I've been baking with sourdough for about twelve years, and I've never been totally satisfied with my results. Using additional yeast, I can get beautiful breads with tight crumb and satisfying flavor, but I've never been able to get that good old holey, chewy sourdough with the crackling crust. Until today. I've spent the last two weeks reading everything PJ and Susan have written here on sourdough, and last night, I brought it all together, did a little stress-relief in the form of kneading, and this morning, we had the single best pair of loaves ever baked by human hands. A couple keys: I did purchase a new KAF starter, and I did use it. It's interesting how different it smells from the one that started as a KAF starter years ago but has moved with me all up and down the East coast and is, no doubt, very different now from where it started. I did also bake in my great-great-grandmother's dutch oven (which is how I bake my hearth bread) at 520 to get that amazing crust. It worked, even in my very leaky, inconsistent oven. And I did an overnight bench rise in the fridge. But I think one of the biggest things is that I looked at the photos Susan posted of when a starter is really ripe and ready to use, and I didn't rush it. Anyway, thank you PJ! Thank you, Susan! Yum!!!
March 22, 2017 at 12:34pm