Handmade High Hydration Sourdough Bread Recipe | Autolyse Method | How To

so today we'll talk about high hydration though now what does it mean high hydration it means that the dough contains a relatively large amount of water in relation to the total flour and why would you want to add more water to your dough high hydration will give your bread the more open crumb and those big bubbles so let's get to it as always you'll find all the weights and measurements and details down in the description box so let's see what equipment we'll use this is the home Baker's best friend a cast-iron pot with the lid during baking it traps steam inside and lets though expand by preventing it from drying out if you don't have one of these just use a thick bottom tray and now to the usual suspects you'll need a bowl for mixing scales for weighing your ingredients a scraper razor blade or a knife for scoring your dough obviously temperature probe and you'll need a breadbasket if you don't have one you can use a cake tin lined with tea towel now for the ingredients with some strong white bread flour water some fine sea salt I'm gonna use some caraway seeds but that's optional and you'll need a nice and active sourdough starter so the first thing we need to do is to build 11:11 consists of a portion of the total water a portion of the total flour and a little bit of your sourdough starter this will be the foundation for it though a strong leaven is crucial for any bake and making it too straightforward you just mix all the ingredients until there's no more dry flour you leave it to ferment I'm using a room-temperature water just around 21 degrees C so take me around 12 to 16 hours for this to be ready it should almost triple in size normally do this overnight so it's readied next morning now because of high hydration dough contains a lot of water the dough will be very wet and hard to work with so for the best results and to help us out we'll do a process called authorization in which you just mix the remaining flour and water and leave its hydrate I am adding the seeds now but that's not crucial to the process now flour contains two proteins glutenin and gliadin when water is added those two proteins create gluten so to have better gluten development you need to let your flour hydrate this is especially true for high hydration dough so authorization is a step we take to help us out and it's super simple all you need to do is mix the flour and the water cover it leave it to oscillate for 2-3 hours and we are not adding the salt right now because the salt will compete with the flour for water and two three hours later you'll see that though is completely changed before it was just a sticky mess now if I wet my hands a little bit so they don't stick I pick the dough up as you can see it's super stretchy there's lots of gluten and we didn't even do anything just mix the ingredients and left them so this is a very good method for helping you out and hydrating the flour and creating gluten and remember to get your timings right because authorization takes two to three hours and obviously you need your eleven to be ready when the auto lease is ready now will add the leaven to the dough and give it a good mix there's no real technique here just wet your hand to prevent sticking and just squeeze it all together mash it all up in the bowl and you may have noticed that we are not adding the salt yet that'll come a little bit later now just mix everything to a cohesive mass and once you're happy with that tip it out on your table this dough so the 80% hydration so it's quite wet and to knead it use a stretching fold method keep a little bowl of water nearby and your scraper so that you can wet your hands to prevent them from sticking and use the scraper to collect the dog from the table so the perform a stretching fold is quite straightforward you pick the dough up by one side stretch it against the table fold it forward and repeat so by picking it up by one side you kind of crisscrossing the pattern and now if we had not done the otter lace step this would be very difficult though would be super sticky and it would take probably twice as long to work but this already feels quite smooth and full of gluten so around five minutes into the kneading process we'll add the salt all you need to do is stretch the dough out on your table in a thin layer there's no right or wrong here just stretch it out as thin as you can I'll sprinkle over your salt and I do suggest using fine salt because they'll be easier to work into the dough and then you can wet your hands and rub the salt in squeeze it in then pull it in again there's no right or wrong here just combine it with the dough give it a little massage always remember not to wet your hands too much when working with your dough because you are adding water to the recipe once you're happy with that user scraper scrape it all back together and we'll need it for five more minutes using stretch and fold method you really feel the dough becoming nice and smooth stretchy elastic and it will be a lot less sticky than in the beginning it will still stick I'll get me wrong we need to remember when working with high hydration dough is to be quick and gentle so a total of 10 minutes of stretching folds and the dough is ready for its first proofing I can pop it into your bowl and always take the temperature