THE BASIC RECIPE
This recipe will allow you to practice easily with few ingredients: white wheat flour, water, active wild yeast starter, and salt. These are basic ingredients for making your wild yeast bread, but the whole point of the recipe is to experiment with the amount of water that you use, in order to determine the optimal quantity to add so that the dough will be sufficiently hydrated, and especially so that you will feel comfortable with handling and shaping the dough.
The quantity of water given in this recipe is intended as a guideline. It always depends on the quality of the flour and your ability to handle a very soft dough. You should always start with a small amount of water, then add more gradually, so that you have time to familiarize yourself with the dough and, especially, to master your grasp of the ingredients. This will keep you from ending up with a mass of dough that is impossible to shape, which could just frustrate you.
For example, if you know that you absolutely want to produce a very airy crumb, like the ones you see on Instagram or other social media, where seasoned baking hobbyists display photographs of bread with crumbs full of air pockets, which they achieve by experimenting with hydration rates that sometimes go beyond 100% (i.e., more water than flour), then you can certainly reproduce those recipes. But first, you will have to take the time to experiment for yourself and, above all, to try out various kinds of flour. There is absolutely no point in trying this kind of hydration rate with a flour whose optimal rate is, for example, 70%.
In addition, you can certainly obtain a soft, airy crumb while staying within a perfectly acceptable hydration rate, and without it turning into a nightmare when you get to the point of shaping the dough; it is all a question of finding the middle ground.
Adopting this methodology for each of the recipes in this book is the best way to improve your technique and obtain a satisfactory result every time. As soon as you have gotten a good feeling for the use of a particular flour, you have mastered hydration, and the dough is reasonably easy to shape, you can experiment more easily!
Ingredients in weights and percentages
100 g of active wild yeast starter (20%)
280 to 350 g of water (56% to 70%)
500 g of high-gluten wheat flour (100%)
10 g of salt (2%)
The percentages are always calculated with reference to the flour, which represents 100%. The point of the calculation is not to add up to 100%, or 200%, but to determine the weight of the water, the salt, and the starter as a function of the amount of flour.
For example, for 500 grams of flour (100%), 70% = 350 grams and 20% = 100 grams. Then you can calculate the total hydration rate of the dough (including the water and the water content of the hydrated liquid starter).
The steps listed below are explained in detail in chapter 4, “Dough: The Key Steps.”
Pre-mix and autolysis: Pour the water and flour into a large bowl and quickly mix with a spoon to combine them. Let the mixture stand for 60 minutes of autolysis.
Adding the starter: Add the wild yeast starter by mixing it into the dough with a wooden spoon or by using a dough mixer. Knead for 2 or 3 minutes until the starter is completely incorporated.
Cover it with a cloth and let it stand again for 30 to 40 minutes.
Note
Stop kneading as soon as the starter is incorporated. What you want is just to add it in, without developing gluten.
Incorporating the salt: Distribute the salt over the entire surface of the dough, and then knead to incorporate the salt. If you are kneading by hand, wet your hands first. Fold the edges of the dough over the salt while turning the bowl; there is no benefit in kneading the dough too much at this point (no more than a minute) because the salt will be distributed gradually during the folds in the following step.
First rise and folds: Transfer the dough to a clean bowl or a plastic container and round it lightly with wet hands. At this point, make a note of the time, because you will need to allow the dough to stand for 3 to 4 hours, on average. During this time, fold the dough at regular intervals (for example, once every 30 minutes for the first 2 hours).
As the dough rests and rises, it will gradually gain in volume and become softer, and the folds will become more delicate.
Division and pre-shaping: Turn the dough out onto your lightly floured work surface and pre-shape it right away to make one large loaf (or, using a pastry cutter, divide the dough in half to make two medium loaves). Gently round the dough using the pastry cutter.
Tip
You can lightly flour both your hand and the pastry cutter, especially if the dough is too sticky, and make rotating movements to form the dough into the shape of a ball.
Relaxation and shaping: Let the dough ball(s) stand for 15 minutes at room temperature before working on them. Shape them into round loaves or into long, thin bâtard loaves, or any other shape you desire.
Second rise: Let the dough stand in bannetons for another 3 to 6 hours, depending on the room temperature, or put them into the refrigerator to slow down the process overnight.
Scoring: Turn the loaves out onto a peel or a plate covered with parchment paper. Score them using a bread scorer or a razor blade.
Baking: Transfer the dough into a baking dish that has been preheated for 30 minutes in the oven at about 480°F (250°C). Then bake covered for 20 minutes. Uncover the dish and bake for another 20 minutes.
Remove the bread from the dish and let it cool completely before slicing it.