EASY SOURDOUGH BREAD RECIPE | TARTINE BASIC COUNTRY BREAD

This recipe is based on the basic country bread recipe from Chad Robertson's book Tartine Bread, and it's really the easiest, most foolproof way I've found to make sourdough bread at home. And if you want to learn more about sourdough in general, this book is a great resource for that, so I'd highly recommend it. I know this is a long video, but by the end you'll not only know how to make a beautiful loaf of sourdough bread, but you'll understand the principles behind it, so you'll be able to adapt and troubleshoot during your own sourdough baking endeavors. So make sure to watch until the end so you don't miss anything. So of course the first thing you'll need is an active sourdough starter. I have a video on how to make a starter, so be sure to refer to that first if you don't already have one. But assuming you've got your starter, just add 50 grams of it to a clean jar, along with 40 grams of whole wheat flour and 40 grams of unbleached white flour. This can be either bread flour or all-purpose, it doesn't really matter. I have a pre-mixed batch of half whole wheat and half all-purpose here, so I'm just going to use 80 grams of that. Now add 80 grams of water and stir until everything is fully incorporated. So this is your levain, which is basically just the portion of starter that you'll use to leaven your bread. Now we'll let this sit at room temperature, around 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 21 degrees Celsius, for about 12 hours until the levain is nice and active. So I like to mix my levain the night before I plan to bake, so that it's ready to use by the time I wake up. So here we are, first thing in the morning, and it's been about 12 hours since I mixed my levain. You can see that it's just about doubled in size, and when I perform a quick float test here, it does float, which indicates that it's ready to use. So to start off, we'll just need to mix the dough. Get out a large bowl and fill it with 700 grams of water at about 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 30 degrees Celsius. I'll put the volumetric measurements in the description below as always, but for sourdough, you really do want to use a scale to get the best results. Now add your levain, which should be about 200 grams, and stir to disperse it throughout the liquid. Then add 900 grams of unbleached bread flour, along with 100 grams of whole wheat flour. The whole wheat is basically just here to give the yeast some more nutrition to help with the fermentation process. Now give everything a good stir until the flour is completely saturated, and you've got a shaggy ball of dough. Some people like to go straight in with their hands, but I like to start off by using this dough whisk, then finish it off with my hand to get it really thoroughly mixed. It's just a little more efficient this way and less messy. If you do get some dough stuck to your hand, just wet your clean hand with some water, and you should be able to peel the dough off your mixing hand without it sticking too much. Now I like to just shape the dough into a rough ball, then cover it with a towel or some plastic wrap, and allow it to rest for 20 to 40 minutes for the autolyse phase. During the autolyse, you'll see your dough go from a rough shaggy ball to a stretchier, more cohesive dough as the water gets absorbed by the flour and gluten starts to develop. Ideally, you'll want to leave it in a warm environment, around 85 degrees Fahrenheit or 29 degrees Celsius. So I've got a homemade proofing box here that I can keep at that exact temperature, but you can achieve a similar temp by just throwing the container into your oven with the light on. Just make sure not to accidentally turn the oven on while it's in there. Now while the dough is autolysing, we can prepare the last additions, which will be 50 grams of water and 20 grams of salt. So I like to dissolve the salt into the water to help distribute it more evenly. The salt hinders the flour's ability to absorb the water, so that's why we wait to add it until after the autolyse. And as you make this recipe more and more, you can adjust the level of salt to your taste, but 20 grams is a good starting point. So now that my dough has autolysed for about 30 minutes, it looks nice and extensible, so I'm going to add my salt and water, and sort of dimple it and fold it into the dough to incorporate it as evenly as possible. Now this brings the final hydration of the dough to about 77%, as you can see broken down on the screen. So that means that this dough contains 77 grams of water for every 100 grams of flour. This is a perfect hydration level to use as you're starting out with bread making, but as you get more advanced, you can gradually increase the hydration to suit your tastes. Basically, as you increase the hydration percentage, the dough will become stickier and harder to handle, but you'll end up with a more open crumb to your bread. I'm going to make a more advanced sourdough video soon, where I'll get deeper into the nitty gritty of everything, so I'll just leave it at that for now to keep it simple. But if you're not familiar with how baker's percentages work and you want to learn more, I'll link a useful resource about it in the description below. Anyways, once the dough is completely mixed, it's time for the bulk rise phase. So at this point, I like to transfer it to a clear rectangular container like this one, so I can see how the dough develops over time, but you could definitely just leave it in the same bowl if you prefer. So just fold the dough over itself a few times to form a general ball shape, then cover the container and put it back into your warm environment to start rising. So the bulk rise will take about 2 hours total, and we'll be performing 5 sets of folds throughout that process to develop tension in the dough. So that'll be 1 set of folds every 25 minutes. So after the first 25 minutes, take your dough out for the first set of stretch and folds. I like to keep a bowl of water here so I can wet my hands each time before handling the dough. So just grab a piece of dough from underneath, and stretch it as far as it'll go without tearing, then fold it over itself like so. And you'll repeat that 7 more times around the entire perimeter of the dough. So just keep rotating the container and stretching and folding until you're back to where you started and your dough has