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This maybe the simplest recipe and something that always works for me. I’m posting probably almost the same recipe but different approach or methods every week, but this is the only way I can achieve consistency upon my bakes..

Recipe:

70g Whole  wheat

280g Premium Bakers Flour

260g Water ?

70g Starter(100% hydration)

7g Salt ? 

Method:

Mixer is used

-1 hour Autolyse

-30 minutes rest after mixing starter

-1 hour rest after adding salt b4 doing 1 S & F

-5 hours Bulk Fermentation @ 24c deg

-2 sets of coil folds

-no pre-shape, rested on banneton for 30 minutes 

-16 hours cold retard

Baked on steel plate covered with stainless steel bowl for 20 minutes @ 250c Deg, another 25 minutes @ 230c Deg uncovered.

One of the most intriguing questions in my (admittedly short!) sourdough adventure thus far has been: How do I create a loaf that I can consistently proof in the refrigerator and bake straight from that cold environment, without it under or over-proofing? While the length of bulk fermentation is important in this calculus, it’s not the only part.

The following is the formula I've developed for one large loaf that is created specifically for a long proof in the refrigerator. The instructions are for a boule, but it could easily be shaped as a batard. Roughly 20% levain (by total weight, 40% by baker's percentage) seems to be my sweet spot for a long, cold-proofed loaf that can be baked straight from the fridge (i.e., proofs fully in the fridge at about 45 degrees F, but doesn’t over-proof!).  I’ve baked this formula five times with great results...it can be modified to include more mix-ins, and even a significant percentage of whole grains.

The 78% hydration, long autolyse, chill during bulk fermentation, and long, cold proof yield a custardy, open crumb! The long autolyse also contributes to gluten formation, which make the final dough much easier to handle.

Ingredients:

200 g active 100% hydration white starter (however you want to create that levain)
400 g all-purpose flour (I love King Arthur)
290 g cool water
11 g (sea) salt
15 g sugar
5 g malt powder

Method:

1) Mix together flour and cool water, and set aside to autolyse at room temperature for anywhere from 6-12 hours. Make sure to mix the water and flour very well before this long autolyse; don't be afraid to really mash the dough down with a wet hand. You don't want any dry bits lingering, because they will be difficult to incorporate later. If you mix it well, it will be such smooth sailing when you mix in the levain, I promise!

2) Combine autolysed flour and water with the starter, salt, sugar, and malt powder. Squeeze the dough through your fingers to fully combine for the first two minutes or so, then stretch and fold for 2-3 minutes more. 

3) Fold the dough every 30 minutes for the next 2 hours. When I stretch-and-fold, I like to give it as many turns as I feel the dough “needs.” To perform a fold, I reach under the dough and pull it over itself, rotating 90 degrees every time. At every 30-minute interval, I stop when the whole mass of dough begins to pull up out of the container. This is anywhere between 4 and 20 folds (that is, between 1 and 5 full stretch-and-fold turns). 

4) Allow the dough to rest at room temperature between 2 and 4 hours, or until 70-80% increased in size. I realize that this is a bit more increase than is called for in some formulas, but it is my preference in this case!

5) Place the container of dough in the refrigerator for at least one hour, and up to 6 hours.* 

6) Remove the container from the refrigerator. Sprinkle flour over the top of the dough and spread it. Loosen the dough from the sides of the container, allowing the flour to fall around the edges of the dough. This will create a nice floured gluten cloak at the bottom of your dough. 

7) Pour the dough onto a work surface so that the floured surface is on the bottom. Pull the edges of the dough towards the middle to form a very loose boule -- this is the pre-shape. Rest for ten minutes. 

8) After ten minutes, pull the edges towards the center and pick the ball up, twisting in your hand to create tension. Form a tight boule, however you’re most comfortable doing that. 

9) Place the boule seam-side up in a floured banneton or brotform of some kind, and cover in plastic. 

10) Allow it to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. 

11) Place in the refrigerator to proof for at least 8 hours, and up to 22 hours. The longer it proofs in the refrigerator, the more open and gelated the crumb will become. 

12) Remove the banneton/brotform and release it onto a piece of parchment paper. 

13) Score the boule, and bake at 475 F for 20 minutes with steam, then 20-25 minutes without steam.

*Alternatively, you could place the dough in the refrigerator directly after the two hours of stretch-and-fold, and then remove it later to sit at room temperature until increased 70-80%. Either way works great; I do stand by having a chill on the dough at some point during bulk fermentation.

