Lessons E04 How to Make a Sourdough Country Loaf from Start to Finish

What's in this episode

Send us a question or voice memo! In Lessons Episode 4, we take the country dough formula we created in our Baker’s Math episode and finally turn it into a loaf of bread. I’ll walk you through the entire process, beginning with the night-before levain build and continuing through the autolyse, mixing, gluten development, bulk fermentation, folds, pre-shaping, final shaping, basket proof, cold retard, scoring, baking, cooling, and evaluating the finished loaf. Along the way, we’ll cover: How to recognize when your levain is ripe and ready What an autolyse does—and when it may be helpful Mechanical mixing and the windowpane test How to reach a Desired Dough Temperature of 78°F Stretch and folds versus coil folds How to measure percent rise during bulk fermentation The signs of under-fermented, properly fermented, and over-fermented dough Pre-shaping, bench rest, and final shaping Choosing the right banneton The room-temperature basket rise before refrigeration Covering your dough during an overnight cold retard Scoring and baking in a Dutch oven How to evaluate the crust and crumb after baking Most importantly, we spend time answering one of the most difficult questions in bread baki