Sourdough for dummies basics

An attempt at making a basic sour dough loaf with minimal fuss over a short time-frame. Maybe 18 hours.

- Requirements
A dutch oven

- Basic recipe supplied by my bread mentor Geoffrey.

600g flour
2 generous teaspoons salt
(Maybe a teaspoon or two of sugar) as well.
378m water (roughly)
Between 90g / 145g starter.

- Basic time-frame/run-list, for a work from home loaf, or a saturday lunchtime loaf.

1. Waking up the starter - 5 pm

- (5pm the day before loaf is baked)

Take your starter from the fridge feed it 1/2 a cup of flour and 1/2 a cup of water. Stir it up.

Sit the starter, in it's jar, in a bowl of hot water.
Watch it and see the starter grow over the next couple of hours. Put a rubber band around the jar to mark the current level. When the level of the starter has risen a lot, maybe 3 inches, it is ready to use.

Pour more hot water in the bowl around it if you want it to grow faster.

2. Mixing the starter with the flour/salt/sugar/water mixture - 8 pm

- (8 pm, assuming the starter has grown well, later if needed)

Mix the ingredients of the list above. It will be very wet and will try to stick to your hands. There is not really any kneading in this recipe. TIP. Keep the measuring container that you used for measuring the water near-by, filled with water. Dip you hands into it every now and then when you are manipulating the bread mixture, it stops the mixture sticking to your hands.

8:15 pm. Your bread is now doing its first rise and doesn't need any intervention for a while. Go about your normal life. Watch Netflix or do some knitting.....

3. A quick fold before retiring for the night - 10 pm

Before you go to bed check on the mixture. Wet your hands to make it easier to pick up the dough. Fold it 4 times. This is how you do a fold. Cover the mixture in its bowl with a plastic bag or cling-wrap. Leave it on the bench

4. It's bread day! 8 am?

Your dough will have risen overnight. Doesn't it look amazing! Wet your hands and give it another 4 folds. Squirt some olive oil around the inside of your bowl. It will stop it sticking during the next fold.

5. The last fold, and a baking paper sling. 10 am?
Cut up two pieces of baking paper, one long and one a bit shorter. Make a cross shape with the 2 pieces of baking paper on the bench. After you do these last 4 folds of the dough, plop the mixture in the middle of the pieces of baking paper. The longest piece sits on the bottom, with the shortest piece on top, and the dough on top of that. You have created a sling. Lower everything back into the bowl for its last rise.

6. Pre-heat dutch oven 11:30 am?

Put your dutch oven in your main oven, with its lid on. Pre-heat it to 230 degrees celcius.

7. Ready to bake, 12 pm?
Your dough should be fully risen again by now. If you want, with a very sharp implement you can make a "score" across the top of the dough.

Your dutch oven is now preheated. Remove it from the main oven. Remove the lid and drop an ice-cube into the dutch oven (optional) then immediately, using the baking paper sling, lift your dough out of the mixing bowl and lower it into the very hot dutch oven. Replace the lid on the dutch oven and return it to the main oven, for 30 mins.

After 30 mins, remove the dutch oven from the main oven. Take the lid off. To aid in making the bread look a bit more "pro" you can sprinkle some water on the top crust, which makes it darken (apparently) and you might want to throw a bit of flour about too ; )

Return the dutch oven to the main oven with the lid removed, and give it another 25 mins.

8. Retrieve dutch oven from main oven. 1 pm.

Remove dutch oven from main oven. You can probably remove the bread from the dutch oven using the baking paper, which you will likely get one more session out of, before it goes brittle.

You might need to leave the bread a while before you cut it up as it will be quite soft with a stiff crust.
Good luck!