The wicks are turning, the millstones are grinding and the perfume of fresh-milled wheat…
Whether my first word really was mill, I still wonder. However, my parents continue to persevere … Maybe they are right: a visit to flour mill ‘’De Roode Leeuw” in Gouda was always like magic to me. A bicycle bag full of ground wheat and spelt, mill cookies and the smile of miller Willem.
I was spoiled. Spoiled with, in my eyes, the best bread that existed. Willem grinded the grain, mama baked sourdough bread and I was allowed to help. The road from grain to bread was something amazing to me and I drove over it! And I still do that, because half a year ago I exchanged my permanent job as an engineer in flood risk management for a life in the world of grain.
When I was 18, I started as an assistant cook in Trattoria Borgo d’Aneto and fell in love with the Italian cuisine. It was great to learn there, but I noticed that my hunger for good bread came back again. I wanted to go back to the base, back to mom’s sourdough bread and learn the art behind it.
In the summer of 2012 I became acquainted with the Neapoletan pizza at Osteria Per Bacco (Piemonte): an airy, cloud-like edge resembling the best French baguette and a super thin base. I asked for the secret, learned the art on the spot from Maestro Pizzaiolo Domenico Martucci and deepened my knowledge about sourdough bread at bakers in the Netherlands, Italy and France.
It struck me that many bakers still use yeast to support their proofing process. I wanted to get rid of that. Long evenings, countless dough tests: I developed my own recipes to be able to fully work with my own sourdough.
Baking with sourdough is wonderful, but the crafts of farmer and miller are at least as beautiful to me. From this passion, I have been working for several years now with the grains from the Wieringermeer-area, in the North of Holland. These are milled at a stone’s throw from my workbench by Vincent Kraan, miller of Maalderij de Gouden Engel. The wheat flour of “lavett”, a soft wheat that grows well on the local sea clay, lends itself perfectly to sourdough bread with an open structure.
My passion for sourdough bread, Neapoletan pizza and the road from sprout to crumb bring me to the most beautiful places. From ancient grains cultivated on Dutch soil to visiting organic mountain-rye farmers in the Dolomites: I love grain. Now I write my book, I recently helped to start a sourdough pizzeria and I give workshops and consultancy in that where my heart is.
Davide Longoni, one of my favorite Italian boulangers, once taught me that you have to “talk” with your grain. “The type, the soil, the weather: learn to understand it”. With this attitude I started working with the stone-ground flour of lavett wheat from the Wieringermeer two years ago. No particularly high protein percentage, but the taste is overwhelming. With my recipe I now give workshops sourdough bread baking in the mill, under the wicks and it’s a pleasure to share it with you here.
Recipe for Vincent’s Dutch soil sourdough
Per loaf, for a hydration of about 65%. I suggest you make dough for at least two or three, large doughs develop better in my opinion. Please note that kneading times are very short. This is due to the different type of wheat and to minimize oxidation and so keep the taste of the grain as good as possible.
| Dutch soil sourdough |
|---|
| Ingredients for 1 loaf |
|---|
| 390 | g | Organic stone-ground flour from Dutch soil |
| 246 | g | water |
| 8 | g | salt |
| 35 | g | Liquid sourdough (active) |
How to make the bread
- Mix the water with 290 g of flour and sourdough starter;
- Cover your bowl and let rest for half an hour;
- Mix the salt and remaining flour;
- Knead for about 2-5 minutes, no longer! The dough will look underdeveloped, but longer kneading will cause excessive oxidation;
- Leave the dough for half an hour, perform two stretch- and folds;
- Leave the dough for another two hours and perform two stretch-and folds;
- Give the dough a bulk rise for about 10-12 hours, until it has doubled in size (depending on room temperature, mine varies throughout the day);
- Shape your dough and proof it in a round basket. The proofing will take around 3 hours, based on a proofing temperature of 23 degrees Celsius;
- Alternatively you can use the retarding method, first proof 30 minutes at room temperature to kick start, then 12 to 18 hours proofing in the fridge;
- Bake in a cast-iron pan of about 25 cm in diameter on 250 degrees Celsius, lid on the pan. The baking will be around 30-35 minutes, depending on how you like your crust.
- If you want a darker crust, remove the lid after 30 minutes and continue for a maximum of 10 minutes at 235-240 degrees Celsius.
More on Vincent, his workshops and other activities. Go to http://www.vincentvanderwolf.com/
FAQs
Sourdough crumb should be even, meaning there won't be any areas that are super tight or with giant tunnels. The crumb should be light and fluffy - not wet and gummy. The holes inside the sourdough may seem shiny. This is a sign that the gluten is very well developed.
