There are a few steps that I am actually failing miserably while following the no-knead sourdough recipe but the one that feels like I shouldn’t be failing is the stretch and fold step. After mixing the ingredients, (mine included all white flour without whole wheat) the consistency of my dough is a lot less firm than how it appears on the video. Moreover, I simply cannot avoid dough sticking to my fingers no matter how wet I get them. Due to both of these, it feels impossible to give dough any shape, develop the sheen as appeared on the video, and be able to lift it up completely from the mixing bowl. Do you all think this is simply because I didn’t add any whole wheat flour? I personally didn’t think so, but am interested in hearing your opinion. Additionally, I added some flour to increase the consistency, which felt like it helped temporarily before it started feeling loose again in a minute or two. Am I supposed to keep adding flour until I replicate the dough consistency/stickiness on the video? Is the consistency of the dough the main goal? If so, I cannot imagine being able to work with a 85% or more hydrated dough. What am I missing?
I should also mention that I used a Kitchenaid mixer to mix the ingredients and while attempting the stretch and hold, noticed that the mixing process was not ideal. I feel like it works better if one starts with the flour, salt and starter in the mixing bowl first and slowly adds water to get a better mixing performance with this machine. Even so, I feel like going beyond ~50% hydration messes up the effectiveness of the machine. Can anybody provide some insight and tips about achieving the task using this type of setting?
I will just go ahead and describe how I solved these problems with some experimentation hoping that it may help somebody who may be having similar issues.
I figured using 80% hydration by weight was too much for the flour I used. I first put the flour, salt, starter combo in the mixer bowl and added water in a slow fashion while mixing the dough with the hook. By about 45% hydration, I had a dry dough, which cleared from the sides of the bowl. I kept adding more water slowly, allowing the dough absorbing it every time, which typically took a few minutes. The dough would move all around the mixer bowl until the water was completely absorbed, and the mixing/kneading effectiveness was significantly decreased with every single attempt to add more water. It took me more than an hour total until I got to 65% hydrated dough, which was very similar to the dough on the no-knead sourdough recipe in appearance and consistency. It would not clear the sides of the bowl anymore; however, it was manually manageable and wouldn’t stick to my wet fingers. I went ahead and did the pull and fold ritual a couple of times 15 minutes apart before letting the dough rest for about 11 hours. The rest was essentially following the recipe with the exception of dividing the dough into two pieces before proofing. Please see the attached image for the result .
I will try to add water faster next time, now that I know that I shouldn’t push beyond 65% with the flour mix I have (unbleached organic plus 10% rye this time) without making sure. Another tip I found online was using the paddle of the mixer first and then switching to the hook to knead. I am a little hesitant to try that since I remember trying it in the past and ending up with a paddle covered with sticky dough, which was hard to clean and some of it going to waste in the process. If faster water addition messes up the dough mixing/kneading process with the stand mixer, I will switch to manual version, since I cannot spend more than an hour for just mixing the dough each time. I still feel like I am probably missing something since I believe the stand mixers are essentially built for this particular task. I would welcome any input at this point.
Not really a no knead which uses just time and hydration to develop the gluten. A stretch and fold is hands on and while not strictly kneading does develop the gluten. Its just another way to do so where a dough will be too sticky to actually knead.
For an all bread flour dough you can successfully use the no knead technique at 70% hydration going for a long ferment with a small amount of starter.
Try this…
500g bread flour
350g water
10g salt
20g starter
Fully disperse the starter in the water.
Mix the flour and salt together then add to the water.
Form the dough then cover and leave up to 16 hours (but start keeping an eye on it after 12).
In that time you can give the dough one set of stretch and fold about mid way. Thus is to ensure even fermentation as much as developing gluten.
When the dough is ready the gluten should be developed enough that it shouldn’t come apart in your hands. Thus is how you’ll know its done. Will still be in the sticky side but not impossible to handle.
Shape and final proof till ready about 1.5 - 2 hours.
Bake.
When I started making sourdough my mother let me in on an old farm trick when using sticky dough. Grease and flour your hands. Yep coat them with shortening, lard whatever. Never failed me yet, except in the spots where I missed getting the shortening.
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