The first step is to prepare the autolyse. Whisk together the flours in a large mixing bowl. For today's recipe, we'll be using a combination of 80% bread flour and 20% whole wheat flour. Add your warm 90F degree water to the bowl. Please remember that this is the higher hydration sourdough recipe which can be challenging for beginners. If you're new, I recommend reducing the overall hydration to 330 grams water or even a little bit less. This will help make the dough easier to handle and help with additional strength building. So during this step you really want to get in there. Use your hands to mix the flours and water thoroughly. Pinch the dough together repeatedly. This is called the pincer method and scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure the ingredients are combined thoroughly. No dry clumps or bits should be visible at the end of mixing. During this stage the dough will feel very shaggy and sticky. Once mixed thoroughly cover the bowl with plastic wrap. I like to use a plastic shower cap, which has elastic edges and rest for at least 1 hour or up to 2 hours Many sourdough recipes call for creating an offshoot starter or levain. This is a great way to adjust or tweak a timeline to suit your preferred baking schedule. I prefer to simply use a portion of my ripe, just peaked starter in my bread dough. This eliminates one extra step and works better for my preferred baking timeline. In order to do this, you'll need to plan your previous feeding accordingly so that the starter is reaching its peak and due for its next feeding roughly at the end of the 1-2 hour autolyse period. While this test isn't fool-proof, your sourdough starter should pass the float test when it's ready to be used in your dough. Place a very small spoonful of your starter in some water. It should float to the top. If it sinks, it's not ready to use and usually requires additional time. Check and test again later. We've now reached the end of the autolyse period and we're ready to add our ripe, just peak starter to our autolyse mixture. At this point, the dough should already feel stronger. Add the ripe just peak sourdough starter. I like to lightly dip my hands in water to prevent sticking, but be careful not to incorporate much water as this is already a high hydration dough. Use your hand to spread the starter over the surface of the autolyse mixture. Fold the edges of the dough into the center to fully incorporate the starter. Then use your thumb and fingers to repeatedly pinch and grab the dough until the starter is completely incorporated. Again, this is called the pincer method. You don't want to be too delicate during this step. Work quickly, but you want to make sure that it's thoroughly mixed before moving forward. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to sit for an additional thirty minutes. At that point, we'll add the salt. After the dough has rested for 30 minutes, we'll add the salt. Sprinkle the salt over the surface of the dough. I like to dip my hands lightly in water once again. Then fold the dough over to incorporate the salt completely. Use your thumb and forefingers once again to pinch the dough repeatedly to incorporate the salt. You should not feel any granules at the end of mixing. You really want to be thorough during this step. Depending on the coarseness of your salts the mixing step usually takes about 3-5 minutes. This final mixing step is another great opportunity to build strength in your dough. If you're new to high hydration doughs and struggling to build strength, there are two great additional mixing methods that you can try. The first is called slap and fold. Transfer your dough to a clean countertop. Grab the top portion of the dough and slap it down on your countertop. Fold the dough over, rotate, and repeat. The other method is called the Rubaud method. This simple method mimics how a mechanical mixer kneads and mixes dough. Neither of these methods are required, but are great additional tools and methods at your disposal if you're struggling with a higher hydration dough. After mixing, cover the bowl once again with plastic wrap. Allow it to sit for 15 minutes before we do our very first stretch and fold set. For this recipe, we'll perform a total of 6 stretch and fold sets during the first two hours of bulk fermentation. To complete a stretch and fold, dip your hands lightly in water. I like to gently rub them together to avoid incorporating too much water into the dough. Grab the top portion of the dough with both hands. Gently pull and stretch it upwards without tearing and fold over the opposite edge. Rotate the bowl 180 degrees and repeat. Then rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat once again for both sides. After performing the stretch and folds, I like to gently grab the dough to round it in the bowl. Will perform a total of six stretching folds over the course of the first two hours of bulk fermentation. The first 3 will take place within 15-minute intervals and the remaining 3 will take place every 30 minutes. You can be flexible with this timeline... ...but it's really important to observe the dough and act accordingly. If the dough feels strong, you can always eliminate a stretch and fold set. If it needs more more strength, add another one in. Cover the bowl and allow it to rest for 15 minutes before performing the second stretch and fold. We're ready to do our second stretch and fold set. You can kind of see that the dough is already starting to develop a bit more strength. It's slightly rounded on the edges. The volume of the dough will not change dramatically during the first two hours of bulk fermentation. Perform your second set of stretch and folds, cover, and allow to rest for 15 minutes. We're ready to do our third set of stretch and folds. You can see that the dough is rounding a little bit more, but there hasn't been much change. Continue to be careful and gentle as you're stretching and folding as we don't want to press out any of gases. As you can see the dough is developing quite nicely. As I go to stretch and fold, I can see that I can pull the dough to be very very thin, but there is no risk of tearing. This is a great sign that your dough has good strength. After the third set