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Tartine Bread

I've been working on my own sourdough starter for about a week and today I made two loaves of bread with it. I used the recipe and techniques from Tartine Bakery.

This is about 258 grams of leaven. It's 100 grams of flour, 100 grams of water, and 58 grams of my starter.




Here is the leaven mixed with 1000 grams of AP flour and 700 grams of water. It looks like it might need more water, trust me it doesn't. This is a very hydrated dough at 75% hydration, counting the leaven it's 77.27% hydration.



After you mix the flour, water, and leaven you let it rest for 20-40 minutes and then mix in 20 grams of salt and another 50 grams of water.



You don't knead this bread dough, you use a stretch and fold technique to develop gluten. Every half hour for the first three to four hours you reach under the dough and grab the bottom of the dough and stretch it out and then fold it over the top. You start with the side of the dough facing away from you and than work your way around the dough dividing it into quarters for the stretch and fold.
This is after the first stretch and fold.



Second stretch and fold.



There are more cycles of stretching and folding and I could feel that the dough was strengthening from the stretching and folding.

Once the dough is done with the first rise you dump it out onto the counter and form it.



Getting the dough nice and taut is important because it gives the dough structure and stability. I'm not used to working with dough that has such a high hydration level, the dough was very sticky and I had to continually dip my hand and my bench scraper in flour to prevent sticking.



After the dough sits on the counter for 20-40 minutes you place it in a proofing container for two to four hours for the final rise.
The dough you are looking at is the dough that was in contact with the counter.




Preheat the oven and the Dutch oven to 500 F for 20 minutes. Be very careful when you transfer the dough to the hot Dutch oven, it would be very easy to burn yourself if you aren't careful. Once the dough is transferred to the Dutch oven, put the lid on the Dutch oven and put it back in the oven, turn the oven down to 450 F.

The dough gets transferred to a Dutch oven to bake. I had some issues with the dough sticking to the kitchen towel when I tried to transfer the dough to the dutch oven. Next time I'll either use a lot more flour or I'll use a lightly floured stainless steel bowl. The lid stays on the Dutch oven for the first 20 minutes then you take the lid off and let the bread finish cooking. This picture is right after I took the lid off my Dutch ovens. Cook for another 20 minutes or until the bread is done. The bread is done when it sounds hollow when you tap on the bottom of the loaf, it will also feel surprisingly light for it's size.



I read that while the bread is cooling you can hear the crust cracking. I've made a lot of bread and never herd any noises coming from the crust as it cooled. I was surprised to hear the occasional cracking noise coming from the bread as it cooled.





Ready to eat.



I didn't let the bread cool down for very long before we ate some sample slices. The crust was really good, hard, crunchy, and it had a ton of flavor. What really impressed me was the crumb, it had a great mouth feel, it was substantial and chewy. I was surprised at how strong the crumb was considering that I didn't do any kneading at all. The crumb on this bread was better than any bread I've made before. I would have liked to let the oval loaf bake for a little while longer but the bottom of the loaf was right on the edge of burning, so I took it out and let it cool.
 
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Sweet job, Shawn! That really came out nice.

And a great little mini tutorial. Very nicely explained. The folding concept is one that took me a bit to get my head around. But the video on Chad's site really helped.

I've been trying (with limited success) to apply the technique to whole wheat. My breads have been coming out "okay" (and very tasty) but I want more. Whole wheat is a challenge though. Most people add 50% AP but I'm shooting for 100% (although I do use some rye in my starter)

I've got Tartine 3 on preorder. Supposedly he focused the whole book on whole grain techniques. I can't wait.

Congrats Brother!

Ken

Edit - for anyone out there not using a Dutch oven for bread, give it a try. I also use my (Lodge) CI 3, 4 or 5 qt depending on recipe size. It makes a huge difference
 
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Thanks Ken!

I watched a bunch of videos on youtube on how to fold and shape the bread and that really helped. The pictures and explanations in the book were also a huge help. While I was waiting on my starter to I used the folding technique with enriched dough for a sandwich loaf with good success. I was surprised at how well that technique worked at developing gluten.

I've played around with whole wheat, not 100% whole wheat, and I've usually add gluten. I like the taste of whole wheat but I've had a hard time developing a good loaf. Usually the bread lacks structural integrity from the lack of gluten. Are you adding gluten to your bread?

I've only got his bread book and I plan on picking up his other book soon. I didn't know he was working on Tartine 3, I'll be sure and add it to the cook book collection.
 
Thanks for such a comprehensive post. As I was scrolling down through Shawn's tutorial, my thoughts were Wow!

