← magnus.engineer

Off-hours · Sourdough

Bread, slowly.

By day I run fermentation of a different kind: containers, pipelines, long-running workflows. In the evenings it's flour, water, salt and a jar of starter. These are my notes.

The starter

Starter
Unnamed (for now)
Alive since
2023
Diet
50/50 bread flour and whole rye, 100% hydration
Feeding
1:5:5 the night before a bake, fridge in between

The base recipe

The everyday country loaf

My base dough. Everything else I bake is a variation of this: swap some flour, push the hydration, add seeds. Makes 2 loaves, about 900 g each.

Formula

IngredientBaker's %
Bread flour85%
Whole wheat flour10%
Whole rye flour5%
Water76%
Levain (100% hydration)20%
Salt2%
Total198%

Everything is relative to total flour (100%). Scale it with the calculator below.

  1. Day 1 · 21:00Feed the starter1:5:5, warm water. Ready in 10–12 hours.
  2. Day 2 · 08:00AutolyseFlour and 90% of the water. Rest 1 hour.
  3. 09:00MixAdd levain, then salt with the last of the water. Rubaud until it holds together.
  4. 09:30–12:00Bulk fermentation4 sets of coil folds, 30 min apart, then leave it alone. Aim for ~50% rise at 24–25 °C.
  5. 13:30Divide & pre-shapeLoose rounds, bench rest 30 minutes.
  6. 14:00Shape & retardTight batard, into bannetons, fridge overnight (12–16 h).
  7. Day 3 · 07:00BakeDutch oven at 250 °C: 20 min lid on, 20–25 min lid off at 230 °C.

Dough calculator

How much of everything?

Pick how many loaves and the formula. Grams update as you go.

Bread flour–
Whole grain flour–
Water–
Levain–
Salt–
Total dough–

Effective hydration incl. the water in a 100% levain: –

Bake log

Recent bakes

Every bake is an experiment. The failures teach more than the good ones.

  1. Country loaf

    76% hydration · 85% bread · 10% whole wheat · 5% whole rye

    Example entry. Good oven spring and the ear opened nicely. Bulk could have gone 20 minutes longer.

    Read the bake →

  2. Seeded rye

    82% hydration · 60% bread · 40% whole rye

    Example entry. Sunflower and flax soaker. Dense in the best way; slices thin for rugbrød-style lunches.

    Read the bake →

  3. High-hydration experiment

    85% hydration · 90% bread · 10% spelt

    Example entry. Pancaked. Shaping a dough this wet needs more strength from the folds. Will try again.

    Read the bake →

Things I've learned

Lessons from the oven

01

Watch the dough, not the clock

Bulk fermentation is done when the dough says so: domed, jiggly, ~50% bigger. Temperature changes everything.

02

Steam is free oven spring

A preheated Dutch oven traps the loaf's own steam. Lid on for the first 20 minutes, no exceptions.

03

Change one variable at a time

Same habit as debugging a pipeline: if you change hydration and flour and timing at once, you learn nothing.