Recipe Bake Ingredients Steps

Bake with Jack: Sourdough Loaf for Beginners

Learn how to make a beginner-friendly sourdough loaf from the UK Channel 4's Sunday Brunch Bread Expert Jack Sturgess, AKA Bake with Jack
There are many, many ways to make a loaf of Sourdough bread. So many methods and techniques, so much conflicting advice online in blogs, books, videos, it's really quite overwhelming and put me off making sourdough for ages. Not to mention that most recipes I saw told me to throw away a portion of my starter on a regular basis!  
  
The truth is that with knowledge of the principle of yeasted bread making, and an understanding of how sourdough bread works, when you actually come to make a loaf you realise how simple it is and really how flexible the process is. In many ways it’s the trickiest bread to make and in many ways the simplest.  
  
Following on from a few sourdough videos I've made recently you guys have been requesting a recipe left, right and centre so here it is. This is the recipe I use week in week out, in the way I do it to fit in with my lifestyle. No waste, no discard. I use a 100% wholemeal rye starter, but you can use whichever you like or already have.  
  
Making sourdough is a real learning experience, expect your first one not to turn out perfect and you’ll learn something every time you try again. Keep it up and remember that sourdough is temperature sensitive. If you need help with knowing your temperatures you might like a set of thermometers to help you out. You can buy them here in the Bake with Jack Online Shop.  
  
  Have fun!  
 
Original recipe: https://www.bakewithjack.co.uk/blog-1/2018/7/5/sourdough-loaf-for-beginners
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Author: Jack Sturgess
2x (868g)
72%
11 hrs
Loaves
Hydration
Starter Peaks
Day 1 @ 10:00 PM
23 hrs
Day 3 @ 5:25 PM
Start
Cold Proof
Ready
Change Start Bake Stop Bake
Ingredient
Baker's Pct
Levain
This is a 50/50 mix of water and flour
22%
Strong White Bread Flour
Plus extra for dusting
100%
Water
at 35°C (95°F)
69%
Salt
1.8%
When
Step
Duration
Feeding your starter
11h
  1. The day before you want to make your dough, you’ll need to feed up your starter scrapings
  1. Into your starter pot add 100g of room temperature water, and 100g of Wholemeal Rye flour and mix together well. Scrape down the edges to level off the mixture and mark on the side of the pot with a pen or elastic band where the mixture comes up to.
  2. Leave this on your kitchen side at room temperature overnight or for 8-12 hours and it will bubble and increase in volume. If it’s been a while since you baked (two weeks or more) your starter might get a little sleepy in there and require a couple of feeds to get it excited again.
  3. The following morning your starter should have produced gas and increased in volume. You’re good to go.
Editor's note: Jack uses his "scrapings method" for feeding his starter before using. Therefore this recipe has the "Starter Peak Duration" set to 11 hours by default which affects the timing of this step. Jack says that you can use any method you'd like though. So if you keep your starter differently, just adjust the Starter Peak Duration to reflect how long your starter takes to peak after a feeding and the recipe timing will automatically change so that your starter is ready to use in time for the next step. For details on Jack's "Scrapings Method", tap the YouTube video icon..
Making your dough
5m
  1. Mix the ingredients
  1. Take 200g of your starter out of the pot and put in in a large bowl, put your scraping pot in the fridge for next time. Add the 620g of water, the 900g of flour and 16g of salt and mix it together into a dough with your dough scraper. Mix for a minute or so to make sure everything is combined.
30m
  1. Rest your dough
  1. Let this mixture rest and soak for 30 minutes
5m
  1. First Fold
  1. Spray the work surface with water, and the top of your dough.
  2. Turn the dough out onto the wet surface upside down.
  3. Work around the dough pinching a piece with your finger and thumb, stretching it out and folding it back over the dough making a ball.
  4. Around 12 folds should be enough.
2h
  1. Initial Bulk Fermentation Period
  1. After completing your first fold, roll the dough back over, smooth side up, return it to the bowl, spray the top with water, cover with a clean cloth and leave to rest for 2 hours at room temperature.
5m
  1. Second Fold
  1. After the dough has rested it should have puffed up slightly already. Spray the table and dough again with water. Turn the dough out and reshape into a ball. 6 stretches and folds should be enough this time, roll the dough over with the smooth side on top and tuck everything underneath with your hands.
2h
  1. Second Bulk Fermentation Period
  1. Return the dough to the bowl for a further 2 hours.
5m
  1. Third Fold
  1. After the dough has rested for this second time there should be clear signs of the dough rising, Stretch and fold the dough once more exactly like the last time.
1h
  1. Final Bulk Fermentation
  1. After the third fold, return the dough to the bowl to rest for 1 hour.
Pre-Shape
10m
  1. Pre-shape
  1. This time after resting it’s time to pre-shape the dough.
  2. Dust your surface with flour, turn out your dough upside down onto the surface. If you have doubled the recipe to make two loaves, divide it into two at this point with the flat side of your dough scraper.
  3. Shape the dough into a ball really quite tight without tearing it.
1h
  1. Rest your dough
  1. Rest the pre-shaped loaves for 1 hour covered with a cloth.
Final Shape
10m
  1. Final Shape
  1. In the final shaping the aim is to create a tight structure without degassing the dough too much. So be delicate with the folds but still creating tension.
  2. Dust your work surface with a little flour, slide your dough scraper underneath and turn the dough upside down onto a lightly dusted surface.
  3. Let it relax into a circle.
  4. Pick up the side edges one by one, stretching out very slightly and folding over the dough, one over the top of the other. Roll the dough from the top edge towards you into a sausage and stick it onto the sticky patch closest to you, pinching the seam to stick in place.
  5. When you are done, dust it well with semolina or a wholemeal flour, and dust an oval banneton basket too.
  6. Place the dough in the basket upside down (seam side up). If you don’t have a basket, line a colander or bowl with a cloth and dust it well.
Final Rest
23h
  1. Final Rest
  1. At this stage rest your dough in the fridge uncovered to prove nice and slowly overnight.
Bake
1h
  1. Preheat oven
  1. When you are ready to bake, remove your loaf from the fridge and let it rest on the kitchen side while the oven preheats. It should show clear signs of inflation, don’t expect huge growth but certainly it should have plumped up since you put it in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 230°C fan/456°F/gas mark 8 with a baking stone on the middle shelf and a deep tray on the bottom. Boil the kettle too.
5m
  1. Score and bake
  1. Turn out the loaf out onto a floured peel, make a cut in the top with a grignette and slide it onto the baking stone. Pour the hot water from the kettle into the tray to create steam and shut the door.
15m
  1. Initial bake with steam
  1. Bake for 15 minutes at 230°C fan/446°F/gas mark 8
25m
  1. Reduce heat and continue to bake
  1. After 15 minutes, turn down the heat to 190°C fan/374°F/gas mark 5 and bake for a further 20-25 minutes.
Enjoy
30m
  1. Take out and rest before eating
  1. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.
0m
  1. Eat!
Let Jack know how it worked for you at https://www.bakewithjack.co.uk/contact-me