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My love of baking comes from experimenting with different techniques and ingredients and, of course, eating the bread. In terms of experimenting, so many factors influence the creation of a great loaf of sourdough bread: wheat and flour type, hydration, autolysis, stretching and folding, fermentation time and temperature, shaping, scoring, proofing, baking vessel, oven temperature and more.

An experiment I recently decided to do was to use Breadtopia’s Select Bread Flour a.k.a. “the Holy Grail of bread flour,” and hold all these variables constant except for autolysis and stretching and folding, in order to assess how much these activities actually impact the final product. I picked these variables to test, because they are somewhat time-consuming. They can intimidate new bakers and prevent people from baking during the work week. (There are two-plus hours of stretching and folding in most Tartine style sourdough recipes.)

I baked two loaves of bread using identical ingredients and weights, fermentation time and temperature, loaf shape and scoring pattern, baking vessel and oven. The only variations were that one loaf, called “S&F,” had an autolyse stage, and the dough was stretched and folded four times after the leaven and salt were added. The other loaf, “No Knead,” was mixed when the leaven and salt were added to the S&F loaf. Nothing was done to No Knead until the end of the bulk fermentation, when both doughs were preshaped, benched, shaped, proofed and baked in the same manner.

After cooling, I evaluated the loaves from the outside and inside (oven spring, crust, crumb), and compared their flavor.

My results were surprising. There was almost no difference in the final loaves; they were remarkably similar in shape, height, and crumb. A few slices show S&F being taller, but a few slices show No Knead with a more open crumb. A tie.

The oven spring of S&F had slightly wider and smoother openings in the crust, but I can’t be sure if this was from the autolyse and stretching and folding, or from inconsistent scoring depth on my part.

Also, the crust of the S&F appeared a little more carmelized, a deeper brown, but this difference might have stemmed from experiment-design flaws as well: the position of the boules in the oven or a different proofing basket/bowl. For 8.5 hours in the refrigerator, one boule proofed on a tea towel in a banneton with air flow, and the other on a tea towel in a glass bowl (more airtight). The lighter-colored No Knead loaf was in the glass bowl and had very little flour on it when I flipped it into the dutch oven. The S&F loaf was in the banneton, and it retained more tea-towel flour after the proof (perhaps was dryer because of air flow) and baked a darker crust under the excess flour.

In terms of flavor, I couldn’t detect a difference in the loaves, despite the 4-hour autolyse, which should have been long enough for any mellowing or enhancement of flavor to have occurred. My experiment did not have multiple taste testers, though, and I could lack the nuanced palate needed to pick up on a difference in the flavor.

During this experiment, I noted some differences in dough texture and handling. Although I added the starter at the same time to both doughs, the S&F dough started to develop bubbles earlier. However, a few hours in, the No Knead was also quite bubbly. The doughs at the end of the bulk fermentation still looked different, with S&F’s surface being bubbly but smoother, while No Knead had one large popped bubble and a rougher looking texture. Similarly when stretching out the doughs for preshaping, S&F was easier to manipulate. Though by the time the bench rest was over, they felt similar for shaping.