know.

CookbookKitchen and tableNo. 41

A sourdough bake logevery loaf recorded, compared and improved

Recipe No. 41 · Kitchen and table

For: A home baker who wants to know why Saturday’s loaf worked

You get: A log of every loaf, the same table each bake, and what changed

Time: Five minutes during a bake, five after

See it in know.sh

Dough temperature against bulk time across fourteen bakes: warmer dough, shorter bulk, and the two dense bakes explained.

BreadCountry loaf, 78%

19of 19

Dough temperature and bulk time, bakes 4 to 17

Insight, 1 highlight, 1 source, 214 words

Dough temperature after mixing against the hours bulk took to reach about 60% rise, one point per bake. Bakes 12 and 13 are left out: their bulk ended on the clock at 4½ hours with about 30% rise, so they never reached 60%. Bakes 1 to 3 have no dough temperature.

What it suggests. Each degree warmer took about 20 minutes off bulk, at 75% and at 78% alike. At 76°F the line gives about 4¾ hours; at 71°F, the temperature of bakes 12 and 13, about 6½. Those two were stopped two hours early.

Next time. Warm water to reach 76°F, and end bulk by the rise, not the clock (Question, bake 18).

A Key bake: the same table of numbers as every other, then the notes that say what they meant.

know., Country loaf, 78%, 14 · Look up, New, ⋯

Bread, Country loaf, 78%

14 of 17

Bake 14, 21 September — 16-hour cold retard, open crumb

Evidence, key section, 1 highlight, 386 words

Highlight, Note, Edit

RowThis bake
Flour400 g bread, 100 g whole wheat
Hydration78% (390 g)
Levain100 g, at peak, 3 h 15 min after feeding
Dough temp76°F (24°C) after mix
Room temp71°F (22°C)
Bulk4 h 40 min, 4 sets of folds, about 60% rise
Proof16 h cold retard, 38°F (3°C)
Bake500°F (260°C) lid on 20 min, 450°F (230°C) lid off 27 min
OutcomeTall, open crumb, blistered crust

Crumb. Open and even, the best yet. The longer retard gave a thinner, blistered crust without tightening the crumb.

Crust. Deep brown, blistered, crackled for ten minutes on the rack.

Next time. Keep the 16 h retard. Try the same at 80% to see where the dough stops holding its shape.

ChatGPT, connected to know.sh, compares good bakes with bad row by row and offers to file the next experiment as a Question.

ChatGPT, connected to know.sh · reading Country loaf, 78% — the Saturday bread

You

Using know.sh, read the document Country loaf, 78% on my Bread shelf. Compare the Key bakes with bakes 12 and 13, which came out dense. List every row of the table where they differ and by how much.

ChatGPT

The Key bakes are 11, 14 and 15. Bakes 12 and 13 differ from them in three rows; flour, hydration, proof and bake are the same.

  • Levain. The Key bakes used it at peak, 3 to 3¼ hours after feeding. Bakes 12 and 13 used it at 5 hours; your note on 12 says “levain smelled sharp, past peak”.
  • Dough temperature. Key bakes: 76–77°F (24–25°C) after mixing. Bakes 12 and 13: 71°F (22°C), on the two coolest mornings in the log.
  • Bulk. Both dense bakes ended bulk on the clock at 4½ hours with about 30% rise. The Key bakes ran to about 60% rise, whatever the time.

The pattern points to under-fermentation from a cool dough and a tired levain, not the flour. Shall I add a Question for bake 18: “Warm water to reach a 76°F dough, and end bulk by rise, not the clock”?

From your library

  1. Country loaf, 78%, 11: Bake 11, 7 September — 78%, first open crumb
  2. Country loaf, 78%, 12: Bake 12, 10 September — tight crumb, flat
  3. Country loaf, 78%, 13: Bake 13, 14 September — dense, pale
  4. Country loaf, 78%, 14: Bake 14, 21 September — 16-hour cold retard, open crumb

How it works

The loaf that opened beautifully three weeks ago had a warmer dough, a younger levain or two more hours in the fridge, and nobody remembers which. Log every bake with the same table: hydration, temperatures, bulk and proof. Your assistant types up the notebook, plots dough temperature against bulk time, and tells you what the good bakes share.

  1. Write each formula as a document

    Make a Bread shelf and a document per formula, its overview the formula in baker’s percentages and grams. Ask your assistant to type up the old notebook, a section per bake.

  2. Log today’s bake from the counter

    Open today’s section in the iOS app and type the numbers as they happen. Afterwards, ask your assistant to turn them into the same table as the last bake.

  3. Mark the loaves worth repeating

    Mark the bakes you would repeat as Key and highlight the line that explains each. Three or four per formula is a sign you are learning what it wants.

  4. Ask what changed, then plot it

    Ask your assistant to compare the Key bakes with the dense ones row by row, and to file a scatter of dough temperature against bulk time as an Insight.

Try this prompt

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, read the document Country loaf, 78% on my Bread shelf. Compare its Key bakes with every bake that is not Key. For each row of the bake table, say whether it differs between the two groups and by how much, and cite the bakes. Do not draw conclusions from a single bake.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, read every bake in Country loaf, 78% on my Bread shelf and add an Insight section with a scatter element: dough temperature after mixing across, in °F, and hours of bulk to about 60% rise up, a point per bake, the Key bakes labelled, and a trend line. Take every number from the bake tables and change nothing else.

Made with

DocumentSectionYour AI assistantElementsThe iOS appRevisions

See also