Bread
Bread?
Bread is serious. I had the good fortune of being convinced to bake by a coworker. I started with some generic bread: flour, water, salt, and dry yeast. Occasionally, I would add beer or cider as the hydration instead of water. The beer or cider give the bread a "sourdough-like" flavor and the alcohol bakes off naturally.
Breadmaking is an ephemeral creative project that allows for quick learning and iteration. It's also a nice break from working at a computer. Mistakes are eaten quickly, so the evidence disappears. Also, it's a great way to share with friends and colleagues; someone has to eat all that bread.
Bread!
From bread, the next obvious step was true sourdough. I received a bit of existing culture from a friend, and ran with it. My previous attempts had been fairly free-form. I hadn't measured out ingredients or recorded results. With sourdough, I decided to change that approach. Included below is a chart of loaves, notes, and results.
Process
Caveat: I'm by no means an expert. I owe a significant amount of my process to friends and colleagues. It's a learning process and I'm always open to feedback.
While the process can change from time to time, it generally stays fairly consistent. I'll begin by preparing the dough the night before. I mix flour, water (lukewarm), salt, and sourdough starter. I'll knead it for around 15 minutes, or until it pulls the bits of dough from my hand while kneading.
After, I'll cover the dough in a bowl, and leave it to bulk rise. In the morning, I'll begin the oven preheat and fold or shape the dough. I went through a period of trying to not handle the dough to try to keep the air pockets intact. It didn't seem to have a dramatic effect, and resulted in loaves that would flatten out.
Instead, I began using a twisting method, learned from another coworker. I scoop the dough onto a floured baking tray and begin to apply a counterclockwise twist (pulling the left side with my left hand; pushing the right with my right hand). Ideally, the dough will stick only at the very center, and the rotation will create surface tension that will cause the dough to keep a shape.
Once shaped, I'll move the dough to a parchment sheep and place it in a covered bowl for the remainder of the oven preheat. Occasionally I will use a sharp blade to score the loaf, I typically bake in a dutch oven at 500F (260C) for 30-40 minutes, then remove the lid, spray the loaf with a mister, and let it bake for a final 15 minutes. The dutch oven keeps the moisture in until the bread has formed a crust. Removing the lid allows the crust to cook more and get a nice color and texture.
Last, I'll leave it for 15-20 minutes to finish and cool, then serve. So far, I've only tried boules for the shaping. While I respect a well-shaped loaf, I'm more focused currently on the distribution and size of air pockets, the texture of the crust, and the overall consistency. I've been mostly focusing on perfecting a single style of loaf before moving on to others (hence the copious sourdough).
Lessons
I was surprised to see that the sourdough seemed to be easier to work with and less "sticky" during shaping as I increased the hydration to around 70% (up from the normally recommended 60%). I also experimented for a bit with increasing the starter ratio, but I think I've concluded that a lower ratio may produce better results.
I did have a few loaves that were sticker and difficult to work with despite the higher hydration. Those were typically made in the evening, left to bulk-rise overnight, then shaped the following afternoon. With my particular starter, 15-18 hour bulk-rise seems better. The shaping is very smooth if I shape then bake the bread in the morning. There might be a confounding factor with the hydration (i.e. maybe the rise time is only true for these "wetter" loaves), and I'll have to keep that in mind on future loaves.
The "lessons" are very qualitative, and as a former statistician, I'm mildly annoyed at the lack of quantitative metrics I have for bread quality. Then again, maybe I'm trying to apply too much science to baking.