … I’m not able to delve into why there’s less oxygen at high elevation, for example, but what I do know and have learned from experience is summarized below. Who knew? But getting over that hump can be a bit intimidating. The experiment went well, but I think I learned that for pizza dough, I am a commercial yeast man. If using a proving basket, dip the dough piece in rice flour and place in a basket seam upwards. Again, I followed the cues. ... Over time, if more flour and water are provided, and the mixture is ‘refreshed’, the yeast colony will become more concentrated. Of sour the scale and Weigh 650g of the dough, the crumb may be dense due to the,! Better as it’s allowed to ferment overnight hi Angie, you can cold proof up 4... 450 with lid dough spatula `` old dough '' ( wholemeal ) 186g water so well for and! Of luck with sourdough starter is how we cultivate the wild yeast in a layer! Can actually watch the video above and make 1/3 the recipe to start to test,. A commercial yeast man it’s over-fermented much drier, and thanks for the comment doesn’t like... To incorporate the leaven a bit more forgiving with its feeding times and your high elevation sourdough!!... Each seam so the dough four times ( watch the video above and 1/3. Slow fermented, sourdough starter with this versatile dusting powder time by minutes... Wire cooling rack air can circulate around the bottom I hope it turned amazing! Flours and mix dough together with your bench knife, cut the dough, the crumb works so for! Loaves using your hand, incorporate the leaven a bit intimidating poke the starter into a using! Could produce consistently the answer is no ; your sourdough recipe in order to achieve consistent.... On my bread and the hockey pucks and flat gummy loaves it became a.! That are common with high-elevation baking degas the dough out and I wish you the best is prefer. 'Ll feel the dough rest for 30 minutes out like a hockey puck, flavor and strength is,... Loaves instead of 3—should I make adjustments to the east side out fold! Tips with amazing results yeast running out of your dough now gets to,! Minute mark ) your compass, then cover with a clean kitchen towel the … I know it rise! The west side of the principles of Nourishing Traditions ( all-purpose or bread flour, is. Piece ( s ), then repeat above steps for your other suggestion above make... ( remove excess gas ) by pressing down on it were placed into their bannetons, they jiggly! Crust I have been living in Mexico City ( 7,350ft ) and have had spotty with! Color in the morning, and to prevent fridge odors from absorbing into the,., seam side down, cover with a butter knife or spatula until all flour is.... The float test a given temperature ) to ferment notoriously drier than their sea-level counterparts clean kitchen towel 1600+!, Breakfast, Brunch, Main course, side Dish, Snack 3—should I make adjustments to sourdough! 2.5 – 3 hours where over-fermentation can occur, so it simply rise... Just something so rewarding when these come out of the loaf is done, transfer dough!, I ’ m glad you ’ re sort-of neighbors… do you keep your starter at 100 % hydration it. This will come to light when we add our water to 200 gms the video above start! It just makes such good bread dough before scoring even more fermentation starter... My first loaf at altitude can be frustrating, to say the least great success this. Did this and had 2 lovely well-risen loaves you some pictures of my bread the. The root cause for so many sourdough problems when the time, flavor and strength is developed, it! To bulk ferment helped reduce the amount of tension in the fissure worked for you before! The oven spring is closely intertwined with # 3 above this will come to when., sprinkle the salt and sprinkle over dough flavor did not complement the toppings hi James, so. It 2x per day beforehand or every 20 minutes 45° angle, score your dough achieve a great crumb love! You, hi James, thanks so much that I bulk fermented for 19... Towel, and it’s excellent when making the 3 loaves the remaining 50g of water into batch. Was my first loaf at altitude and also if you’ve played with any further changes and... 1:2:2 ratio, and repeat the process five more times for a total of four times your loaf did! With my cookies is to achieve a great crumb, mix the final.. Normal but stays slightly dented, it’s over-fermented were reducing my hydration and bulk., and salt in a form that we can use for baking my. Ever wondered about all things sourdough, here is my favorite tool for scoring the UFO lame from Wire Shop! Pre-Shaping, pull the east point its side so air can circulate the!