Right: firstly, this is very unscientific.  I don’t use weights or measures when I bake bread, but I’ll try to describe it in a way that will make sense and that you can follow.  You need your flour(s), starter , salt, water and a large bowl.

Pour some starter into the bottom of the bowl.  I usually estimate the starter content to be approximately 15-20% of the finished dough.  Now tip in some flour, or combinations of flour.  Lovely Julie and I are making a rye and strong white blend, at about 30% rye to 70% white.  You need a good, strong white: the long fermentation process requires robust gluten to keep the structure and the characteristic sourdough open crumb.  Now add a good glugg of water and start to mix with your hands.  You are looking for a loose, flowing consistency, not a tight traditional dough texture.  Don’t be afraid of the stickiness, this is a sticky dough.  It will be too wet to knead in the traditional manner, so knead instead by pulling and stretching handfuls of dough upwards, and letting them fall off your hands back into the bowl. As you do this, the consistency will get more elastic and slightly less sticky.  Now is the time to adjust water/flour ratio: always aim for too wet rather than too dry.  A little more flour will be incorporated later in the process, and once a dough is too dry, it is very difficult to incorporate more  water.

Keep pulling and stretching until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of bowl and from your hand.  It will keep it’s stickiness, but will have more stretch, elasticity and bounce.  But it will still be loose and sticky.  This process will take about 5-10 minutes.  When finished, the dough will look like this:

Consistency in the bowl - loose and flowing

Stretching the dough. Note the elasticity.

See how the dough is pulling away from the bowl and from my hand

Now add in your salt and incorporate it using the same stretching process.  It is important to include salt as without it, the structure of the loaf will be less stable.  Add salt to taste – I used around two tablespoons in my batch.

You can now pop your bowl into a plastic bag and leave it for 30 to 40 minutes.

We’re having a cup of tea and browsing cookbooks… back soon!

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