Some loaves for which I've used this formula:

The Basic Formula (As Torpedoes and Boules):

80% Whole Wheat with Toasted Seeds and Cranberries:

Brown Ale and Spent Grain Torpedoes:

Everything Bagel Seasoning-Topped (Crowd Favorite!):

Thanks to all for your wonderful photos, formulas, and advice. TFL has just been the greatest resource as I navigate my first year of baking!

--Hannah

In October, 2008 I posted a formula for Greenstein's Jewish Sour Rye which converted his recipe, which was written in volume measurements, to ingredient weights. I have made this bread many times since, but I've never bothered to calculate the baker's percentages for the formula. I decided to do so today and thought I would post the procedures as a tutorial on “baker's math” for new baker's and others who have just never gotten comfortable with this very valuable tool.

Here is the formula I wrote in 2008.

Converting the formula to baker's math

Baker's math is a method of expressing the quantity of all ingredients, always expressed as weights, as a proportion of the total flour in the formula. This provides a way of comparing formulas and of easily converting them to make a larger or smaller batch of dough. By convention, the total flour is always 100%. If your formula uses more than one type of flour, their total is 100%. So, to use a simple baguette-type dough as an example, the formula might be:

Note that the total is over 100%. This is confusing to many initially. Get used to it. This total baker's percentage is an important number, as you will soon see. Again, this formula does not tell you how much of any ingredient to use, so far, only their proportionate amounts. In fact, knowing these proportions gives you all the information you need to make any amount of dough you need for a bake, whether its 500 g or 100 kg.

We have the ingredient amounts for a “batch” of Greenstein's rye bread, and we want to calculate the baker's percentages, so we can make a bigger (or smaller) batch of dough than the original recipe produces.

This bread uses a rye sour – a rye sourdough starter. When working with a pre-ferment like a poolish or a rye sour, there are two ways of representing it in baker's math. One is to treat it a distinct ingredient, like water or salt. The other is to break the pre-ferment down into its flour and water content and add the flour to the total flour and the water to the total water in the formula. These two approaches are equally accurate, but the second approach provides the more accurate representation of the dough characteristics, especially in regard to hydration. In the following table, I have used the second approach.

The rye sour is 100% hydration. That means that the amount of water in it is exactly equal to the amount of water (water = 100% of total flour.) So, 750 g of rye sour consists of 375 g of rye flour and 375 g of water. Therefore, for example, the total water in the dough consists of the 375 g from the rye sour plus the 240 g added to the final dough.

Now we can see that the original recipe makes 1509 g of dough. (Well, it is actually more because the weight of the caraway seeds and altus, if used, is not included in these calculations.) Adding up the Baker's percentages, you have 172.2. Think of this as meaning that the dough consists of 172.2 “parts,” 100 of which is flour, 70 of which is water, etc. Recall that these numbers represent the relative amounts of each ingredient.

Scaling the recipe

Now, let us assume you want to make Greenstein's Jewish Sour Rye, but you want to make 600 g loaves, and you want to make two of them. So you will need 1200 g of dough. 

Since you know your formula consists of 172.2 parts, to determine the weight of each ingredient needed to make 1200 g of dough, what you need for your calculations is the weight of each part. If the total is 1200 g, you get this by dividing 1200 g by 172.2 parts. This equals 6.97, rounded off. This number is called “the conversion factor.” Now we can calculate the amounts of each ingredient in 1200 g of dough. Weights are rounded to the nearest gram.

What this way of representing the formula does not show is how much rye sour you have to build. However, we know from the original recipe that the weight of the rye sour is 1.5 times the weight of the First Clear flour (See the first table, above.) So, for the 1200 g of dough, we will need 1.5x397=595 g of Rye Sour. In the bread books written for professionals, for example, Hamelman's Bread and Suas' Advanced Bread and Pastry, the formulas have separate tables for “Total Dough” which takes the second approach described above and another for “Final Dough” which takes the first approach. You get the best of both worlds. The “Final Dough” would be as follows:

You can see that, while this representation of the formula is more helpful for making the final dough, the Baker's Percentages distort the ingredient proportions. They make the dough look like it has a lower hydration than it really does, and it makes the amounts of salt and yeast seem very high.

Baker's math is an invaluable tool. Once you understand the basic approach and scale a few of your favorite recipes, it becomes easy to use. After a while, if you use it regularly, it becomes intuitive. You will find yourself doing it in your head as you look at new recipes. You can use it for modifying recipes you want to tweak. It will make you a better baker. It is not yet known if it prevents senile dementia, but I bet it helps. I'll let you know, if I remember to.

Addendum 5/1/16: I just found a very good Baker's Math reference on the King Arthur Flour web site. Here is a link to it: Baker's percentage

Enjoy!

David