I started my first (un)loaf of sourdough bread this morning.

I belong to a Sourdough for Beginners community on FB, and there I found a recipe that is as simple and straightforward as I believe it gets: the UNloaf. The directions are as follows:

Mix dough: 165g of cold, unfed starter (discard) into 400g of room temperature, filtered water. Add 650g of flour, and 15g of course salt. The flour I used was King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour. Mix rough and shaggy dough, cover, and leave to bulk ferment on the counter overnight (or for 10-12 hours)- I started mine this morning at 5:53am, so by the time I get home from work, it will be ready for the next step.

Shape dough, let rest for 1 hour. After the rest, score, and set loaf inside a dutch oven. Place the dutch oven, covered, inside a cold oven, preheat to 450 degrees F, and set the oven timer for 1 hour. By the time the timer goes off, the loaf should be fully baked, with an internal temperature of between 205 and 210 degrees. If it has not reached that temperature, turn the oven down to 425 and continue to bake, uncovered, until it does.

I understand it’s not the *true* sourdough with all the stretch and folds and cold fermenting in the fridge for 8-36 hours and the temping to figure out how long it needs to ferment to get the best bake, but I’ve seen nothing but good reviews on the method so far. I’m going to do a real sourdough loaf over the weekend, but I wanted to try the unloaf for my first go. I think my starter is strong enough and ready to bake with, the little dollop of discard I plopped into my bowl of water was sort of floaty… So I think it’ll be okay?

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So I’m back after the weekend, and here’s what happened:

So this is the resulting bake from my “unloaf” trial. I don’t hate it, but I don’t think I’ll be repeating this method. The flavor is good and sour, but it was dense and a little gummy- not good for much more than breadcrumbs, in my opinion.

By Saturday, I had so much discard in my refrigerator, I became a bit overwhelmed. I found a quick recipe for Sourdough Discard Crackers, and managed to dispense with 600 grams from my overflowing jars. For my first batch, I made parmesan garlic (SO good, especially when used to dip in some baked feta dip), and for the second, I threw in what amounted to ranch seasoning- S&P, onion, garlic, dill, parsley, and parmesan. Also quite delicious.

So then, by 1pm on Saturday, I was ready to start my real sourdough loaves. I used the video with the recipe and tutorial from Sarah, an admin on the FB Sourdough for Beginners page. I mixed my dough, did 5 sets of stretch and folds, timed 30 minutes apart (I did 5 sets because after 4, I did not yet have the “windowpane effect” with my dough- it needed to get just a little stronger), then left it to bulk ferment on my counter for about 3.5 hours, after which I divided and pre-shaped the dough into two loaves, placed them in my silicone bannetons, wrapped them in plastic grocery bags, and stuck them in my fridge overnight. I pulled the bagged loaves out of the fridge around 830am on Sunday, turned them out and scored them, and by the time Brennan was ready for his nap about 9, they were ready for the oven.

Since this was my first time baking shaped and scored sourdough loaves, I decided to experiment and did one open-bake and one in a lidded Dutch oven. Can you tell which is which? The oven temp was too high for an open-bake- I wish I had read up on that before I stuck it in at 450. I re-scored both loaves after 8 minutes, and made sure there was lots of steam for the crust. The dark one looked beautiful on the inside:

The bread is delightfully sour, thanks to the cold fermentation, and has a great chew. I’m still working on getting the temperatures right and the timing on my loaves, but it’ll be a little while before we need bread again. It is a process of trial and error that I fully expect to be quite lengthy. I also made a batch of scones to bring to work this morning. Cheddar, bacon, and chive. Delicious. I brought the unsliced, decidedly prettier loaf to share as well, and stopped on my way to grab a block of Kerrygold to have with it for my co-workers. They’re very spoiled by my kitchen exploits, and they know it.

So that’s how my weekend went, aside from taking care of the kids and getting a little garden work in. More on that later.

Peace and blessings,