As a long time home yeasted bread baker, I've tried to make sour dough a couple of times, going through the experience of acquiring some sourdough starter, feeding it and developing a good starter. The bread baking I found to be rather hit or miss, often ending up with flatter loaves, albeit very tasty loaves. The timing of baking sourdough with my recipe was challenging to say the least.

So Shawn, I appreciate how precise your recipe is and how it focuses on hydration percentages. Interestingly the baking process that you describe is exactly the same as Jim Lahey's original "No Knead" bread - 20 minutes with the lid on to keep the moisture in the dutch oven, 10 minutes off to crisp the crust.

Unless I misread the tutorial, I didn't see a temperature setting for the oven.

Ken, thanks for pointing the way to videos. I agree wholeheartedly about the benefits of using cast iron dutch ovens.

Perhaps the best bread i've ever eaten in my life was at a Colonial reenactment fair, where a vendor from upstate New York was selling a whole wheat/rye bread that was leavened with sourdough and baked in a beehive oven. Eating this bread was a religious experience!
 
I was surprised at how well that technique worked at developing gluten.

It really does. As does the high level of hydration you are using. Chad puts his loaves in a cool area overnight to (among other things) let the gluten develope.

I've played around with whole wheat, not 100% whole wheat, and I've usually add gluten. I like the taste of whole wheat but I've had a hard time developing a good loaf. Usually the bread lacks structural integrity from the lack of gluten. Are you adding gluten to your bread?

Like I said, whole wheat is a challenge. Both the crust and the crumb. I'm not sure ANYTHING will yield a crust like yours with whole wheat. But my crumb is slowly improving....

One of the biggest issues seems to be the bran. It acts like little knives slicing through the gluten. Michael Pollan, in Cooked, has had success sifting out the bran then rolling the shaped loaf in it (to add it back in) right before baking but I haven't found a sifter that works well for this.

Peter Reinhart, in Whole Grain Bread, goes after this a different way, hydrating the flour over night. I've found that helps a lot. In his base loaf you use a mix of ~50% hydrated flour and ~50% starter but I have trouble keeping my starter as dry as he does. I'm guessing it's at least partly the temp as we keep the house at 64° and iirc he recommends somewhere around 70°. He also adds a packet of instant yeast to the final mix, which really helps in the raise.

It was Lahey who first put me on to baking in CI. He preheats his Dutch oven to 450° before adding the dough. I tried that a couple times (it's kinda terrifying the first time, you drop the dough in and it starts SIZZLING!:001_unsur ) but he gets a huge oven spring that I don't seem to get out of whole wheat, so now I let the dough do it's final rise right in the covered CI, then pop it in the oven. It doesn't quite double, but it's close.

As to gluten. No, I haven't tried adding any additional, being more focused on preserving the gluten I have, but I'll give it a go and see what happens.

I've only got his bread book and I plan on picking up his other book soon. I didn't know he was working on Tartine 3, I'll be sure and add it to the cook book collection.

I'm really hoping for an "Ah HA!" moment from 3. We'll see....

Ken
 

Luc

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Nice work, what was the cooking time and temperature?
 
As a long time home yeasted bread baker, I've tried to make sour dough a couple of times, going through the experience of acquiring some sourdough starter, feeding it and developing a good starter.

One thing I'll point out for anyone NOT familiar with sourdough starter, the yeast strains are NOT the yeast you buy in the grocery, and they are not compatible with each other. Wild yeast lives in an acidic environment along with the bacteria that live in the wheat you buy. Commercial yeast will not tolerate this acidic environment.

Once your starter is all set, you can use it in a recipe WITH commercial yeast if you want/need to as the bacteria has already fermented your starter but won't affect the commercial yeast in the short time neede to rise.

Both yeast and bacteria are killed during baking.

Ken
 
Thanks for such a comprehensive post. As I was scrolling down through Shawn's tutorial, my thoughts were Wow!

As a long time home yeasted bread baker, I've tried to make sour dough a couple of times, going through the experience of acquiring some sourdough starter, feeding it and developing a good starter. The bread baking I found to be rather hit or miss, often ending up with flatter loaves, albeit very tasty loaves. The timing of baking sourdough with my recipe was challenging to say the least.

So Shawn, I appreciate how precise your recipe is and how it focuses on hydration percentages. Interestingly the baking process that you describe is exactly the same as Jim Lahey's original "No Knead" bread - 20 minutes with the lid on to keep the moisture in the dutch oven, 10 minutes off to crisp the crust.

