My friend Pat jokingly asked for some bread lessons since we had a few good weeks of loaves in a row. Below are the steps we use to make our Santa Barbara Sourdough.
First, you need a recipe. We've had the most luck with the Tartine recipe that started the sourdough craze.
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016277-tartines-country-bread
We modified the recipe a bit lately, combining just the flour and water without the starter and letting it autolyze (fancy for hydrate) for about an hour. If you wake up and do this part early, you can do step 2 after a shower and breakfast. This is after an hour and we just added the salt with a bit of water.
Youtube people love to "pinch in" the starter and salt but I find a dough hook works way better and faster. Here's the starter on top of the salt.
First stretch and fold. You do this for each of the 4 corners of the container, stretching as far as you can and folding over the top of the dough. This 2 hand technique seems to work better than the single grab and pull we used to do in our tall containers.
After the first fold. It already looks good because we used the mixer to knead a little bit while adding the salt and starter.
Second folds 30 minutes later. You can see it holds it's shape a little better, pulling away from the edge of the container.
Every 30 minutes for about 2 hours, you stretch and fold and the dough looks smoother and tighter after each one.
After 4-5 folds, the dough has a nice smooth appearance and is even holding a little shape after 30 minutes.
The windowpane test really tells you your dough is ready. Pull until it's paper thin and you can see lots of light through it.
After the last fold, let your dough bulk proof for about 2 hours until it's about 50% more volume and very jiggly and pillowy.
Dump on lightly floured board. Some folks dump on clean board and flour the top, but this works for us. The floured surface will become the top of your bread. Try to leave half your board clean as it helps with the shaping.
To preshape, fold up the corners of the dough into the middle.
Flip your folded dough over to the clean side and use your hands and the scraper to pull the dough and tighten the top skin.
Repeat
Cover with towel and let rest for 30 minutes.
The dough will relax a bit after 30 minutes, but should still hold it's shape. If you come back to a puddle, you haven't stretch and folded enough to develop the gluten.
Pull the edges out and fold over like an envelope
For a batard, stretch one side wider and roll towards yourself, pressing to develop tension at each roll. For a boule, just bring all for corners together, flip again and pull against the board to develop tension. There are many better examples on youtube than a few pictures can demonstrate.
Place into bannetons floured with rice flour and cover. We use these cheap showercaps which can be reused many times. Put the dough into the fridge overnight to develop flavor.
The next day, we preheat two dutch ovens at 500F for 30 minutes. Meanwhile we like to put a small piece of parchment on the bottom. This helps in removing from the basket, transferring to the pot. It also keeps the bottom from getting too dark.
After we turn the dough onto a sheet pan, we score. The large slit is done with a sharp chef knife as it tends to pull and tear less. Any details can be done with a bread lame (razor blade holder).
We made this lame from a scrap of old oak flooring. It has a slot for the blade which is clamped by the screws.
Lately, we've been spritzing the bread with water. The extra steam helps a bit and gives the crust some nice bubbles.
Loaf #2 into the pot. At this point, we reduce the temp to 450 and set a timer for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, we remove the lids. Not terrible oven spring this time.
After 15 minutes with the lid off, we have home made Santa Barbara sourdough. These got a tiny bit overproofed the day before in the warm sun, so didn't spring quite as much as we like. Still home made bread and easy as 1, 2, 3 million...
