hovel

PREP

• Combine in a bowl,  cover with damp towel and leave to autolyse for ~1 hour
• Mix in 90g of active starter by pinching it in.
  • 20% starter
• Add 2tsp (10-12g) of salt with a splash of water to help it mix in. Mix well by folding.
  • 2% salt
• Cover with damp towel and leave at room temperature for 10 minutes.
• Stretch and fold until it passes the window pane test.

BULK FERMENTATION

• Leave at room temperature, covered, and return to stretch it approx. every hour.
• Once it has a lot of air, it’s ready: 4-8 hours
  • It’ll be all jiggly and be double the size

SHAPING

• Dust surface with rice flour.
• Pour out dough and divide if necessary — carefully to avoid losing air.
• Pull the ends into the middle to round it out, gently flip over and tuck in the ends underneath the dough with a scraper.
• Let rest under damp towel for 15 min
• Flour dust baskets.
• Dough should be relaxed and a little flattened.
• Flip dough over, pull out ends and bring to center, try to gently elongate and then roll the dough over itself
• Lift into basket.
• Leave to proof at room temp, covered for 1-2 hours. They’re ready when the dough springs back slowly after being poked.
• Put in the fridge for 1-48 hours.

BAKING

• Preheat oven with dutch oven inside to 500°F.
• Dust the top of the dough and use parchment paper to flip dough out of the basket and onto the counter.
• Don’t let dough heat to room temp.  Cold dough is much easier to handle.
• Score with lame.
• Lift parchment paper into dutch oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes with lid on.
• Remove the lid and return it to the oven for ~10 minutes, remove when the internal temp is 208°F and crust is dark.
• Allow to completely cool on a rack for several hours.

MIXING

• Mix flour and water only
  • 75% flour 
• Auto-lyse
  • Leave for minimum half an hour with moist towel over it. Ideally leave overnight.
• Add starter
  • For 500g flour, 100g starter (20% starter)

KNEADING

• Knead and stretch until it passes the window pane test
  • With really wet dough, knead with fingers in bowl. If the dough is still sticking to bowl, it’s not ready
• Let sit for 45 min.
• Add salt (2%) 10g salt. Dimple it in and reknead it to mix it in. Leave sitting for 45 min. (rm temp)
• Laminating step — stretch dough to strengthen gluten structure.
  • If it’s tearing, it needs more kneading. Stretch every length of dough and then fold it back on itself.

RISING

• Leave to rise. Come back to re-stretch and fold dough approximately every hour
• If you wont stretch it every hour, cover with damp towel to prevent drying. Stretch by gently grabbing sides and pulling them over the center.
• Once dough has risen, carefully take it out of rising bowl with dough scraper, careful to not lose air in dough, reshape and put in proofing bowl. 
• ** always put on a damp surface to prevent sticking.
• Dust with rice flour in basket to prevent sticking.

PROOFING

• Put whole basket into ziploc bag/container and put in the fridge
• Leave in there from 3 hours to 2 days. Longer makes more sour bread. 

BAKING

•  Preheat Dutch oven to 500° for approx. 30 minutes
•  Take proofing bowl out of bag and invert onto cutting board with parchment paper 
• You can spray the dough with water mist to give it bubbly crust or do egg wash
• Score for aesthetic 
• Put dough on paper in dutch oven, lid on, still at 500, 20-25 minutes
  • Maybe a little less time for smaller loaf
• Take lid off and bake for 10-12 until crust looks good 
• Put pot lid on rack directly below dutch oven to prevent direct heat on bottom, which would blacken bottom before the rest of bread