Time 00:00

I’ve poured out all but the stuff stuck to the sides and bottom. This is all that I’m going to use for the new starter.

I put in 200g of water and just shook it with the lid on until the remaining starter is mixed in. Looks like a frothy milk.

With an equal 200g of bread flour, I have 400g of starter, just mixed until it’s all wet. (this is 100% hydration by baker’s math)

Since all of the starter was already mixed into the water, you don’t have to beat it around, just make sure it’s mixed until wet.

+08:00 Hours – (..ish, temp dependent)

I generally try to time this so that it’s ready to use before it erupts, but so it goes.

My active starter is ready to go in about 8 hours. So I’ll feed it right before bed for a morning mix. Or feed it first thing in the morning for an afternoon mix.

To start out use 700g water. The dough is more forgiving and easier to work with. This is what I’ve been feeding you at home.

In bread terms this is 70% Hydration. More on this to follow.

70% Hydration is low for sourdough. Most folks are closer to 80%. I’ve been playing with 80-85% with some great results, but the dough is very wet and delicate and hard to handle.

Here I’ve added 300g of stater. Most folks don’t use that much, but I like the tang it adds. So I say fuck ’em.

This is the float test. Your starter should be active enough that it floats. As shown here.

Much like shaking the water into the starter cup, I like to mix my starter into the water.

1. Yeast don’t drown.

2. now that all your liquid is very very thin starter, you don’t have to spend 20 min kneading it in later as an additive….

3…. other people are stupid.

So I’ve added 1000g of flour. So with 700g of water that gets you your 70% hydration in baker’s math. (Do not use mathematician’s math on this, as you will have wildly different results)

Now, you might be asking yourself, but wait, we’ve added 300g of starter at 100% hydration, so isn’t our working mix here more like 73.9% hydration? The answer is yes, but bread folk ignore this math.

Now, all I do is mix it all until it’s all wet. Then you can either knead it until you stretch all the gluten, like an asshole, or you can take the French autolyze method, where you walk away for 30 min and come back when it’s doughy.

+00:30

A perfect 24g of salt to add…… if you’re going to err, err high.

Shake that salt on.

Start pinching. Pinch all the way through. Go across, turn 90 degrees, and then pinch through it all again.

Fold it into a ball. For ball folding, use the same method as below. I forgot to take photos at this point.

Do it again right away, both directions.

Pinched all the way through in both directions, looks like a bunch of tiny balls here.

Keep lifting corners over the top until you have another ball. This will make more sense below.

Ball…..

+00:30

Time to do the first true fold. You sort of did it when you made the ball. Now we’re actually going to stretch and fold. These layers are how we incorporate strength, and with the laminated layers will entrap air.

Corner one pulls straight up until you feel the stretch stop, this is just something you learn. It will stretch until it doesn’t, then it tears.

On this very first one, stretch it until it does tear, just to see what that feels like. Then don’t ever do that again.

Corner one goes all the way over.

Then move around to corner two. Then stretch and fold it over.

Do this with all four corners.

Once all 4 corners are folded, lift it up and put it fold side down. Like this.

Repeat this process every 30 min for a total of 3 folds.

+00:30-01:30

you want this thing to be about double volume maybe? Something like this.

Scrap this out with a plastic scraper. It helps to sprinkle all the walls of the tub with flour so that when you are scraping it out they are less sticky.

These are my favorite scrapers.

I cut the whole thing in half with the scraper. Already put one into the banneton. So we’ll do the second.

Flour the fuck out of your banneton. Like, actually push the flour into the fibers of the banneton.

I’ve actually switched to these bannetons, and I started using rice flour as a release flour. Absolute game changer, but these are old photos with my previous equipment.

Once again, stretch and fold all your corners, but gently so as to not pop all the air bubbles you’ve build up inside. Otherwise you get dense bullshit.

Folding….

Folding….

Folding….

Folding….

Folding….

Folding….

Folding

Folded, but not shaped….

Cover these in plastic, put them in the fridge overnight. This timing is less crucial. Aim for at least 8 hours. 24 is fine. 48 will never come out of the banneton, that’s just one fused lump of fuck at that point.