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Bake San Francisco Style Sour Sourdough Bread

Name: Bake San Francisco Style Sour Sourdough Bread
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.6 (570 reviews)

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Korshub's take

Overview

After roughly fifteen years of experimenting, instructor Teresa developed a reliable method for baking authentically sour San Francisco-style sourdough using nothing more than white flour, sourdough culture, salt, and water. This course focuses specifically on achieving that elusive real sour flavor and better oven spring, not on sourdough basics.

Who It's For

Bakers who already understand sourdough fundamentals and want to solve the specific, long-standing problem of inconsistent sourness in their loaves. It is not intended for absolute beginners, though it does include a lecture on building your own starter.

Key Takeaways

A technique for achieving genuine, consistent sourness
A long-fermentation approach and why it matters
A small adjustment that improves oven spring
Guidance on flour choice and building dough strength

About this course

Course updated 07/08/2022

You will learn:

The secret to baking real "sour" sourdough. Not many know how to obtain a natural sour in a sourdough bread.
A technique for a long fermentation. There's something you MUST do for a long fermentation.
How to obtain the real San Francisco sourdough flavor.
One small change to increase oven spring.
What type of flour to use.
Tips for increasing dough strength.

For years the holy grail of sourdough baking, here in the USA, has been an authentically "SOUR" sourdough bread, like they used to bake in San Francisco. It is so sought after that bakeries will add a substitute sour like vinegar or "sour salt" (which is citric acid). The added "fake" sour flavor tastes fake and it isn't authentic. There's something quite wonderful about baking a real sourdough loaf that you can make as sour as you like, or for that matter, as mild as you like.

I've experimented for about 15 years to get a consistent "sour" in my sourdough bread. It's easy to get a sour bread by adding whole grains or even using all whole grains. However, to obtain a white flour San Francisco style sour loaf has been just beyond my grasp. I've baked plenty of sour loaves, but the consistency just wasn't there, my bread was sour sometimes and not other times. Part of the reason is because the literature insists that you need to use low hydration, cold bulk ferment to obtain the "sour." I never thought that was true but it held me back because I felt they must know what they're talking about. After all, it's in print right? ;)

So I finally went off the deep end and started experimenting with my own ideas and pre-conceived notions. And guess what? I figured it out. I can now bake a real authentic "SOUR" sourdough loaf with no more than white flour, sourdough culture, salt and water. I do have some variations from the all white loaf as well.

This course is not to teach you how to bake with sourdough, I already have ten courses that show you how to do that. So please don't join this course and get upset that it doesn't show you the basics (although there will be a lecture on how to make your own sourdough starter). This course is exclusively intended to show you how to bake a loaf of San Francisco Style bread that is "SOUR" like the authentic loaves of our past, that we here in the USA love so much.

This type of bread flavor is not usually sought after by other countries, indeed, they probably think we are crazy to love our deeply sour loaves, but there you have it! Come on and join me and discover (Finally) how to obtain the SOUR in sourdough.

Gluten Free consumers are now coming full circle as science discovers that long fermented dough is usually well tolerated by those with intolerance to gluten and other grains. It isn't for everyone and you should always ask your doctor, but perhaps you are one of the lucky ones who can indulge in real, chewy, thick and delicious sourdough bread. If so, welcome back to real bread!

Teresa