KHORASAN WHEAT SOURDOUGH BREAD

Khorasan Wheat Sourdough Bread image

Khorasan wheat has a smooth and rich, buttery flavor, and the high extraction flour used in this bread is midway between whole wheat and white flour. This dough is wonderfully manageable, and the final bread has a beautiful golden color, soft texture, and delicious flavor.

Provided by Melissa Johnson

Categories Recipes

Time 1h17m

Number Of Ingredients 4

Ingredients

500g khorasan high extraction flour (3 3/4 cups)
400g water (1 2/3 cups)
100g sourdough starter (1/3 cup)
11g salt (2 tsp)

Steps:

See the photo gallery and video below the recipe for target dough consistency and expansion.
Starter Build, Mixing, and Bulk Fermentation
The night before or early in the morning, build your 100g sourdough starter. For a night-before feed, use 10g sourdough starter with 45g water and 45g flour. For an early morning feed, use 30g starter with 35g water and 35g flour. Allow the starter to ripen until it is at least double in size.
Mix the dough ingredients together in a large bowl and cover.
After a 20-30 minute rest, stretch and fold the dough with damp fingertips (see video below). Cover, let the dough rest another 20-30 minutes, and repeat the stretching and folding. Cover and rest 20-30 minutes again, and then do a third round of stretching and folding.
Let the dough bulk ferment until it has almost doubled in size. At warm temps (high 70s) my dough needed about 5 hours. Colder dough will need more time.
Shaping and Final Proof
Flour your work surface and scrape your dough out of the bowl. Pre-shape it into a ball, invert your bowl to cover it, and let it rest about 20 minutes. I decided to pre-shape this dough to strengthen the gluten a bit more.
Shape the dough into a boule, batard, or oblong loaf to suit your proofing basket and baking vessel.
Place the dough in your proofing basket seam-side up, cover, and let the dough rise again for about 30 minutes at room temperature and then refrigerate it overnight (8-16 hours). You can also leave the dough at room temperature for longer (1-2 hours) and bake it without the refrigeration stage.
Baking
Preheat your oven and baking vessel at 500F for 30 minutes.
Flip the dough out of the proofing basket and onto a sheet of parchment paper or onto the base of your hot baking vessel. Score the dough, then cover and return the vessel to the oven.
If your baking vessel is a ceramic cloche, bake at:
500°F for 20 minutes, lid on
450°F for 7 minutes, lid on
450°F for 10 minutes, lid off
If your baking vessel is cast iron, lower the oven temperature 5 minutes earlier and at that time, also place a baking sheet under the cast iron on the same shelf.
When baking is complete, the bread should have an internal temperature of at least 205F and it should sound hollow when you knock on the bottom of the loaf.