formed a nice, taut ball. It might not be extremely stretchy at first, but it'll get more and more extensible with each set of folds. So once that's done, just place the dough back into your warm environment. Now, here we are after another 25 minutes for the second set of folds. The dough is starting to develop some nice structure and elasticity, so it's a lot easier to get some good folds in. So just perform the same set of 8 stretch and folds, and place the container back into your warm environment. Now it's been another 25 minutes, and it's time for the third set of folds. At this point, the dough is starting to get a lot softer and airier, so we'll need to be more gentle with it to preserve that airiness. So perform your usual set of 8 stretch and folds, then we're actually going to flip the dough over at this point to prepare it for our next method of folding, which will be more gentle. So for now, just sort of wrap the edges underneath like so to maintain the dough's structure, and return it to your warm environment for another 25 minutes. Now after that 25 minutes, we can begin our fourth set of folds. This time we're going to use a method called coil folding. So you'll basically just lift the dough up and let it fold underneath itself, then turn the container 180 degrees and do the same thing with the other side. Then repeat that same process with the remaining two sides of the dough. This method, like I said, is more gentle than the stretch and fold, and it helps to incorporate even more air into the dough as it develops. Now just throw the container back into your warm environment for the final 25 minutes. Alright, so after that 25 minutes, it's time for the fifth and final set of folds, which will again be coil folds. So perform your folds on each of the four sides as you did last time. If you see any large bubbles on the surface, just go ahead and pop them so they won't end up in the final bread. The dough should be really soft and airy now, and it should be about 20-30% larger than when you started the bulk rise phase. If for whatever reason it doesn't seem quite ready yet, you can just throw it back into your warm environment for another 25 minutes, then perform another set of coil folds and proceed from there. But assuming it looks ready, we're just gonna set it aside for about 10 minutes to let it relax. Next, we'll divide and shape the dough. So for this, you'll need a metal bench scraper, along with a very lightly floured surface with plenty of space to work with. Start by plopping your dough out onto the surface with the top side down. So now we've got one floured side of the dough and one unfloured side. In tartine bread, Chad recommends dividing the dough into two pieces, but I prefer slightly smaller loaves so I divide mine into three pieces. Feel free to lightly flour your hands and bench scraper to prevent the dough from sticking. And now it's time to perform the initial shaping. So make sure your surface doesn't have too much excess flour on it, then place down one of the loaves with the unfloured side down. Using your bench scraper, form the loaf into a taut ball by scooping it from the side like so as you rotate it a quarter turn and then scrape it back toward yourself. Then just repeat that a few more times until you feel some good tension develop on the outer surface and the dough maintains its round shape. This tension is very important to make sure the loaf maintains its structure as it bakes. If you don't develop enough tension, your loaf might end up spreading outward instead of rising up and you'll end up with more of a pancake than a loaf of bread. Be careful not to shape it too tightly as well because the surface can tear if you're not careful. Just a few turns should be plenty. And make sure to pop any large bubbles that form at the surface. Then of course, repeat that process with the rest of the loaves. Don't worry, even if you don't want the final loaves to be round, you still need to shape them like this initially. We'll form the actual shape of the loaves during the final shaping. Make sure to be gentle throughout this whole process because we want to preserve that nice airiness that's developed. So now that you've got your taut balls of dough, it's time for the bench rest which will allow the gluten to relax a bit. So dust the loaves with a bit of flour, then cover them with some plastic wrap or a flour dish towel and let them rest for about 20-30 minutes. I like to use plastic wrap so I can watch how they develop over time. They should flatten but only slightly if you've developed some good tension during the initial shaping. If they spread out too thin, you can give them another round of shaping like we just did to develop some more tension, then let them rest for another 20-30 minutes. But mine are looking good at this point so I'm going to move on to the final shaping. I typically shape my loaves into batards which are short oval shaped loaves, but I'll also show you how to shape a boule which is a round loaf and that's the shaping method that's described in Tartine Bread. So dust the top surface of each loaf with a bit more flour, then flip them over so the unfloured side is facing up. Now again make sure you've got plenty of space to work with and you also want to get rid of any excess flour on your work surface. I even like to sprinkle my surface with a tiny bit of water to help the dough pick up some traction as I shape it. So to shape the batard, again make sure the floured side is facing down, then start by gently spreading the dough into a wide rectangle like so, then fold the portion of the dough closest to you over the middle. Next fold the left and right sides over each other in the same way. And finally the most important part, grab the two corners furthest away from you and fold them in toward the middle like this as if you were making a paper airplane. This creates a little thicker portion in the middle of the loaf which then tapers out nicely toward the edges. So go ahead and tuck that flap in as you roll the dough over, then tuck again and roll again until you've got a nice little burrito of dough. It helps to drag it along your work surface a few times too to develop some more tension. Then flip it over to make sure the seam at the bottom is closed and mine looks pretty good. So now we'll need to place it into a proofing basket for the final rise. I'm using an oval banneton, so I'll link the one I use in the