I’ve been working on strengthening my starter for the last two weeks. I found fascinating info from Doc Dough on determining when a starter was ready for a feed or to be used. Link here: https://weightloss-slim.fit/node/67214/2-weight-loss-method-judging-levain-maturity%C2%A0%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3E%C2%A0%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3ELong story short, your starter including the container should lose 2% of the weight of flour added for the feed. I’ve been using this to judge my feeds and my starter has more than doubled each time. I also no longer have that acetone smell when it came to the next feeding. Feeds were generally 12 hours apart as I left very little in the container and fed between 40 and 50 g of some rye and mostly unbleached flour.
40 g Sun Dried Tomatoes, chopped, not in oil (See note in recipe)
700 g unbleached strong baker’s flour
200 g freshly milled Red Fife flour
100 g freshly milled Spelt flour
700 g tomato soaking liquid/filtered water
250 g levain (Procedure in recipe)
- Mill the Red Fife and Spelt berries. Place the required amounts in a tub. Add the unbleached flour to the tub.
- Grind the flax seeds in a bullet and add to the flours in the tub. Cover and set aside.
- Soak the sun-dried tomatoes in 300 g of lightly salted (pinch of salt) hot water until the skin is easily pierced with a knife (~2 hours). Place in the fridge overnight.
- Feed the levain 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise at cool room temperature for the night.
- Early in the morning, remove the tomatoes from the fridge and let warm up on the counter.
- Feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 25 g of wholegrain flour as well as 75 g of strong baker’s flour. Let rise until doubled (about 6 hours).
- Two hours before the levain is ready, drain the tomatoes but be sure to save the tomato water. Put the tomato water in a stand mixer’s bowl and add filtered water until you have 700 g. Add the flours from the tub. Mix on the lowest speed until all the flour has been hydrated. This takes a couple of minutes. Autolyse for at least a couple of hours at room temperature.
- Chop the olives and crumble the feta if needed. Add to the tomato mixture (no point having a million bowls out).
- Once the autolyse is done, add the salt, the olive oil, the olives, the drained tomatoes, the feta, and the levain to the mixing bowl. Mix on the lowest speed for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on the next speed for 9 minutes.
- Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Let rest 30 minutes in a warm spot (oven with light on).
- Do 2 sets of stretches and folds at 30 minute intervals and then 2 sets of sleepy ferret folds (coil folds) at 45 minute intervals, and then let the dough rise to about 25-30%. This took about another 45 minutes on this particular day.It should have irregular bubbles visible through the sides of the container and bubbles on top as well.
- Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~800 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter.
- Do a final shape by flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and cross over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice tight boule.
- Sprinkle a mix of rice flour and all purpose flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge overnight.
- Danni3ll3's Blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Lovely Danni, I love kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes and feta so these loaves are perfect in my eyes. I’ll have to use this combination of inclusions in a loaf soon.
Benny
Let me know how yours turns out.
I really like the combination of your add-ins.
” Add ins
130 g Kalamata Olives, sliced
40 g Sun Dried Tomatoes, chopped, not in oil (See note in recipe)
100 g crumbled feta
30 g olive oil ”
Have you noticed if any of the add-ins affect the sourdough fermentation?
I love feta cheese...
honey or something sweet, then fermentation might speed up a bit. Overall, my fermentation times are pretty consistent within a half hour or so. The weather seems to have more effect.
I love the flavour combination in these loaves. Classic Greek flavours and beautiful.
No one else in my house eats kalamata olives but me but that sounds amazing. That's one of my favourite combos on pasta.
It definitely is a good combo! I’m so happy that the loaves had great oven spring and weren’t bricks. I was starting to doubt my own abilities.