Well I’m not going to put this up there with penicillin, but, that was unexpected. I would have been perfectly content with a repeat of loaf 16, but I lost the place somewhere, and it did not end well. I’ll try and remember the steps.
I’d decided I was going to use this loaf as the time to adopt Elly’s The EASIEST, no-fuss sourdough starter maintenance method. No discard approach to looking after my starter, which has just passed its first month birthday. I’d kept it in the fridge last night and the plan was to use it straight from the fridge into the recipe. Quite runny though. I thought the fridge might thicken it up a little. I need to nudge my flour/water proportions a little.
Ingredients
Stage 1
- 75g rye sourdough starter
- 75g strong white flour (M&S organic)
- 86g water (wobble)
Stage 2
- 180g wholemeal spelt (Gilchesters organic)
- 245g strong white flour (M&S Organic)
- 255g water (hot tap – warm to touch)
- 5g salt
- 15 EVOO
- squeeze syrup
Method
This got very untidy. Here’s the timeline.
- 1915 – Onto menu 29 for a bit. Will check after 10 minutes while I start transferring starter to new Weck jar. New empty Weck jar weighs 396g (let’s call it 400g); handy to know so if I ever weigh it I know how much starter I have. I have 127g existing starter, and it’s a bit runny, so will (unusually for me), weigh this out. Perhaps 40g rye flour and only 20g water. Chuck it in the Weck jar with the existing starter. An awful lot sticks to the spoon. I read on the Cotswold Flour website (while I was looking for the fabled Cotswold Crunch that everyone seems to be raving about) that you should always wash your spoon in cold water, and, anyway, where was I … A lot more than 10 minutes have gone by, and I like round numbers, and Menu 29 seems to have a rest in the middle between kneads, so might as well give it the hour.
- 2015 – OK, at this point I should’ve put the machine on menu 30 and let things rest for a couple of hours. But I was a bit distracted and forgot to do this and went straight on to the next bit. I added the stage 2 ingredients and put the machine onto menu 32 (pizza dough). I did this bit visually; 10 minutes doesn’t seem to mix it enough so I gave it about 20-30 minutes.
- 2045 – What’s done is done. On to menu 10 (French) overnight on the timer.
Notes
I was not optimistic, but what can I say. Possibly the best one yet.
