5d • 💬 General Discussion
Just refining my First Principles approach to the Tartine Country loaf
Bread only appears simple.
Most people think bread is just flour, water, salt, and yeast. But authentic artisan bread is really built from seven ingredients working together at the same time:
- Flour — provides the structure, strength, and food supply for fermentation.
- Water — hydrates the flour and allows gluten and fermentation to develop.
- Salt — strengthens the dough, improves flavor, and helps regulate fermentation speed.
- Yeast — creates carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and expand.
- Lactic Acid Bacteria — the hidden workforce inside sourdough starter that creates flavor, aroma, strength, and preservation.
- Time — allows fermentation, gluten organization, flavor, and structure to fully develop.
- Temperature — controls the speed of everything. Temperature is the steering wheel of bread making.
The real art of sourdough is learning how these seven ingredients interact with each other — and learning how to guide them instead of fighting them. 🍞
May 9th… 100/77/2/20 using 1200g total flour + 100% hydration starter + dough temperature 80~82°f.
After refining the actual formula and recipe to what I think is an accurate replica of Tartine’s famous Country loaf… I’m fine tuning the processes to be my simplified First Principles version. I did increase the inoculation from 9% to 20% to speed things up a bit. However I did not eliminate any steps required to make an authentic artisan loaf of sourdough bread. I just eliminated unnecessary steps, waiting or touching of the dough frequently. Mixing, gluten development, bench rests where required, bulk fermentation, dividing, preshape and final shaping continue as normal.
Recipe: 2 loaves
600g High Gluten flour
300g All Purpose flour
100g Whole Wheat flour
724g warm water… 77% hydration
400g Hank = 100% hydration flour is 100g High Gluten flour + 50g WW flour + 50g dark rye flour
24g salt
~~~~~~~~~~~
Total weight: 2148g
I’ve designed this recipe and it’s processes to produce a high quality, authentic, artisan, high hydration, loaf of sourdough bread (like the famous Tartine Country loaf) in just 4 hours from the time Hank is mixed with the flour. My assumption based on experience with this recipe is the dough will reach the 33% rise in about 2.5 hours from mixing… because of Hank being fed to have Rocket Fuel strength, because 400g of Hank has lots of yeast, because the average temperature of the dough is over 80°f the entire time.
11:45am: MIXING… all at once. No autolyse, no Fermentolyse. I used 90°f water to mix the dough attempting to get the dough temperature between 80°~84°f. I start the Mixing process using the pincher method first to make sure all ingredients are properly combined. Once I am confident all ingredients were completely mixed together I do 3 minutes of the rubaud mixing method to start developing the gluten some, or until my arm gets tired. Then I cover the mixing bowl and rest the dough for 30 minutes, my version of a Fermentolyse.😁
12:20pm: First I do a coil fold, not to build structure but to inspect the current feel of the dough to determine how much structure has already been created by the mixing process & the rest time. Then I do some slap and folds. How many repetitions is determined by how the dough felt when I inspected it… usually 6 to 10 repetitions. I really don’t want to overwork the dough. The mission is to get the dough to pass the windowpane test with the least amount of physical activity possible. Time builds structure too. Dough temperature 82°f. Cover with inverted mixing bowl to bench rest another 20 minutes to continue allowing the flour to hydrate some more, more Fermentolyse kind of.😁
12:40pm: the final gluten development step… a gentle coil fold just to help align the gluten strands some. The dough doesn’t need anymore structure building - it has passed the windowpane test. I put the dough in my straight sided oiled cambro for bulk fermentation and marked on the cambro where the starting point is, 4” from the bottom of the vessel. Dough temperature 81°f. Then with a tape measure I mark a spot 5.32” up from the bottom of the cambro which will indicate my dough has risen 33%… so there is absolutely no confusion when bulk fermentation is complete. Then I put the cambro on the heating pad that’s set at 82°f for the untouched uninterrupted bulk fermentation process.
Once it reaches the 33% rise bulk fermentation is complete. I change rolls from Fermentation Manager and shift into my BSO responsibilities, Bubble Security Officer, and I dump the dough on the bench and immediately divide it into two portions and preshape both without touching the dough with my hands, no bubble popping allowed. My 9” bench scraper handles both of those functions with very little friction at all. I cover the preshaped dough with inverted mixing bowls during the 15 minute bench rest. For final shaping I sprinkle the top of the dough with rice flour and flip it over with my 9” bench scraper and now… after a few hours I actually touch the dough with my hands again for the first time since I loaded it into the cambro after the mixing and gluten development process was completed, for final shaping, very gently so I don’t pop any bubbles.🤷♂️
The final proofing will be very brief because this dough is still raising swiftly like a racehorse and I want to get it into the oven while it still has good structure and plenty of gas left in the tank to give me a great oven spring, an open crumb, a sexy ear and pretty blisters.🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻.
I baked both of these loaves today. Normally I’ll put 1 of them in the fridge overnight but I needed a project.😁
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Just refining my First Principles approach to the Tartine Country loaf
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