Nancy Silverton's Basic Loaf - Country White

I just got a copy of Nancy Silverton's Breads From the La Brea Bakery from my local library.

I really enjoy the stories of her beginnings, and I also like the fact that most of the recipes use a sourdough starter, and they are "pure" sourdough - that is, they are not spiked with commercial instant yeast. Up to this point, all of the sourdough loaves that I have baked have been an adaption of the original Carol Field's Pane Pugliesi.

However, the method that Silverton uses to create her starter is so complicated, and so convoluted that I would encourage anyone starting out to use the Peter Reinhart method of creating a sourdough starter (and then just use 100% hydration to keep it going). Further, Silverton goes on to say that if you are going to cook one recipe from her book, it should be the Basic Loaf - Country White in chapter 3. Well, I hope you have a lot of patience because it takes 14 days just to get the starter created! So, I would not recommend this book as your first bread making book.

A lot of people, including myself, use a 100% hydration starter, but Silverton uses something different - 150% hydration, so there is a little conversion to do.

Here is someone's explanation of how to convert her recipes:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5843/nancy-silverton039s-breads-la-brea-bakery

I've only used Nancy Silverton's book a couple of times, but here's one way to think about converting recipes from using her starter to using a 100% hydration starter.

She feeds in a ratio of 16 parts water to 11 parts flour by weight. To make things simple, consider that to be around 3 parts water to 2 parts flour by weight. If you think of a 100% hydration starter as 2 parts water and 2 parts flour by weight, then you can easily see that there is a missing 1 part of water in the 100% hydration starter. In other words, the Silverton starter has the same 2 parts water and 2 parts flour as the 100% hydration starter plus one more part of water.

So, to convert the Nancy Silverton starter to use a 100% hydration starter you could do something like:

Divide the weight of the Silverton starter required by 5 to know what "1 part" is. Use 4 times the "1 part" weight of your 100% hydration starter and add 1 part water to it.

For example, the rustic dough bread recipe on page 106 requires 1 pound 3 ounces of white starter. 1 pound 3 ounces is 19 ounces. One fifth of the 19 ounces is 3.8 ounces. You would use 4 time 3.8 ounces, or 15.2 ounces of 100% hydration starter and add 3.8 ounces of water to it to get the equivalent of the 19 ounces of Silverton white starter.

The thing that may not come out the same is the exact flavor. Silverton maintains her starter at high hydration and with fairly low feeding ratios. It will therefore have a more acidic environment on average than a typical 100% hydration starter fed 1:2:2 (starter:water:flour by weight) twice per day. My starter would be even more different, since it is maintained closer to a firm starter and is fed about 1:4:5 once or twice per day and so lives a good part of the time at a higher pH than would be the case with the Silverton method. It is possible that different organisms will prevail in the Silverton starter than in a 100% hydration starter maintained with a higher feeding ratio, since more acid tolerant organisms will be favored, which may have different flavors. Even if it is the same organisms, the population ratios should be more in favor of the yeast, which can tolerate lower pH, over the Lactobacillus bacteria.

The difference in flavor will probably be subtle, but different starters will result in somewhat different bread flavors. In fact, just by luck of the draw starters maintained the same way may have somewhat different flavors, so who knows about all that.

You can use pretty much any starter to make pretty much any bread. You don't have to use the starter method from the book to make the recipe in the book. However, the rise times and consistencies at each stage will be closer to what was intended in the recipe if you contribute the same amount of flour and water in each stage of the recipe.

Bill
End of quote

So, this is the recipe for a single loaf, half of her recipe, and adjusted for a 100% hydration starter:
adjusted for 100% hydration starter half amount recipe:
to get a single "part" of her starter, divide by 5
171g starter (171/5=34g)
485g flour
291g water (257g water + 34g = 291g)
20g wheat germ
8g salt

Here are the steps and a possible timing:
Feed the starter at night, again in the morning.
2pm - Mix the dough
(The guide for the timing is the 5 hour (mine was 6 hours) rise before the dough is placed into the refrigerator for 8 to 12 hours, but not more than 24 hours.)

Mix the starter, water, wheat germ, and flour in the mixer with the dough hook until the dough is formed.
Silverton says 5 minutes - I found the dough formed after 3 minutes, and the dough ball had cleaned the sides of the bowl thoroughly.

Cap the mixing bowl, and let rest for 20 minutes (autolyse).

Add the salt, and mix until the dough is 78 degrees. (I never saw the thermometrer rise a single degree, but I ended up hand kneading for about 10 minutes.)

3pm - First Rise
Place the dough in to a well oiled plastic container for about 4 hours. The volume should double.
(my rise took 5 hours)

8pm - Preshape
Preshape the dough on a floured surface, cover with dusted proofing cloth for 15 minutes.

8:20pm - Intermediate Rise
Shape the boule, place the dough in to a proofing bowl lined with a dusted proofing cloth with the seam side up.
Cover the dough with an oiled piece of plastic for 1 hour at room temperature. The volume should increase by 25%.

9:20pm - Retard the rise
Place the proofing basket in the refrigerator overnight.

8am - The Final rise
Remove the basket, and remove the plastic, and cover with a proofing cloth. Proof for about 3 hours, when the dough has doubled in size, or when the dough is 62 degrees.

10:30am - Oven preheat
about 30 minutes before baking, preheat the oven, stone, and roasting pan to about 500 degrees.

11:00am - Bake
Lightly dust the boule, invert onto a peel (or parchment). Slice the top, and place water in the pan, and place the dough in the oven. Reduce the baking temperature to 450 degrees. Bake until 210 degrees internal temperature.