of stretch and folds, we'll cover the dough and allow it to rest for 30 minutes... ...before performing the fourth set of stretch and folds. It has been 30 minutes and we're ready to do our fourth set of stretch and folds. We'll extend the time between the last three sets to give the dough a little bit more time to relax. We're ready to perform our fifth set of stretch and folds. If you've reduced the hydration on the original recipe, you will most likely not need to perform this number of sets. You should never feel like you're fighting the dough, as this can cause you to unintentionally de-gas it. If it's strong, do not perform any additional sets and allow it to rest covered for the remainder of bulk fermentation. We've now reached our sixth and final stretch and fold set. The dough already has gained a little bit of volume and is feeling more aerated. Remember that most the volume changes will occur in that final stage of bulk fermentation. Here is our dough after bulk fermentation. You can see it's a really nicely fermented dough. It's risen in volume substantially, it's rounded on the edges, and there are lots of gas bubbles present. At this stage, we're ready to do our pre-shape. The pre-shape is a great opportunity to build some additional tension into the dough and reorganize the gluten structure. Carefully transfer the dough - without de-gassing it - onto a clean dry countertop. We're going to use that tension from the countertop to help build the tension. Use a bench knife to gently shape the dough, pulling it gently towards you on the countertop to create some surface tension. The dough should feel aerated and almost bouncy. The key is to do this step quickly and as gently as possible. After this step, we'll rest the dough uncovered for 20 minutes. We're ready to do our final shaping at this point, you should have a well-dusted banneton set aside ready to go. Lightly flour the surface of your dough with bread flour. Use your bench knife to gently lift and flip the dough flour-side down onto your countertop. In this video, I'm showing you how I shape my loaf into a batard (oval). However, you can also shape it into a boule (round). Dust your hands lightly with flour. Gently grab the left portion of the dough and fold it past the center. You can gently press the edges to seal it slightly. Repeat from the other side. Using both hands, grab the dough. Be extremely gentle to avoid compressing it, and roll it up. The dough should feel extremely bouncy and well aerated. Use your bench scraper to quickly lift it, which will help seal the edges. Transfer your dough to your floured banneton. You can use your fingertips to gently seal off the edges of the dough, just be careful not to compress it. The dough will relax in the banneton, so don't be too worried if you see some fold lines. Lightly dust the surface of the dough with some rice flour and drape a linen over the basket. Cover the banneton with a plastic bag - I like to use a clean produce bag - and seal with a clip. Allow the dough to rest at room temerature for 10 minutes. Place the covered banneton in the refrigerator and retard the dough for 15 to 16 hours before baking. This slow and cold fermentation helps develop additional flavor and improves the final crust. Pre-heat your Challenger Breadware Pan, Dutch Oven, or combo cooker with the lid ON in a 500F degree oven for at least one hour before baking. Once the pan has preheated, remove the banneton from the refrigerator and uncover. We'll do a quick poke test for proper proofing. Lightly flour one small section of the dough. Press your finger gently into the dough about 1/2-inch deep. A properly proofed dough should very slowly spring back and still leave a light indentation. That is the sign of a well- proofed dough that is ready to be baked. If it springs back quickly and completely, it is under-proofed and you should return it to the fridge covered for an additional hour or so. If the dough compresses and doesn't spring back at all, it is over-proofed. There's not much you can do at that stage, so you should try to put it into the oven as soon as possible. At this stage, we're ready to remove the dough from the banneton and transfer it to our preheated baking vessel. If you're using a Challenger Breadware Pan, as shown in this video, or combo cooker... ...you can skip the parchment and carefully invert the dough directly into the preheated baking vessel. If you're using a Dutch Oven, please reference my recipe (link provided in the description) for additional instruction. I like to use my hands to lightly brush off any excess rice flour before scoring the dough. Grab your bread lame. If you don't have a bread lame, any simple razor blade will work... ...but it's nice to have that handle for control. Starting at the very top edge and holding the lame at a 45-degree angle, score the dough from top to bottom. I score slightly off-center in a curved shape as this has produced better ears on my bakes. The score should be 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch deep. Feel free to add a decorative leaf element on the side of the loaf if you want. Carefully top with your pre-heated lid and transfer to the oven. We'll be baking at 500F covered for the first 25 minutes of baking. Open the oven and remove the lid. The dough should have risen and expanded considerably. The crust should be set, but only lightly golden in color. Place back in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 475F... ...and continue to bake uncovered for an additional 15 to 25 minutes, or until deep golden brown. During this final stage of baking, I like to rotate the pan several times. This helps ensure that the crust is evenly getting color. As you can see, the ear rose and expanded extremely nicely in this bake and it's a nice even golden color. If you knock the bottom of the loaf, it will sound a little bit hollow and should feel very light. Transfer to a rack to cool completely before slicing. This will take several hours Slicing into warm bread will result in a gummier texture and cause the bread too stale faster. As you can see, our ear developed really nicely and we have a really nice open crumb structure. 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