Yeah, so in our sourdough recipe we
actually, well, when we were proving our dough We used a Pyrex dish, which is this here. Basically Pyrex is just a brand, it's one that's readily available here in Ireland But you could use pretty much anything you have,
like a cast iron dish, a casserole dish The concept's exactly the same.
The idea is to create a little chamber In which the dough to bake.
I suppose the benefit of use in a Pyrex dish Is it actually has the flat lid,
so when you flip it upside down It's got a flat surface to work on where a lot of dishes often have a little... a little handle A lid, so it's very hard to use.
So the one we use is two and a half liters Which is perfect for the likes of an
800-900g loaf of bread So, the size dish that you use largely just depends
on how much dough that you have Obviously you don't want to fill it
completely, you need to leave room For which the dough is going to prove and rise Online realistically is probably your best bet A lot of ours actually comes in
from companies in Germany Depending on, kind of, where you're from,
flour is often graded and has a different name I suppose in the UK and Ireland
we generally call it strong flour The idea, it's made from a harder
wheat so it's got a higher level of protein Generally, about 11-12%
and it's your protein that equals your gluten So when it comes to bread...
It's often known as bread flour Again, for example The French and the Italians would have a slightly different grading system than we would Like the French would be T65, we
call it strong, a lot of people call it bread flour It's all exactly the same thing just
depending on, kinda, where you're from The mill might have attached
a slightly different name The difference between a starter and a
levain is absolutely nothing They're exactly the same thing, it's just a different name So, yeah, you'll often find either you either got your starter culture, your mother, the levain They're all exactly the same thing, again,
it's just a different name's been applied to it But they're the same thing You'd have seen the sourdough starter recipe
that we used, and as I say When you kinda look through online you see a lot of different variations how to make different starters Between soaking grapes, using
yoghurt... To be honest Simply flour and water's absolutely perfect.
So the ideal flour to use when starting off your starter Is probably like a stone ground
organic wholemeal flour The idea being, all the nutrients are still trapped within the grain so it's exactly what you need And by going stone ground, you know that all the full grain is still contained within the flour And again, organic is a great way to ensure that there's been nothing added to the flour When it comes to your sourdough starter, um... For example, I would actually have two starter cultures.
I have one that's based on white flour And one that's based on rye flour.
So this is just our rye one here You'll see it's kind of that much, much darker in colour It's got a much stronger flavour. Probably the only difference is once I got my starter up and going On my daily feeding I simply use rye flour as opposed to, saying, using white flour But ideally, yeah, the flour you're going
to bake with is... Try hold onto that So if you're just using a white starter, um Make sure that you're just using a
good-quality white bread flour So you will notice in this sourdough
starter recipe that we suggest that you discard some halfway through the process.
Simply the only reason we do this And you don't have to,
is to stop you building up too much 'Cause ideally the ratios we work off is whatever quantity of sourdough starter we have We add the same weight of flour, same weight of water. So for example if you had 500g You would add 500g flour, 500g water
which takes you up to 1500g For the home baker, that's quite a lot,
and then the more you have if the more you have to feed Which in, realistically, is gonna start costing you more 'cause you have to keep adding more and more flour So the next time you feed it would be
1500g of flour, 1500g of water So simply the only reason we discard it, um,
it is just to stop you building up too much You don't have to discard it.
If you want to keep it all, feel free If you really don't want to throw
any of the starter away, um I found it works great used in pancake batter,
works great for waffles I've actually made, um, a chocolate brownie using it. So you can feel free to improvise
and use it where needs be As I say again Just don't build up too much 'cause you will have more to feed and more to look after So ideally we recommend that the starter
is fed once a week Now it is quite resilient.
