Recipe by Julio Hevia. This recipe is for committed home bread makers looking to advance their bread-making skills and knowledge. It takes commitment to produce beautiful loaves like this!
Sourdough Starter(already on the go, or start a week in advance)
You will need a mature sourdough starter for this recipe. Julio uses an active rye/spelt sourdough starter which has been allowed to develop for at least 5-6 days to begin.
How to Make a Wheat/Spelt Starter
Or use any sourdough starter recipe from a good baking book, for those of you who have a copy of “Crust” by Richard Bertinet, he has a recipe on p47.
Day 1: Levain
The day before we want to bake our loaf, we need to prepare the pre-ferment or the levain. Mix the ingredients below and leave them mixed in a bowl cover with a clingfilm at room temperature for at least 8 hours.
Ingredients
40g organic khorasan flour
60g H2O
30g Starter (rye/spelt)
Method:
The preferment should be ready in about 6 - 8 hours. It depends on the room temperature, where the preferment is located.
Day 2/3: Final dough
Ingredients
400g organic strong flour
100g organic khorasan flour
300g H2O --> 67.5%
130g levain (150% hydration) --> 26%
10g sea salt --> 2%
Method
Mix very well the water, levain and the flour and leave the dough for 1 hour autolyse.
Once the hour has passed then add the salt and make a series of turns every 30 minutes during 2 hours.
Once, the two hours have passed, leave the dough in a lightly oiled bowl in the fridge for around 7 hours.
After 7 hours are passed, we need to do the bench-rest for about 30 minutes, cover the dough with a linen cloth or other cloth should be fine.
After 30 minutes, form the loaf in a ball and place it in a basket/banneton for 45 minutes covered again.
At the same time, start heating the oven at maximum temperature, put a tray on the bottom line in the oven for water and put another tray / stone / bricks for the bread in the middle of the oven.
After the 45 minutes passed, you need to score it. It needs to be done fast and not too deep, you don't want to destroy the layers of your dough.
Once is scored, you need to put into the hot tray in the middle of the oven. Pour some water in the bottom tray. This will give the steam that your loaf needs to spring. Leave the loaf with this maximum temperature and the water tray for 15 minutes and then remove the tray from the oven and decrease the temperature to 220°C for another 20 minutes, then leave it for another 15 to 20 minutes to 190°C.
After this time take the loaf out of the oven and leave it to cool down and enjoy it.