Empathy with Sourdough Novices, 1 recipe 5 flours
This post is about me, empathy and bread. The earliest story I know about me and bread is when I was three years old and being looked after by my Great-Gran while my parents worked. During the day I would sit on the door step of my Great-Gran’s front door which faced a quiet lane and watched all the neighbourhood kids play right in front of the house. Apparently by the end of the afternoon when my Great-Gran would go to the bread bag hanging behind the kitchen door to grab a bread roll for my snack the bag would be empty. I would take it upon myself to give away all our bread to the neighbourhood kids because they were hungry.
I think I have a deep yearning need to feed people bread. My oldest daughter two weeks ago commented how it seemed impossible now for me to discuss food with someone new without bringing up the word, sourdough. She said, “..you stir the conversation to sourdough..don’t you?”. The rest of the family seem to agree with her, maybe I’ve become the Jehova’s Witnesses of sourdough.
What prompted me to do this trial of different flours using the same recipe was a twitter asking Dan for some help with his white sourdough being really sticky and not be able to get a handle on it. This very thing happen to me when starting out on sourdough a year ago and I struggled for a while until I felt in control of wet sticky dough. Dan linked the twitter to my post detailing my first success with his loaf here. Reading this twit for “help” I was transported right back to how it felt a year ago of thinking I am never going to master this sourdough stuff!
The Flour
The twit for help and what was happening to my doughs made with the Canadian flour from Waitrose convinced me to do the experiment.
The Canadian flour is the strongest protein flour I can buy in the shops at 15%. I never noticed the protein information was on every pack of flour in this country, it took Joanna to point out the obvious to me…and I spend hours reading labels when I shop. Normally I buy 3 different white flours depending what shop.
I noticed recently with the Canadian flour how different it felt when handling dough to other flours, it stood out for me after I posted about Dan’s bap recipe making excellent toast here. In that post I had used another flour and I mention the stickiness of the dough and how you can cut back slightly on the water if you find handling sticky dough problematic.
The week after posting I made the recipe only this time using the Canadian flour and I noticed how much drier the dough was, nothing like the one in the post. The other big difference was in how much oven spring it gave me, so much so it distorted the loaf’s shape. I also have a vague memory of Emily using it in one of her loaves and commenting on the oven-spring.
The Allison Flour Saga
Months ago when I spent some time in Dan’s forum I followed a thread with some members being convinced that Allison’s flour was of poor quality and weren’t happy with their sourdough results. Joanna and Jill joined in their experiment comparing Allison’s standard flour to other flours and posted their results showing a difference between Allison and others, in fact all flours gave a slight different result.
I myself started out using Allison flour but can not say it gave me a poor tasting sourdough result, tasted fine to me but what I do remember vividly was the problem I mention above which the twitter had of terrible sticky unworkable dough for a novice. I stopped using it for that reason.
For this reason I was very keen to include Allison’s standard bread flour 12.1%, and out of interest I also included Allison’s extra strong bread flour 13.9%.
Different Flours
When you spend some time on bread blogs and bread forums you read bakers commenting on how flours differ, but I never really understood what I was supposed to do about it. Different makes of white wheat flour differ, but how? and how do I adjust for the flour I can buy? You read different flours have different absorbent rate, but this statement is too vague.
This trial is hardly scientific I know but my aim was to try and change one element of it only, different protein flours and see what happened. I can’t show how the dough felt across the screen but the photos will give a good idea how the doughs differed.
Trying to understand flour seems to be a whole degree course in itself. I tried in vein to figure out what and how to get hold of T65 flour thinking it was a specific flour to find a website selling more than one type of T65 flour.
This is a clear as the muddy waters of “00” flours and once figuring out the “00” stands for how fine a flour is to then try and understand which are high proteins and which are not, here’s a link that at least explains the label for bread flour in Italy.
The Measuring Stick
I decide to use the Canadian flour as a comparison to all the others since it contained the highest protein 15% and I found it a really easy dough to handle. I chose four other flours of varying proteins and baked alongside it.
The reason for baking two loaves, the comparable flour against the Canadian was to see how different it felt on handling, rising, oven-spring, texture when using the same levain, fed for the same amount of time. The breads were baked in a course of a week when the temperature was stable and dry.
I used the same recipe, Dan’s white sourdough and halved it. You’re going to have to trust me that I weighed to the last correct gram.
- 250g flour
- 100g levain (fed as per Dan’s recipe 50/50)
- 160g water
- 5g salt
The levain was fed in the evening and used around midday the next day. I mixed the dough left it for about an hour, or a hour and half and then fold it, repeated it twice, so 3 folds in total. I fold it while in the bowl, this was just to make things much quicker for me and with a large enough bowl there’s room for the folds to be done while inside.
What is it With Men and Holes – in Their Bread?
