Plain Dutch Oven Sourdough
day 14. be kind to yourself
Four ingredients. No cheese, no chilli, nothing folded in. This is the loaf that teaches you what the dough is doing, and every other bread on this site is a variation on it.
The thing that makes home sourdough work is a lidded pot. Bakeries inject steam into their ovens; a Dutch oven traps the loaf's own moisture around it for twenty-five minutes, which is the same thing for twenty dollars.
Day 14 of my starter. A starter is usable at about a week and properly strong at two, and the difference is visible in the rise.
- Makes
- One large loaf
- Ingredients
- Four
- Rise
- 5 hours, then overnight
- Bake
- 500°F, lid on
What you need
All of it
- 500 g bread flour
- 350 g water (70% hydration)
- 100 g active starter — bubbly, doubled, floats in water
- 10 g salt
And
- A Dutch oven with a lid
- Rice flour, for dusting the banneton — it does not absorb and nothing sticks
How it goes
1 — Test the starter before you commit
A spoonful dropped in a glass of water should float. If it sinks it is not ready and the loaf will be flat and dense, and you will not find out for twenty hours.
2 — Autolyse: flour and water, one hour
Mixed to a shaggy mass, no starter, no salt, covered. The flour hydrates and gluten starts forming without any work from you.
3 — Starter, then salt forty minutes later
Starter pinched through the dough, rest, then salt with a splash of water worked in. The dough goes from rough to smooth as you work it.
4 — Four sets of stretch and folds, 45 minutes apart
Wet hand under one edge, stretch up, fold over the centre, turn the bowl, four times round. The dough tightens visibly with each set.
5 — Bulk ferment until up by half
Four to five hours at room temperature. Domed, jiggly, with bubbles under the surface. Up by half, not doubled.
pro tip — Temperature changes everything. At 80°F this takes three hours; at 65°F it can take seven. Watch the dough, never the clock.
6 — Pre-shape, rest, then shape tight
Tipped out, pulled into a loose round, rested twenty minutes uncovered, then shaped tightly with the surface pulled taut. Seam side up in a banneton dusted with rice flour.
7 — Cold overnight, 12 to 16 hours
Fridge. It develops flavour and firms up so it holds its shape and takes a clean score in the morning.
8 — 500°F pot, score deep, lid on 25, off 20
Pot preheated forty-five minutes. Dough out onto parchment, one deep confident score, into the pot, lid on, oven down to 450°F. Twenty-five covered, twenty uncovered.
9 — Cool it completely before cutting
At least an hour and ideally two. The inside is still setting as it cools, and a loaf cut hot goes gummy. Everybody does it once.
Day 14. Be kind to yourself. LFG.