You can push it up to about 10 days or so But you'll often kinda find, as the starter gets neglected this kind of grey liquid starts to form on the top of it So that's a bit of a cry for help,
your starter's starting to die off So ideally if that happens, just pour the
liquid away, don't mix it back in, and feed it You're gonna... You might kind of find that you'll have to feed the starter for two to three days continuously In order to bring it back to full strength If you're kind of maybe only baking once a week And you're kind of keeping your starter in the fridge,
and you're kinda... So as you take it... I generally would recommend, for example, as you're baking on a Saturday morning When generally a lot of people tend to
do and have a bit more time Take it out of the fridge on the Friday, maybe before you go to work, leave it sitting in your Just allow it to take the chill off,
allow it to kind of come up to room temperature That evening, whatever weight
you have, for example you'll have 200g Simply add in 200g flour, 200g water,
stir it together, leave it sitting in your kitchen Just cover it over, um And the next morning you're gonna find it
lovely and bubbly, lovely and active Ready to make your bread Take what you need to make your bread, and then whatever is left over, um You've two options really. You can pop it straight back in the fridge, it will be perfectly fine Or again, you can feed it before it goes back into the fridge, um Just depends, again I suppose, how long it is going to be until you bake again the next time So a great way to store your starter if you kind of find you're not gonna be baking for a little while And you don't want to have to kind of keep feeding it Is you can freeze it Freezes absolutely perfect.
Again, you might find when you let it thaw out You might need to feed it for two or three days again Just to bring it back up to full health The reason we would autolyse our dough is the idea Very simply... It's a simple process, it simply involves the mixing together of flour and water Which allows you to kind of condition the flour.
Allows you to hydrate fully Also allows us to slightly
extend our fermentation process But I didn't really want to over
complicate things too much The ideas is we're trying to keep this nice and simple, encourage as much people to bake as possible Course we can get a little bit more technical I generally found... Autolyse is is great when you're kind of using like a whole grain flour, um Because it, particularly with the likes of
the bran and the fibre within the grain It does take a little bit more time to hydrate,
so autolyse is a great benefit there Also it's a nice process to use when
using much wetter doughs 'Cause it allows you to build up
some strength within the dough Which you'll probably find are much easier to work with So it just depends on the recipe, um,
not every recipe requires it Converting, say um, a yeasted recipe to a
sourdough recipe, it... I suppose... It is... of course it is possible, um But you're gonna find that it won't...
It will produce slightly different things I suppose with a lot of yeasted
breads, it tends to be a little bit softer, um Than say what we have with our
starter culture here But I suppose the easiest kind of ratio to work off,
for example As bakers, we typically work in percentages, um,
and we'll always regard flour as 100% And everything else the percentage of that. So for example, for a yeasted bread, a very simple recipe Would be 100% flour, you have 2% salt and 2% yeast So for example you got 500g of flour, most basic recipes based on fresh yeast would be 10g of fresh yeast Which is exactly 2%
But if we wanted to convert that to a starter A good starting point is about 30%
So if you are I say working off a kilo of flour That'll be 300g of sourdough starter As opposed, to say with our yeast,
where it would only be 20g So that's probably the ratio we use a little bit different But again, when you're converting recipes over,
think logically, think about the effect it has If you're kind of using kind of a wet starter like we do You will find that it's going to add additional hydration
to your dough So you might find that you need to hold back
a little bit more liquid So you can keep that lovely balance No, when it comes to shaping your bread
you can shape it any way you like You can use... It can be in a tin, it can be round,
it can be square it can be any shape you like It just depends on what you're actually going to prove it in or what you're gonna make it in And what the process is. It's only a visual thing really It doesn't make a difference actually how it bakes So you so you can be using a loaf tin no problem, you have our little Pyrex dishes You can use individual little rolls...
Just depends on what you're trying to achieve Typically I do find with most sourdough loaves, in particular, is they do you do bake better free-form Rather than in a tin. Tend to produce more volume Help to create a kind of a better crust rather,
than say, bake it straight in a tin But again, use whatever you have at home If you've only got a few loaf tins, use that,
that works absolutely perfect Depends on what day of the week it is really Quite a few staff at the bakery I'm sure I could
think of it from time to time Who down-thumbs sourdough videos? People with a lot of hate in their life Sadly, yes