description below, but you can also just use a bowl lined with a dish towel if you don't have a banneton. To prevent the dough from sticking, we'll need to lightly flour the banneton with some rice flour or any type of flour really, but rice flour works the best. Then just gently place the loaf into the banneton seam side up. If you notice any seams that haven't fully closed, make sure to pinch them shut at this point, then dust the loaf with a bit more rice flour to prevent it from sticking and set it aside as we shape the rest of the loaves. So next we're going to shape a boule. This is mostly the same as the batard, so make sure the floured side is facing down. Spread the dough out slightly, then fold the portion of the dough closest to you over the middle. Then fold the left and right sides over each other as you did before, and again grab the two corners furthest away from you, but this time you want to pull them all the way up and over the loaf as you flip it right side up. Then just drag it along your work surface as you did in the initial shaping to round it out and develop that last bit of tension. And this time I'm of course using a round banneton, which is again dusted with rice flour. Now the last thing we need to do here is wrap the loaves to make sure they don't dry out during the final rise. I'm using some food safe plastic bags, but if you have some large ziploc bags you could use those too. I know some people just use grocery bags and you could do that, but they're technically not food safe, so you know, just do that at your own risk. Anyways, for the final rise you'll want to leave your loaves in the refrigerator for anywhere from 3 to 12 hours. The longer you leave them in, the more sour and tangy your bread will end up, because the bacteria that creates that acidic flavor has more time to act. But I wouldn't go longer than about 12 hours, because at a certain point the yeast activity starts to decline, so you won't get as nice of a rise to your bread if you wait too long. So here we are 4 hours later and I'm ready to bake. I like to bake after about 4 hours because I don't like my loaves too overly tangy, and I've also found that I get the best rise when I bake them on the earlier side. So for this you'll want to use either a dutch oven, or ideally if you have one, a dutch oven combo cooker. By baking the bread in a dutch oven, you're basically creating a mini oven within your actual oven, so during those first few minutes of baking the dutch oven will get saturated with steam, which essentially replicates the steaminess that can only otherwise be achieved by a commercial steam injected oven. That steam helps the crust to stay soft, so the bread can expand freely in those first few minutes as it's rapidly rising. Then we'll end up removing the lid halfway through to let the crust get nice and crispy. The combo cooker is nice because it just makes it easier to score the loaf since the pan is shallower and you're less likely to burn yourself when you place the loaf in. But whichever dutch oven you're using, just throw that into your oven and set the oven to 500 degrees fahrenheit, which is 260 degrees celsius, and wait at least 30 minutes for both the oven and dutch oven to get smoking hot. Then once you're at that point, just take one of your loaves out of the fridge and tear off the plastic bag, then dust the loaf with a bit more rice flour which will prevent it from sticking to the pie. Now working quickly, remove your dutch oven from the oven and toss your loaf into the shallow half and score it. For this you'll need a bread lomb, which is basically just a razor blade on a stick, and personally I don't even use the stick, I just find it easier to hold the razor blade itself. You could just use a really sharp knife though too if you have to. For a batard like this, I like to just make a single slash down the middle and you want to go about a half inch deep. This will allow the steam to escape so the loaf expands properly and you end up with a great rise. So after it's scored, just put the lid on your dutch oven and transfer it back to the oven as quickly as possible to make sure you don't lose too much heat. Now just let that bake, still at 500 degrees, for 20 minutes. Then after 20 minutes, remove the lid and this is the most satisfying part of the whole process because you get to see that beautiful oven spring. But you don't want to lose too much heat, so quickly close it up and reduce your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 230 degrees Celsius. Let the loaf cook until it reaches a deep dark brown with some hints of black charring on the edges which should take about 15 to 20 minutes. And I like to rotate the loaf halfway through to make sure it gets browned evenly. A lot of people don't bake their loaves dark enough. You really want to let it reach a dark brown for the deepest, most complex flavor, not to mention the crispiest possible crust. So once the loaf is baked to your liking, remove it to a wire rack and allow it to cool for at least 30 minutes or up to a few hours. The inside is still finishing cooking as it cools, so you risk leaving it undercooked if you cut into it too early. Trust me though, it'll be worth the wait. As that cools, make sure to place your Dutch oven back into the oven and return it to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, and let it heat up for a bit before baking your next loaf. For the boule, I like to score it with a cross pattern like this, but really you can score it however you like. The baking process is the same regardless of the shape of the loaf, so I'll just leave it in there for 20 minutes, remove the lid, and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes to get that nice browning. A well-baked loaf should have a crispy crackly crust, and it should sound hollow when you tap on the bottom of it. Just check this out. It should also have a beautiful wide open crumb when you cut into it. So of course learning the technique is an important part of making sourdough bread, but ultimately to make your own perfect loaf, it's going to take some practice and experimentation, but that's what makes sourdough bread baking so much fun. So now that you know how to make sourdough, I put together a short playlist teaching you how to make some other delicious baked goods, so be sure to click that playlist on the bottom of the screen. So there you go. I'll see you all in the next one.