San Francisco Sourdough
There are hundreds of recipes for San Francisco Sourdough bread. Some call for 100% wheat and some call for a wheat/rye dough. The "sour to flour" ratio can vary from as low as 35% to as high as 65%. Some ferment over 3 days and some over 12 hours. Some have a very high hydration and some do not. Some require stretching and folding every hour and some do not. Here is a recipe for San Francisco Sourdough Bread that is as easy as it gets, with a nice open crumb (read: holes) and a great flavour. Everyone wants to bake San Francisco sourdough - they want the challenge, they want the flavour, they want the texture and most of all, they want the HOLES!
Servings: 1 Loaf
Equipment
- bowls, rising baskets or tins, baking trays, non stick baking parchment, scale
Ingredients
- 80 g Wheat sourdough starter From the vat in the fridge
- 530 g White wheat flour
- 370 g Water
- 10 g Salt
Instructions
Day 1
- Measure the sourdough starter into a large bowl and return any remaining starter to the refrigerator.
- Add 80 g of the flour and 80 g of the water. Stir and cover with plastic wrap, and leave on the counter for around 8 hours. Make sure your starter is ready to use
Day 2
- Add the remaining 450 g of flour and 290 g of water and the salt and knead well for 10 minutes by hand or by machine on the lowest setting.
- Put the dough in a bowl and cover the bowl with a shower hat or plastic wrap and leave on the counter for 6 hours.
- Stretch and fold the dough every hour during that time (this is important to do if you want holes). To do that simply pinch the edge of the dough, stretch it up and fold it over the rest of the dough. Don’t press it down, just lay it down. Work your way around the edge of the dough, stretching and folding 4-6 times.
- That’s it. Then, cover the dough and let it sit for another hour.
- Stretch and fold the dough one last time and then shape it into a ball. Flour the top generously and place it floury top side DOWN in a well floured, 1 kg, round rising basket.
- Cover it with the shower hat again and let it rest 2-4 hours until it passes the probe test.
- Preheat the oven to 230 degrees C.
- Line a baking tray with parchment and gently turn the dough out of the basket.
- Pop it in the oven and bake for 10 minutes and then lower the temperature to 200 degrees C and bake for a further 30 minutes.
- Remove the dough from the oven and let it cool completely on a wire rack.