I’m not sure why but reading stuff on sourdough I’ve noticed there seems to be a little obsession in particular within males about making lots of holes and big holes in their sourdough. I always found I got big holes in my sourdough from the beginning without trying. I also temporarily got caught up into the more holes quest but then wise Joanna said all the butter runs through. She’s so right.
A quick search just now for Holes In Sourdough had the Fresh Loaf Forum come up with lots of different advice, including not to add salt until the end of mixing suggesting that would contribute to it. Lots of advice and at times it can take you down the wrong path.
What this experiment showed up was how the protein in the flour you’re using can make a big difference. Interestingly no one mentions what the trial has shown, a correlation between the lower protein flours and bigger holes.
Different Protein in the Flours – Flours I used
- Canadian 15%
- Allison Standard 12.1%
- Carrs 13.2%
- Allison Extra Strong 13.9%
- Wright’s 11.7%
The Canadian flour 15% gave you an easy workable dough, not sticky and when it came to shaping the loaf you could almost do it without adding anything to the board, I barely floured the board.
The Allison Standard 12.1% was as I remembered it, wet and sticky to the touch and impossible to shape in a free form, I can see with this flour you really need to use a proving basket with it. Leaving it on the tray it just spreads out, exactly what use to happen to me in the beginning.
Both Carrs 13.2% & Allison Extra Strong 13.9% acted much the same, held their shape well and not much different to the Canadian flour.
Wright’s flour 11.7% the lowest protein one I used and is the only packet that says it’s British flour. I’m so happy I went back to the shops and found another low protein flour, otherwise after this trial I would have been left with the wrong impression that low protein flours produced unmanageable doughs. Doughs which one would have to use a proving basket with, Wright’s flour showed low protein flour can hold its shape.
As you’ll see in the trial Wright’s flour held the shape beautifully when I left to do the last rest on the baking sheet, very close to the Canadian flour shape. It was a sticky dough on handling but I could shape it at the end using a little oiled surface, resulted in a nice perky shaped loaf.
Absorbent Rate
The higher the protein flour the drier the dough, the thirstier, not really a surprise. The lower protein flour, stickier to handle but as I’ve mentioned above low protein flours differ when shaping and holding their shape.
Lower protein flours, less absorbent, stickier doughs giving you more holes and interestingly bigger holes.
For this reason at the end of trying the different flours I decided to change the amount of water in the Canadian flour, one loaf increase the water by 20 grms, 12.5% producing a sticky dough as expected and gave me lots of lovely big holes. I did not change anything else, still folded it 3 times, the only different was water amount.
After seeing this I made another loaf, again with the Canadian flour but this time increasing the water just by 10 grms, 6.25%, this tiny amount the dough was easier to handle but still resulted in bigger holes, not as big as the other loaf but I was quite taken aback just what a difference such a small increase of water made.
The Last Loaf
I wanted to make a sourdough for my brother and this gave me the opportunity to pick out a flour from the above. I wanted to try the British one, the Wright’s flour, the lowest protein one but one which could hold its shape in the end. This intrigued me having had so many bad memories from a year ago of trying unsuccessfully to shape the other low protein flour, Allison’s Standard.
I followed Dan’s sourdough recipe in full, and look at photo below, it gave me a holey bread, one that if I were a male I would be proud of.
If you don’t want to mess around with water variations or changing your levain hydration but want to practice handling wet sticky dough in a manageable way I found this flour a good choice for that…and to top it all it’s homegrown.
Sticky Dough
Working with these doughs over a short period of time I picked up quickly on the best way to shape a very sticky dough was to use a little oil on the board and wet hands. Too much oil and the oil stops from you being able to pinch the dough together and sticking to form a shape.
Scoring
I know most serious sourdough home baker have a fancy blade to score the bread but if you’re a novice I can tell you a small serrated knife works, that’s what I use…I will get myself a fancy blade one day soon. The problem with sticky dough is in the dragging the dough as you cut, and the serrated blade works with this but use it slowly and gently and in complete contradiction to using the fancy blade I go over the cut more than once to make sure it cuts deep enough over the top layers of the dough to leave a good cut.
Experiment 1
Canadian 15% & Allison’s Standard 12.1%
Allisong standard I think it’s a novice’s nightmare, that was my experience a year ago when not using a proving basket.
Allison Standard
Allison Standard – sticky dough that as soon as you finished folding spreads out quite a lot.
Canadian – held its shape, drier dough.
Allison Standard
To give you some idea how sticky this dough is I picked the doughs up and dropped it to show how much of the dough stuck.
Canadian
You can see how much drier the Canadian one is.
Canadian left. Allison Standard right. On the far right photo below, Allison Standard spreading to the edge of the baking sheet, this makes impossible to a shape without a proving basket.
Canadian left. Allison Standard right. The height difference between the two is very apparent.
Canadian.
Canadian
Allison Standard.
