How to Make Slow-Rise Bread

A Dilettante's Secrets Revealed

As I said at the start of the first video, I’m a one-trick pony. I make one bread, which is based on the recipe and methodology of the Tartine Country Loaf. This is an old-world-style bread: slow rise, wild yeast, naturally fermented. Folks will tell you, it’s pretty darn good. It’s just like the bread your great, great, great, great grandmother once made back in the old country.I have included some links below that will connect you to write-ups on Tartine’s Country Loaf. My path to this bread started on some Sunday NPR cooking show, probably “Splendid Table.” We had been making a focaccia to accompany dinner service. It was a great recipe, but it used a commercial yeast and substantial quantities of olive oil. We were making two batches each day. Each batch required ten minutes of kneading at a one-hour interval; twenty consecutive minutes of kneading times two. The NPR article was an interview of Jeff Hertzberg, who wrote “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day.” I bought the book… meh!Then, when I read “Cooked” by Michael Pollan and he told the story of Chad Robertson, founder of Tartine, I bought Chad’s book, "Tartine." Our home kitchen was covered in flour for weeks as I worked out the techniques. We now make about 90 loaves each week.When we started selling kitchen staples with our pandemic-inspired online ordering system and offered to share our starter for free, it became apparent that folks have too much time on their hands… and they want good bread.

Starter v Leavening

The first video shows you a list of what you need and explains starter creation and management. The only difference between “starter” and “leavening” is volume. Leavening is a big batch of starter, enough to activate the amount of bread you wish to make that day, with enough left over for tomorrow’s starter. The recipe for leavening is simple. Say you want to make two loaves of bread and intend to use 300 grams of leavening per loaf. Combine 200 grams of high-gluten flour with 200 grams of whole wheat flour and mix with 400 grams of warm water. Add about 100 grams of starter. We do this in the evening before we go to bed. If we don’t want to start too early the next morning we use cooler water.

The Recipe

The second video takes you through the basic recipe and shows you how to mix the ingredients In the morning we find a bowl of happy, lively, bubbling leavening. To make two weighty Country Loafs you mix 900 grams of HG flour, 100 grams of WW flour with 700 grams of warm water. If we plan to cook the loaves that evening we use slightly warmer water, up to about 100°. To this freshly blended flour and water we mix in 200-300 grams of leavening. Then let it rest (autolyse) for 30 minutes. Then mix 25 grams of kosher salt with 50 grams of water and fold (and punch) this in. Technically this is a “no-knead” recipe. But I find we get better results if we use more aggressive stretching and compaction techniques in the early phases.This recipe does not require much labor to make, but it does take time. The kind of time you actually have in abundance when you find yourselves shut in during a pandemic. After adding the salt we “turn” the bread four times at half-hour intervals, then twice with one-hour spacing. If you need to skip the last hour you can. For best resultsut the batch in the refrigerator and cook the bread the next day. The slow fermentation fosters additional gluten development and the extra time allows that good bacteria to enhance the flavor. In the third video we learn what to do when the dough has been fermented, how to form the loaves and baking instructions. To get that crispy, delicious crust in your leaky residential oven you’ll probably want to use a combo cooker. This is all explained in the video.That’s the recipe. The rest is technique. You will fail more than once. You will have success and then fail again. Don’t give up.

What You’ll Need

Mixing bowlSpatulaDough scraperScaleCombo cooker

What You’ll Want

Proofing bowls (bannetons) and bowl scraper

Other Helpful Links

Learning about glutenMore scienceThe Tartine RecipeInstructional video #1Instructional video #2Instructional video #3