Ho-ray, Holey Breads!

I have been baking bread with my own sourdough starter since I started it in 2005. For years I mainly use it as a texture improver, while relying on dried yeasts for quick and consistent rising. (Quick is a relative term here compared to how long purely sourdough bread making usually takes.)

Ever since I wrote about my good old sourdough starter made from an apple, it had received more interests than I expected. Since then, I’ve been looking more into baking bread the patient, artisan way that is using purely sourdough starter for leavening.

I don’t know whether it’s just me, or that the fab in sourdough baking these days really seems to be focused on getting big dramatic holes in the crumb. Somehow I became caught in the holey bread chasing winds.

My first knowledge on getting holey bread was

Dough! My Breads are Retarded

Last time when I was expecting a larger than usual crowd for the pizza party, I tried retarding a few loaves of bread dough by chilling them in the fridge overnight. (I haven’t done this much before.) Usually my bread made with my sourdough starter tend to last really well – up to a week without going stale. However, that time I found my retarded bread drying out after just 3 days, which invoked some investigation.

I’ve read about retarding bread dough before. I know many people do it to get a stronger flavour, particularly for sourdough. After some brainstorming, I decided to try baking 4 loaves of bread using exactly the same ingredients. (This is a very wet and sticky high hydration dough.)