Diana's Sourdough Bread

 

Make dough in afternoon over 3 hours, allowing 4 more hours for fermentation before shaping and refrigerating. Shape at bedtime (8 or 9 pm), cover and refrigerate until ready-to-bake the next day. ALTERNATIVELY, see instructions at bottom for starting your dough at 7 pm.

In a large dry bowl:

12 g table salt

Zero the scale. Add:

15 g malt powder, 

whole wheat flour (approx 60 g) ==>75 grams on scale

bread flour for total of 400 g. 

BLEND dry ingredients with whisk.

In a second bowl:

mix starter (125 g)

250 g water

Mix thoroughly.

pinch of yeast  (= 1/8 teasp.)

Pour wet mixture into center of dry mixture. Save this wet bowl.

Blend with whisk, butter knife, then fingers until you can FEEL that the whole mixture is uniformly moist. NO dry spots.

Use dough scraper to scrape dough off of fingers. Then use scraper again to move dough to the WET bowl you set aside. Turn it once to coat surface with that little bit of wet. Cover with a plastic wrap-sprayed-lightly-with-oil.

Cover dough.  CLOCK-zero. 1 pm 

CLOCK-ONE   2 pm or 2:30 pm

After an hour (or 1.5 hrs), fold dough over in bowl 8x. 

CLOCK-TWO. 3 pm 

Repeat folding 

CLOCK-THREE. 4 pm

Repeat folding 

On counter, let rise until doubled, 4 or more hrs.  About 8 pm

AT 8 PM:

When you have a fluffy loose risen dough, scoop it onto the clean counter. 

Shape it on the counter into a tight ball. See Patrick do it in 45 seconds: https://youtu.be/2FVfJTGpXnU.

Now you have a tight ball of dough.

Prepare a pie pan with parchment paper dusted with semolina flour.

Prepare a large plastic bag, cut open, with a light spray of vegetable oil.

Place ball of dough on the prepared paper in pie pan; cover with the plastic bag, pressing all around the dough to eliminate air — and set it in the refrigerator overnight or longer.

Diana’s Cold oven method:

The next morning, gently lift paper and dough to place into Dutch oven. Keep the plastic covering on it. I use this glass casserole, placing the dough on top of the LID side: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H9K97WG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Let it rest and come to room temperature 2-3 hours. 

Prepare to bake: remove plastic wrap, dust with flour, score with razor blade.

Trim the parchment paper so that it won’t extend out of the pot - add a few small squirts of water under the parchment paper — place Dutch oven lid on top — put into cold oven and turn to convection 450 degrees. 

When oven temp reaches 450, set a timer for 15 minutes. When it rings, remove lid of dutch oven.

Set timer for 5 minutes. Then insert thermometer set to 211 degrees - set alarm on timer for another 5 minutes.

Wait for 211 degrees BUT WATCH IT. The temperature is just an estimate of doneness — it must also reach the crust color that you want. Do not burn the bottom, however.

Remove the loaf from the oven, lift it out of the cookware and put it back into the hot oven (NOW oven is turned OFF) and set it on the rack for an additional 10 minutes to crisp up.

Cool on rack for at least 90 min.

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Overnight method.

At 7 pm, make a shaggy dough.

Cover the dough and leave on counter 1 hour under a wet kitchen towel.

Fold 4 times in the bowl using a flexible dough scraper - cover again with SPRAY OILED PLASTIC WRAP:  set it in refrigerator overnight, next morning bring to counter and let it sit for 6 hours; shape; rest 1-2 hours; bake using COLD OVEN procedure.