The Allison gives you lots of big holes.
Canadian top slice. Allison Standard bottom slice. I picked the worst slices for the least holes in both loaves to compare and you clearly see Allison’s loaf still giving you more and bigger holes.
Experiment 2
Canadian 15% & Carrs 13.2%
These two doughs were similar in the handling.
The Carrs held its shape as well as the Canadian dough.
Canadian Left. Carrs Right. Small difference in the spreading out.
Carrs Left. Canadian Right. There is slightly more open texture in the Carrs to the Canadian loaf.
Carrs top. Canadian below. Not a huge difference.
Experiment 3
Canadian 15% & Allison 13.9%
The Allison Extra Strong was easier to handle than their standard flour as expected but I noticed on resting how it still had a slight tendency to spread even at this higher protein level.
Canadian top. Allison 13.9% below. Again like the Carrs, Allison’s Extra Strong had a slight more open texture in comparison to the Canadian flour.
Experiment 4
Canadian 15% & Wright’s 11.7%
As expected the Wright’s flour was sticky on handling being a lower protein flour.
Wright’s
On taking out the Wright’s flour from its bowl to shape it you can see how sticky the dough is by the amount of dough stuck to the bowl and the marks left by my fingers trying to scrape it off.
But unlike the Allison’s Standard which is higher protein than this one, the Wright’s dough holds it shape really well without a proving basket.
Wright’s Left Loaf. Canadian Right Loaf. You can hardly tell them apart.
In the photo below: Wright’s Loaf Top. Canadian Loaf Below. The bigger holes are more consistent throughout the Wright’s loaf.
Canadian Left. Wright’s Right.
Experiment 5
Canadian 15% 180 grms water, increased the water by 20 grms.
Having seen how the Canadian and the other hight protein flours were more absorbent and drier and producing overall less open texture to the lower protein flours I wanted to see how this strong Canadian flour changed its texture increasing the water amount.
The loaf was made just like before with 3 folds.
As predicted a wetter stickier dough to handle.
Just like the other lower protein flours it stuck to the bowl on turning out for shaping. It was difficult to shape and didn’t hold its shape well on the baking sheet, a proving basket should be used for this.
If you compare this Canadian loaf below to all the previous Canadian loaves I had made it is so clearly visible this increase of water by 20 grams produced such an open texture loaf.
The two separate slices above this loaf are from the Canadian loaf I made the previous day using the correct recipe amount of water.
Experiment 6
Canadian 15% 170 grms water, increased water by 10 grms.
So what would happen then if I increased the amount of water just by 10 grams?
Predictably not as sticky as the loaf increased by 20 grams of water, and it held its shape beautifully without a proving basket.
An extra 10 grams of water still gave you a more open texture but had the advantage of holding its shape.
Last Loaf
Wright’s Flour 11.7%, the lowest protein flour
I made this loaf for my brother using Dan’s recipe for white sourdough in the Handmade Loaf book in full, like all the other loaves I folded it 3 times.
Sticky dough on handling but not stupidly sticky, manageable if using the folding method.
So unlike the Allison’s Standard at 12.1% protein, the dough did not spread out uncontrollably. Gave me a good height without a proving basket.
And a good open texture.
I was impressed with the handling of Wright’s flour and would have never picked it up had it not been for this experiment of choosing the lowest protein flour in the shops.
Having used the Allison’s Standard flour previously of 12.1% I was left with the wrong impression that all low protein flours were equal and gave you nightmares in handling and shaping the dough. So glad to have been proven wrong.
This flour has the added benefit of being produced in England, in Essex in fact, and since I live in the South East of England it seems very appropriate.
Now I Have a Question for You Bread Bakers.
Why would you change the hydration in your levain when messing around with a recipe instead of changing the amount of water in the recipe? What’s the advantage in that?
I’m a simple person and need things in simple format so for me to start messing around with my levain just appears on the surface to be more complicated than changing the quantity of water in the recipe. So can someone explain to me what I’m not seeing?
What do I Make of My Experiment? 5 Flours, 8 Loaves, 115 Photos Later…
To simply put it, high protein flours produce drier doughs it seems, easier to handle, with so so amounts of holes.
You can produce more holes I also noted on folding, if you folded more times each time you did the folding. To fold I pinch the edge of the dough pull it away from the dough to give it a stretch and then press it on to the middle of the dough. I go around the dough doing that a few times, trapping nice airy bubbles in there.
The lower protein flours don’t absorb water as much as high protein flours, giving you wet sticky dough to handle but rewarding you with more holes and bigger holes. Not all low protein flours are equal, some hold their shape better than others and behave generally better.
When following a recipe take note of the protein in your flour pay attention to how sticky it feels, make notes and see what airy crumb it produces, you can then manipulate this by increase of water. This isn’t news to experience bakers but I just never realised before the protein in your flour made such a difference.