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Forgot to post earlier:

Ah, Pizza. I am not good at that. Read about it, sounds easy, but isn't. Dough came out fine (from the feel/look), but I didn't manage to produce a nice round and thin pizza shape and get the pizza into the oven, undamaged.

Comes down to practise i guess...

Looking good Jor

I have some starter being fed today, going to see if it works tomorrow.
If it goes OK will post photos.

Did some Pizza today, was really nice, just did a third of the recipe and works well.
Will try and post that soon too.

Fresh from the oven. Wheat&Spelt bread with sourdough and yeast water. 60h proofing.

Oh, and if you just need the sour environment - you can use vinegar, sour milk or yoghurt No sourdough needed.

So let's say you want to use rye flour in your dough - just add some vinegar when mixing. I would start to experiment with 20g 5% vinegar for 500g flour. Up to 25% rye can be used that way, so in this case you could go max. 375g wheat + 125g rye flour. I did this and it worked find. No experience with sour milk and yoghurt as I tried to make vegan bread.

Even pure wheat breat profits from a little acid - even lemon juice or orange juice works. The dough should feel a tad more elastic/rubber-like when kneading and folding.

IF you got spare sourdough - even when baking with yeast only - throw in a small amount (1-2 tee spoons) of active sourdough (starter) as it adds some acid and some flavour.

Happy baking!

Thanks for the update! Well, starting with yeast and adding flour and water gets you pre-ferment aka mother dough, depending on how much water you use poolish (around 100% hydration) or biga (around 50% hydration). You can even build lievito di madre from yeast water that way.

THIS IS NOT A SOURDOUGH, THOUGH. Sorry to repeat myself on that. It's nothing wrong with doing it that way and you can get nice results. I like working with pre-ferment and do it all the time - its great. But it's not sourdough.

Your friend ended up with a hydration of 43% or 52% (with added water). That's pretty dry. Remember --> "pizza / everyone can do it" hydration is 60%. Maybe it's the flour he used and it ended up perfectly. If I would do it that way, it would be a very dry dough.

As for starting sourdough. First feedings are 1:1 and 1:1:1. I don't know, where he got his information, but 2 table spoons flour + 100g water just doesn't sound right. Just saying. Save flour... start with like 30g flour + 30g water/booster and feed 1:1:1 up from day 2 and 1:5:5 later.

My experiments with sourdough-only breads ended up so-so. Nothing to be proud of. Its way more complicated than baking with yeast or yeast water.

/wave

Finally had an update from a friend at work and his sourdough notes.

First couple of attempts were pretty dodge, I made the starter in the cheats way (as advised by the internet) so added ¼ tsp of bread yeast to 100g of flour and 150ml water fed a couple of times and was ready to go within 3 or 4 days.

First loaf was way too slack, I think I used too much water so although the taste was good it was very flat.
That is the only Boule that I have made as since then I have made loaves in tins, 2nd loaf again was quite slack dough wise but in the tin it held shape and had great structure.
The last couple I have made have had much less water and been much better but less bubbly structure.

So current recipe:
150ml starter add 50g Strong Wholemeal flour and 150 ml water (to make a total of approx. 350ml of batter
450g flour (I use 250g Strong wholemeal and 200g Spelt)
Bit of salt   
Extra 50ml water if required

Sift flour, add salt, mix in starter batter to make dough, add extra water, turn out onto lightly floured board and knead a little to get everything mixed in roll into a ball, back into the bowl under clingfilm and leave for 6 hours or so until double in size ish.
Knock back, have a little knead, grease loaf tin add coarse maize flour to base pop dough in leave for a couple of hours till dough is ½ inch to an inch above pan sides (or until it looks loafy).
Heat oven to 200c add roasting tin full of boiling water to bottom of oven, once heated add loaf just above pan of water, give it about 45mins till brown.
 
I have used all sorts in the starter, rye, spelt and bread flour, I feed 2 table spoons flour and 100ml water each day (I’m not sure it’s quite enough flour) although today I have done 3 tblsp and 100 ml and popped it in the fridge as I am making a loaf today and don’t expect to make sourdough till next week now.
I shall make a normal loaf at the weekend. My normal loaves are awesome

******
So that is Rob's stuff, I think I need to ask him for photos to prove the are awesome

Best? No. It's over-proofed and the crumb begins to fall apart. I will keep this recipe and proof 2-3 days.

Yes, I tried dutch oven (DO). My problem: I am very sensitive to heat and a 250°C DO is no fun for me. Using the deep, lower part of a roasting pan as a lid/cover and baking on a baking plate is better in that aspect, but the best method so far for me is using a pizza stone and a pizza shovel. Put bread on shovel, score the bread, open oven, slide bread onto the stone, close oven. Takes like 3 seconds --> winner.

Also a pizza stone drains moist from the bread bottom --> better crust.

If your dough handling is right, a normal bread needs no further support. No offense meant, really. With the gluten structure and the tension you build by forming the loaf and then proofing in a basket it keeps in shape, trust me.

The higher the hydration, the lower the gluten, the more rye --> the higher the need for "dough support", though. I managed to bake bread up to 80% hydration, but atm I settled for 65%, maybe a tad more. It's way more relaxed and produces stable results.

Yes, flour is on high demand here, too. I buy, what I can get - but then I only use like 1-1,5kg a week, so that's not that much.

/wave

Would you say best yet?

I have made other breads using whole grain flour, even though it was a good brown loaf, I still prefer the white.

Have you tried the dutch oven type cook?
I can see this helping with stopping the mixture spread too much. Also more heat on the bottom of the loaf.
I will have to dig out the cast iron stuff and have a go next time.

Well for me, most of this is on stall, as I can not get the flour anyway. I do have yeast left.
I need to get back to making baguettes again.
But with the lack of flour in the shops, it will also have to wait.

With the lockdown, all I can assume that families are baking a lot with the kids to keep them busy.
Will this cause a demise of the bread industry and people go back to home baked a lot again.

Same dough. 5 days of proofing, mostly in the fridge. Ultra strong flavour. My tongue can't even talk in sentences, it's more like: "Bread. Mhhhmm - bread. BREAD!! Brrrrreeeaaaadd! Wow, Bread!".