I started with my version of the No-Knead Bread (or minimal knead bread). I had recently received a copy of Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor. I followed his directions for culturing a sourdough starter. His starter is about 76% hydrated (which means there’s about 3.5oz of water and 4.5oz of flour).
- 15oz hard white spring wheat ground finely
- 13oz water
- 8oz sourdough starter
- 2t Celtic sea salt
- 1t sprouted wheat ground finely
Mix all the ingredients the night before (preferably with a recently refreshed starter). It helps to break the starter into numerous small pieces to mix into the rest of the dough. Knead with wet hands for a minute or so to incorporate the starter. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator overnight.
In the morning knead the dough with wet hands about 8-10 times until the ball is tight. Put the dough back into the bowl (big enough so it can double in size) and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to rise till about 3:00pm. Longer is fine, but the longer it sits, the more sour it will be.
Take the dough out of the bowl and fold it over gently a few times. Shape it into a ball (find a nice description of how to do that on the web somewhere) making sure to get the outer skin tight or snug. Place the bread on parchment on a pizza peal or edgeless cookie sheet. Allow it to rise for another 2 hours or so till it is about double in size.
Place pizza stone on bottom rack. Place a cookie sheet full of water on the top rack. Preheat oven for at least one hour to 500°.
Slash the top of the bread in a plus pattern to about ½in deep. Quickly slide the bread onto the pizza stone. Close oven and reduce heat to 450°. Bake for 25 minutes. Turn 180° and bake for another 20-30 minutes. The bread is done if it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
It takes some practice to get everything right. The only thing that isn’t quite right yet is the bottom is a little too dark. My technique will improve with time. I’m also still playing with the sprouted wheat flour hoping to speed rising time.
Your sourdough looks beautiful!! It could be in a bakery window.
I’ll have to try your technique. I’m a relatively new bread baker, and just this weekend got my wheat loaves to have the unbroken high arch.
How do you like Reinhart’s book overall? I just got the Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book, which I heard was better for the true beginner — that Reinhart was more for advanced bread bakers.
Reinhart’s book is very interesting. I have only made one loaf from it so far, so I’m still reserving judgment on the bread.
I would say that Reinhart’s methods in this book will actually make bread baking easier for beginners than most books. The methods he uses are more tolerant to errors in the process than most methods and they actually save time over conventional methods.
However, I went back to working on my own recipe based on the NYT no-knead method because it’s even easier than Reinhart’s method. I will probably continue trying Reinhart’s recipes, but use them primarily for specialty breads like challah or cinnamon swirl and use my own recipe for my week-to-week bread making.
My husband was raised with heavy sourdough bread and I have tried for years to perfect a recipe he would like. I am glad I stumbled on your blog and will have to try the recipe….thanks Di
Hi Brian,
I’ve been using the new Reinhart book a little myself and have liked the results so far. I use the master recipe and it has always produced a very dependable loaf. I’m going to try some others when I get a chance. I have a couple of questions – 1) do you think his method is fully in line with NT in terms of properly preparing the flour? 2) how do you like the hard white wheat, and do you think it is as nutritious as hard red?
thanks,
Anna
1) Some of the breads are 100% in line with NT. Others are not. You need to look at the individual recipes. The basic sandwich loaf is good if you use sourdough in place of the biga (which he mentions you can do). I’d like to try the cinnamon bread as that looks 100% in line since all of the flour is soaked in buttermilk.
2) The hard white wheat is fine. It is probably slightly milder tasting than the red wheat. I was hoping the lighter color would convince the family it was OK (since they’re all white bread fans), but that hasn’t seemed to help much since it’s still darker than white. It has a sort of yellowish color. All reports seem to indicate that it is as nutritious as the red wheat.
Hi Brain – Thanks very much for sharing your cooking adventures with us. You have inspired me and my husband to buy a grain mill. We had looked at them once before but just weren’t sure where to start. We just took the plunge–today our Fidibus-21 arrived. We are going to try your No-Knead bread recipe tonight. But my ultimate goal is to regularly make a wild-yeast sourdough. I’m going to give the NT Sourdough Starter recipe a shot. Did you have much luck making your own starter? I’m a complete novice at bread making. I was wondering if you could tell me how fine you grind your wheat for the No-Knead bread recipe. Thank you again for taking the time to post information about cooking NT.
We love NT here at our house. Sour dough is a favorite, I’ll have to give this a try.
Thanks for posting!
Krista,
I have had some luck making my own starter. I do have problems keeping it healthy once it gets going. After a while it get’s way too sour and causes the dough to rot quickly (i.e. the gluten degrades).
I grind my wheat as finely as possible. As per the directions that came with the Fidibus, I turn on the mill and then turn the hopper just until the stones touch and then back it off one notch. I only put in about 2/3c at a time because the stones expand from the heat and will eventually touch again. When this happens you’ll have to back off the hopper another notch.
Thanks for this recipe. I have heard good things about Peter Reinhart’s cook books. I think he wrote “The Village Baker” or is it “The Baker’s Apprentice” At any rate, he is a respected bread baker and author of bread baking books.
I have been on a quest to make a good, European style fermented bread. Not having the best of luck. This week I baked four loaves of what we call” weapons”. Very heavy, yet, not bad in the flavor department.
I hope to try your recipe. Thanks.
PS What is the recipe for the starter? Did I miss that somehow?
Julie,
You did not miss the starter recipe. I didn’t include it. It’s in the Reinhart book. My guess is any starter of the specified hydration level should work OK as long as it is pretty active.
yum yum yum!