Jim Lahey No-knead Bread Baking

It has been several months, since I baked with this simple method that produces delicious bread. The no-knead method quickly assembles a bread dough. Very little labor is required. The recipe uses a small amount of dry, instant yeast and a fermentation time of 12 to 18 hours.

I prefer sourdough bread, and my starter turns five-years-old on Jan 30, 2015. But when incorporating some whole grains and/or some stout beer into a no-knead recipe, the overall bread flavor masks any flavor given off by the instant yeast.

This bread turned out really well. Surprisingly so. I figured the costs for the ingredients to total around 85 cents. Of course, I would need to factor in the cost for the natural gas used to heat the oven, but I didn't calc that item at this time.

Dec 18-19, 2014

On Thu evening, Dec 18, 2014, I assembled a bread dough:

• all purpose flour - 300 grams
• white whole wheat flour - 100 grams
• fine-grain sea salt - 8 grams
• instant dry yeast - 1/2 teaspooon
• refrig-temp water - 300 grams

Procedure

• mixed all dry ingredients together in a bowl.
• added water to dry ingredient mix
• mixed dough with whisk and hand to incorporate all ingredients
• once I had a shaggy, sticky blob of dough, I placed dough in a lightly-olive-oiled pyrex bowl, and I covered bowl with plastic
• dough fermented for 15 hours
• lightly-olive-oiled the counter, dumped dough, did a stretch-and-fold, and shaped dough into a log
• proofed dough seam-side down in an oval-shaped basket with a linen cloth for approx 2.5 hours.
• preheated oven with stone on the fourth rack level from the top at 500 degrees for 40 minutes with the metal bowl in the stove for the last 10 minutes of preheating
• dumped dough and rolled over onto parchment paper, so that seam-side remained down
• slashed dough down the middle, length-wise
• placed dough and paper onto stone, covered with bowl, and sprayed hot water on underside of bowl
• set timer for 35 minutes.
• after 20 minutes of baking, removed lid and lowered oven temp to 475 degrees.
• during the last 15 minutes of baking, rotated the bread a few times to ensure even baking.
• after 33 minutes of baking, turned off oven and let bread continue to warm.
• after 35 minutes, removed bread from oven and placed it onto cooling rack.

Jan 2, 2014

Same recipe as above, except for a little less instant yeast. I assembled the dough on Wed evening, Dec 31, 2014. On New Year's Day morning, I placed the dough into the refrigerator. I pulled the dough out of the frig on the morning of Jan 2. About two hours later, I dumped the dough, completed a stretch-and-fold, shaped the dough into a round and then into a log, and placed dough into basket for proofing. Dough proofed for 2.5 hours.

This is what the bread looked like after 20 minutes when I removed the lid that covered the baking stone. The lid traps moisture, which allows the dough to rise easier during the first 10 to 15 minutes of baking. A sunbeam helped with the photo.

After 35 minutes of baking, the bread was removed from the oven.

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