Just had to post my bread success today.

I made two unbelievable loaves of sourdough today with only salt,
water, starter, and flour. I have been using other ingredients and my
bread was good, but the bread I made today was even better without all
of those 'extra' items. Everyone has been telling me to try it, but I
was scared to do it without 'something' to make it taste good.

I got a book at the library called The Bread Book by Thom Leonard. I
am assuming most are familiar with him.

I followed his recipe and in just a few hours had the best bread I have
made to date!

Not sure why I thought that freshly ground whole wheat flour needed
sugar, oil, etc. I guess from my old bread baking days when baking
with commerical yeast just would not let me do any different. I have
also been learning, experimenting and only baking sourdough since
October of last year so I am a newbie to some extent.

I modified the recipe a little by using 3 1/2 cups of ww flour and 2
cups of UB White flour instead of the 5 1/2 cups all whole wheat. Next
baking day will be all ww flour to see if it turns out as good.

2 cups water

1 1/2 cups of active starter

2 tsps sea salt

5 1/2 cups of water

Mix it, wait five minutes, add salt and knead it, wait 5 minutes, knead
again, wait 5 minutes, knead again. Then put in the appropriate
container(s) for final rise. I baked two loaves for 30 minutes at 425
degrees.

This group has been such a help and has been an invaluable tool in
helping to learn to make sourdough bread. There really are so many
different ways to get to the final goal, but this has been my best so
far. And since I don't care for the extreme sourdough flavor like
some, this turned out to be the mildest bread yet.

And one of the best tips I have had was from this group about using
some water on your fingers instead of flour to knead the bread. It
really works and requires so much less flour to get the final dough
together.

John

"BigJohn" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Just had to post my bread success today.
>
> I made two unbelievable loaves of sourdough today with only salt,
> water, starter, and flour. I have been using other ingredients and my
> bread was good, but the bread I made today was even better without all
> of those 'extra' items.

Congratulations! Where's the pictures? I also started out here (a year ago
maybe?) adding all kinds of stuff but eventually found that the best bread
made this way is by keeping it simple. I also no longer try to make
everything without (commercial) yeast, the breads I add all kinds of stuff
too are not always benefited by using natural leaven, though it certainly
can be done.


Good luck with the 100%whole wheat, I have found I prefer something
in-between (part whole wheat and/or rye, plus all purpose, along the lines
of your posted recipe) but then freshly ground flour is not yet available to
me as it is you.

hutchndi