Unless I misread the tutorial, I didn't see a temperature setting for the oven.

Ken, thanks for pointing the way to videos. I agree wholeheartedly about the benefits of using cast iron dutch ovens.

Perhaps the best bread i've ever eaten in my life was at a Colonial reenactment fair, where a vendor from upstate New York was selling a whole wheat/rye bread that was leavened with sourdough and baked in a beehive oven. Eating this bread was a religious experience!

I've also used sourdough starters before, I never really liked the flavor they imparted to the bread, until now. Tartine uses a pretty young starter so the flavors are much milder and you don't have sourness that dominates the other flavors.

I didn't get quite the oven spring that I was hoping for, next time I'll stretch out the final rise. I thing that another reason that I didn't get the oven spring that I wanted was because the dough stuck to my kitchen towel. Next time I'll either use a lot more flour on the kitchen towel or I'll just let it rise in a floured stainless steel bowl.

I've made Jim Lahey's no knead bread before and this is the same with the dutch oven. This bread was superior to Jim's bread, but it was also a lot more work, and I do mean a lot more work.



It really does. As does the high level of hydration you are using. Chad puts his loaves in a cool area overnight to (among other things) let the gluten develope.


Like I said, whole wheat is a challenge. Both the crust and the crumb. I'm not sure ANYTHING will yield a crust like yours with whole wheat. But my crumb is slowly improving....

One of the biggest issues seems to be the bran. It acts like little knives slicing through the gluten. Michael Pollan, in Cooked, has had success sifting out the bran then rolling the shaped loaf in it (to add it back in) right before baking but I haven't found a sifter that works well for this.

Peter Reinhart, in Whole Grain Bread, goes after this a different way, hydrating the flour over night. I've found that helps a lot. In his base loaf you use a mix of ~50% hydrated flour and ~50% starter but I have trouble keeping my starter as dry as he does. I'm guessing it's at least partly the temp as we keep the house at 64° and iirc he recommends somewhere around 70°. He also adds a packet of instant yeast to the final mix, which really helps in the raise.

It was Lahey who first put me on to baking in CI. He preheats his Dutch oven to 450° before adding the dough. I tried that a couple times (it's kinda terrifying the first time, you drop the dough in and it starts SIZZLING!:001_unsur ) but he gets a huge oven spring that I don't seem to get out of whole wheat, so now I let the dough do it's final rise right in the covered CI, then pop it in the oven. It doesn't quite double, but it's close.

As to gluten. No, I haven't tried adding any additional, being more focused on preserving the gluten I have, but I'll give it a go and see what happens.



I'm really hoping for an "Ah HA!" moment from 3. We'll see....

Ken


I watched the video on the Tartine site, thanks. I liked his technique for forming the loaf. It's amazing how sticky this dough is.

I've read about sifting out the bran on whole wheat bread, but it's nothing I've tried. I picked up gluten from from the bulk section at Central Market, it's similar to Whole Foods.

I've been considering getting an infrared thermometer for a while now and that would allow me to preheat the dutch oven on the stove stove top. I think I'll try the cold Dutch oven first and see if that gives me the rise I am hoping for.


Nice work, what was the cooking time and temperature?


Put the Dutch oven in the oven and preheat the oven to 500 F. He recommends that you only preheat for 20 minutes but I preheated the oven/Dutch oven longer because my oven isn't that great. Next time I think I will only preheat for 20 minutes and see what the difference is. I watched video's of Chad Robertson putting his dough in room temp Dutch ovens and then baking them.

Once the oven is preheated put the dough in the Dutch oven with the lid on, turn the oven down to 450 f and bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes take the lid off the dutch oven and continue to bake for another 20 minutes or until the bread is done. I ended up baking my bread uncovered for about 35 minutes to finish cooking the bread and to develop the crust.
 
I thing that another reason that I didn't get the oven spring that I wanted was because the dough stuck to my kitchen towel. Next time I'll either use a lot more flour on the kitchen towel or I'll just let it rise in a floured stainless steel bowl.

Several sources recommend using a hard linen towel as opposed to your average kitchen towel, but the most interesting idea I read was to use parchment paper. You can leave the bread right on the paper (cut roughly to the shape of your CI) as you bake. Seems like a great idea.

Ken
 
Several sources recommend using a hard linen towel as opposed to your average kitchen towel, but the most interesting idea I read was to use parchment paper. You can leave the bread right on the paper (cut roughly to the shape of your CI) as you bake. Seems like a great idea.

Ken

If I'm understanding you correctly the parchment lines the bottom of the bowl for the final rise and then when you invert the dough in the CI the parchment is on top of the dough? Would you just score the dough as you normally would?

