Super Sourdough

If you’re making a loaf in a loaf tin of any sort, the second prove is carried out within the tin itself. This can give it, especially if it’s very wet or shaping has been a trial, ample chance to weld itself to your tin. Always heavily grease a loaf tin, right to the corners. Use butter, or some other hard fat. Do not use oil.

Lots of variables affect gluten development. High hydration levels, for example, will space your proteins further apart and lead to fewer links being formed between them. Equally, if you have a very stiff dough, it’s difficult to stretch the gluten out and, as a result, far harder work to develop the gluten.

this is where feeding your starter comes in. By maintaining a constant food source and, importantly, stopping the whole solution from becoming too alcoholic or too acidic, you can keep this stage of the fermentation going in perpetuity. This is why it’s important not just to feed your starter but to feed it enough. If you just keep adding a little

I have to thank Debra Wink of thefreshloaf.com for her wonderful write-up of the work she’s done in identifying the stages of starting a sourdough starter, properly published in the journal Bread Lines in 2009. Her posts have largely popularised the ‘pineapple juice method’ of creating sourdough starters – she proposed using this particularly acidi

Allow your dough to rest in a covered bowl in a warm place for about 4 hours, or until increased by at least 50% in size. This can be extended, after a couple of hours, by placing the dough in the fridge for up to 1 day.

SECOND PROVE Rest your dough for a further 2–3 hours. Alternatively, you can prove for 1–2 hours at room temperature and then 8–12 hours in the fridge.

First, there’s the splitting of the dough into however many loaves you’re making and pre-shaping it – this makes your dough strong. This has to be followed by another rest, preferably of at least 20–30 minutes, to allow your gluten to relax enough to let you shape it again. Second, there’s the final shaping into whichever shape you want your loaf t

If you don’t feed your starter, after a day or two you’ll notice it split into two layers: a watery, cloudy layer and a thick, gelatinous floury layer. This separation is just a sign of the fermentation settling down. The sourdough starter will continue to become even more acidic, and the biodiversity will decrease. Some yeasts will die; many more

What Lacto does do, though, is give sourdough the tang after which it is named, and a good chunk of aroma. It is present in huge numbers – in healthy starters it seems to outnumber your yeast by about 100 to 1. This is a vast amount of intracellular (within the cell) machinery and a huge number of enzymes, all working to break down the starches and