I tried my hand at making a starter years ago and it went poorly. I was gifted some starter earlier this week and have been bulking it up in order to bake some bread this weekend. The starter is MUCH better than any of the ones I've ever made, so Ive had high hopes all week that my sourdough will actually come out decent this time.
I've been following this recipe, and it's been going....not well. Everything was weighed to the gram, including the starter, and "lukewarm" water was about 80ish degrees. The dough is so unbelievably sticky that I can barely scrape it off the sides of the bowl.
Is this normal? It's been years since I've done this so I'm back to questioning everything. I'm planning to just drop the whole thing into a Dutch oven and cook it, but I understand that I'm deviating from the recipe. My Dutch oven cooks were just so much better.
Cna anyone provide a better recipe for just a basic sourdough boule that you've had decent success with? I'd really like to continue baking bread, but I know for a fact that I'll wind up giving up again if I have too many failures (I think I baked 8 different times a few years ago, and I gave up because they were always so dense, and flat.). Really want something with a good, fluffy, stretchy crumb.
Any advice or questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I live in a warm and humid climate so generally start my dough with cool water. Usually for what my kids call "the sourdough" I aim for 70% white flour (30% any whole grain) and 70% hydration. You probably want to use bread flour for most of the white flour, all purpose doesn't usually have enough gluten.
When a dough is too sticky, I do not knead it, put in a bowl and stretch and fold every half hour (ETA: until it feels developed, usually 3 or 4 times total) with the help of a spatula, let rise, then bake in a bread pan, pour it if I can't shape it. I have done that successfully with 100% whole grain and 90% hydration. It ended up really good, but at all points till final rise in the oven I was skeptical.
I will say that sourdough is much less sticky than dough made with dry yeast in my experience.
Thanks for this! I'll try it next weekend.