I was also reading that the material that a couch is made from (flax linen) help to inhibit sticking when it is floured. I think that it probably has something to do with the tightness of the weave. I still think that letting the dough do the final rise in the CI is a great idea.
 
If you want to get a better shaped loaf at that kind of hydration you can always use a proofing basket/brotform - dust them with flour and dump your dough into them for the final proof, then you can turn out the loaf onto a peel or baking paper, slash and bake

Is it just the process of cooking in a Dutch oven that lead to it being called Tartine bread? The recipe reads like a standard sourdough. Although I'd check the protein content of your AP flour - you may be able to get a higher rise with a bread flour. AP tends to have a lower protein content - 8-9% as opposed to around 13% for a strong bread flour. Less protein = less gluten, less gluten = less of a rise

Interesting way of cooking a loaf though, I may try it some time if I can tear myself away from the brotforms
 
If I'm understanding you correctly the parchment lines the bottom of the bowl for the final rise and then when you invert the dough in the CI the parchment is on top of the dough? Would you just score the dough as you normally would?

Actually, the stuff I was reading had it rise on the parchment. You don't flip it at the end, just set the loaf on parchment into the CI.

And, yes, you'd score it normally.


Is it just the process of cooking in a Dutch oven that lead to it being called Tartine bread?

CI is an old school method but Lahey brought it to current prominence around 2005. Tartine is Chad's SF bakery and his book describes their basic loaf, how they do it. IMO the biggest points are hydration, rise times (and temps) and the folding technique.

Ken
 
I've used a similar folding technique for a while now as well as the autolyse period and regular kneading. If I can get away with just the folds rather than regular kneading that'd save a lot of time and cleaning up..
 
If you want to get a better shaped loaf at that kind of hydration you can always use a proofing basket/brotform - dust them with flour and dump your dough into them for the final proof, then you can turn out the loaf onto a peel or baking paper, slash and bake

Is it just the process of cooking in a Dutch oven that lead to it being called Tartine bread? The recipe reads like a standard sourdough. Although I'd check the protein content of your AP flour - you may be able to get a higher rise with a bread flour. AP tends to have a lower protein content - 8-9% as opposed to around 13% for a strong bread flour. Less protein = less gluten, less gluten = less of a rise

Interesting way of cooking a loaf though, I may try it some time if I can tear myself away from the brotforms

Thanks for the bread flour tip. I usually use bread flour for my sandwich loaves, I'll use it for my next batch of sourdough.

I've looked at brotforms, but I need more kitchen equipment like I need more shaving soap.




Actually, the stuff I was reading had it rise on the parchment. You don't flip it at the end, just set the loaf on parchment into the CI.

And, yes, you'd score it normally.



CI is an old school method but Lahey brought it to current prominence around 2005. Tartine is Chad's SF bakery and his book describes their basic loaf, how they do it. IMO the biggest points are hydration, rise times (and temps) and the folding technique.

Ken


Thanks Ken. I'm going to try doing the final rise in the cooking vessel next time and see how that works. I'm also going to bake one loaf in a loaf pan as an experiment.
 
That is so impossibly cool. Seriously, you're like a wizard or something as far as I'm concerned. I feel like I could never do this.

Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words!

You could do this. I would start with something a little less complicated like this:



or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LaODcYSRXU


The benefit of something like the no knead methods is that it doesn't eat up a lot of your time. Once you are satisfied with your no knead bread and feel that you have a good understanding of what is going on you could move on to something a little more complicated.



Ken,

The more I think about it the more I think that starting the bread in a cold CI pan is the way to go to get a good rise.
 
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Ken,

The more I think about it the more I think that starting the bread in a cold CI pan is the way to go to get a good rise.

So far, I'm having good, not great luck with it and whole wheat. It rises pretty well, but seems to deflate in the middle when it goes in the oven (negative spring?:blink:) I'll try adding gluten next loaf. Any thoughts on how much? Right now I'm running 820g loaves at 75% hydration.

Ken
 
A combination of heat and moisture seems to give the best rise in my experience - I.e. a damned hot oven and a bowl of water in the bottom to keep is steamy. If bread's deflating when it goes in the oven it means that you've over-proofed it, you want the dough to increase in size by about 1/3 for the final proof, any more and you risk that deflation. Alternatively you could be over-fermenting the dough and leading to the breakdown of gluten, in which case it won't rise well, however you're not really likely to see this unless you've been developing the dough over a long period of time (16+ hours)
 
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