What is a San Francisco loaf? ›
San Francisco style sourdough bread is basically a French bread made with a sourdough culture characteristic of San Francisco. Many people, especially those in San Francisco, like to believe that this bread can be made no where other than San Francisco.
Can you make San Francisco sourdough outside of San Francisco? ›
Lactobacillus is found all over the world so even if you live 5,000 miles from San Francisco you have no excuses for not making a great SF sourdough. Really what it's all about is controlling the time and temperature of your fermentation. In general, the longer we ferment our dough the more sour it becomes.
Do you need levain for sourdough? ›
Can you just use sourdough starter? The answer is... You don't HAVE to make a levain and Yes, you can use a ripe, active sourdough starter in recipes instead of levain.
What are the secrets to open crumb sourdough? ›
1) use a lower protein flour, like all-purpose, 2) push the bulk fermentation time / rise, longer, 3) add a higher percentage of whole wheat flour, 4) de-gas the loaf when shaping. Under-proofing a loaf will also create a more closed crumb but that is undesirable.
What is the secret to good sourdough bread? ›
Top 10 Tips & Tricks for Making Sourdough
- Use your sourdough starter at its peak. ...
- Moisten the surface of the dough before baking for more rise. ...
- Handle with care: be gentle with your dough. ...
- Use sifted flour to make your sourdough less dense. ...
- Soak your flour beforehand for a lighter loaf. ...
- Just add water for softer sourdough.
San Francisco sourdough bread is perhaps the most famous type of sourdough bread. It is characterized by its tangy flavor, chewy texture, and slightly sour aroma. The unique flavor comes from the use of a specific strain of wild yeast and bacteria that is found only in the San Francisco area.
Why does San Francisco sourdough taste different? ›
Perhaps because the move to California introduced new bacterial inhabitants into their starters, many miners found that their bread took on a sharper sourness than they were used to—a tang that has since become one of the defining traits of San Francisco's renowned sourdough bread.
What is the difference between French sourdough and San Francisco sourdough? ›
What's the difference between the French and San Francisco sourdoughs? The San Francisco Sourdough is all white flour and utilizes a 122-year old starter from Northern California and the French is half whole grain utilizing a yogurt culture made popular by Poilane, the famous bakery in France.
What city has the best sourdough bread? ›
That said, the bacteria does particularly well in San Francisco's climate. As a result, this city is highly conducive to making excellent sourdough bread.
San Francisco Sourdough™
Since 1849, Boudin Bakery has been the home of a San Francisco classic. The bread that began with the gold rush—local flavor and history baked into every loaf.
What city is famous for sourdough? ›
Somehow, the bread tasted tangier and more flavourful than it did elsewhere, and thus San Francisco sourdough was born. More than 170 years later, San Francisco is synonymous with sourdough bread.
Can I use regular yeast for sourdough? ›
Since yeast makes carbon dioxide, adding a small amount of commercial yeast to a sourdough can provide extra volume in the resulting bread, particularly in the case of breads that are otherwise resistant to springing on their own.
Should you ever add yeast to sourdough starter? ›
A true sourdough starter relies on the natural yeasts and bacteria present in the flour and the environment. Adding commercial yeast to the mix may speed up the fermentation process, but it won't produce the same complex flavors and textures that come from a naturally fermented starter.
How to make sourdough more sour? ›
More stretch and folds
Typically, people do about 3-5 stretch and folds in the process of making a loaf of sourdough bread. If you do 2-4 more of them, it helps produce a more sour dough.
What is the best combination of flour for sourdough? ›
The best flour blend for creating a new sourdough starter is 50% whole-meal flour (whole wheat or whole rye) and 50% bread flour or all-purpose flour. I recommend a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour.
What is the best grain for sourdough bread? ›
Glutenous flours, such as spelt, einkorn, rye, and wheat, tend to work best. However, it's possible to use gluten-free flours, including buckwheat, amaranth, brown rice, and teff, but these may need a little help at first, known as a boosted starter.
What is a good crumb structure for bread? ›
The crumb is open and airy, and this should appear even from end to end. This shows that the dough has been aerated properly. But if the same type of loaf has been under-proved, not giving its gluten network sufficient time to relax, then the crumb structure will appear uneven and random.
What is a good crumb on bread? ›
The Crumb: The crumb (that's baker-speak for everything inside the crust) in a good loaf should be open and airy, with no unincorporated flour. Most importantly, the crumb should look evenly airy from end to end, which tells us that the dough was appropriately aerated throughout its mass when it went into the oven.