of your finished dough 23 to 24 degrees C is just about perfect for me if your dough is cooler place it in a warmer area of your kitchen and if it's warmer than the other way around but this is okay we'll cover it and proof it for one hour and after the first hour of proofing we'll perform a fold a folding is especially important in high hydration though because as we fold it we create more layers in the gluten structure and we create tension in though this will make it stand up who else is baking instead of spreading out in this case folding also serves another purpose will equalize the temperature in the dough for example if the dough is cool in the center and warm on the outside the folding will distribute the temperature evenly and you'll get a more even fermentation now once we've done the first vault we can cover it up and prove it for one more hour and you should really start seeing a good rise in the dough by now and after the second hour of proofing we'll perform another fold now this is called the coil fold I'll show you how it works always wet your hands when folding so pick the dough up by the middle release it from the bowl and roll it underneath itself then turn the bowl and repeat you won't do this on all corners of all types what is important to remember that every subsequent fold has to be performed more gently than the previous one you don't want to knock out any of the fermentation gasses accumulated inside the dough second fault done cover it up leave it proof for one more hour and a good sign that your dough's proofing well and you have good gluten development will be that the dough will not be flat it will be domed and after the third hour of proofing is pretty shaping time dust your dough with flour release it from the bowl using your scraper and pop it out on your table if you were making more than one loaf than at this point you would divide the dough first and then pre shape I will use the pre shape to give the dough a few more folds and kind of shape it into the final form so to pre shape a high hydration dough stretch it out make sure it's floured you don't want it sticking fold the bottom up cross over the sides then pull the top right down to the bottom once you've done that stitch up the sides it's important to keep your fingers floured so they don't stick and once you've stitched it up you can roll it into the tide roll and then just tighten it against the table using your scraper this dough is really light and full of bubbles that's a very good sign just don't pull it too tight you might rip the surface after the pre shape we need to let the dough rest for 30 minutes so they were looking to relax so we can perform the final shaping and dust your bread basket with flour and also dust the dough with flour then release it from the table using your scraper flip it smooth side down and the final shaping will be almost the same as the pre-shape so once again stretch to go out fold the bottom up cross over the sides then pull the top right down to the bottom and then stitch it up and once you've stitched it up roll it this takes a bit of practice but don't worry if you mess it up your basket is gonna keep the shape anyway and you can try next time thus your dough will flower a little bit as well then using your scraper pick it up and place it in your baskets move side down what you can do now is pinch together any seams you can also stitch the bottom up just to help it keep its shape we will called proof this dough in the fridge overnight so you want to make sure you've done your best because this is the last time you will touch the dough before baking sprinkle the bottom with a bit of flour cover it leave it in your refrigerator I like to use shower caps they're reusable and they fit over the bread basket perfectly you can refrigerate the dough for up to 18 hours and the following day one hour before your baking you want to pre-heat your oven 240 degrees C no fan and also preheat your pot we will bake the bread straight from the fridge now look at that beauty it's puffed up nicely it's got that wobble feels quite light we're ready to bake so get your razor blade or your knife whatever you're using get your hot pan then pop the dough straight into the middle I know a lots of people dust the pan with something but it's not totally necessary it's not going to stick now what you can do is dust the top of the dough with flour you'll make it easier to slash with a razor and to score it's the one long cut at an angle about an inch deep from the top down to the bottom this will give the dough a space to expand out of and then we'll bake it for 20 minutes with the lid on and after the first 20 minutes of baking comes the magic part you never know what's gonna be underneath that lid and this is looking quite good to get the lid off up back in the oven and finish baking for 20 more minutes that's your high hydration open crumb bread so there's three very important steps for successful bake like this a nice and strong leaven the authorization process and the folds and as always any questions or suggestions write them down in comments thank you for watching I'll see you in the next one

Channel: ChainBaker

Views: 68,917

Keywords: baker, baking, sourdough, yeasted, homebaker, artisan, handmade, learning, bread

Id: LxqxsaYAhx4

Length: 11min 24sec (684 seconds)

Published: Wed May 27 2020