Pain au Levain Naturel

By RecipeLot

{{Recipe summary This is a simplified recipe for pain au levain, a white crusty French sourdough bread. The traditional method of making pain au levain is a long seven stage process. It begins with the sourdough starter saved from a previous batch of bread being set aside for 8 hours until it has developed an alcoholic odour. This is called the levain de chef (head-leaven). This is then mixed with flour and water and allowed to ferment another six hours. At this stage it is known as levain de première (first leaven). It is mixed with more flour and water and becomes levain de seconde (second leaven). It ferments again until it has risen. Another batch of flour and water is added. This is known as levain de tous points (leaven of all stages). Half of this is made into loaves, proofed and baked and yields rather dark and sour loaves. The other half is mixed with more flour and water and allowed to rise. It is again divided in two and half is baked providing a medium quality of bread. More flour and water is added to the remaining dough and it rises again. This is the final batch and it yields the whitest bread with the best flavour. Wild yeast is a very unpredictable commodity whose properties cannot be easily controlled. It depends on the strain of yeast, of which there are several in any environment at one time, as well as the temperature of the environment, moisture content of the dough, and the ingredients themselves. Successive dilution of the culture as described effects a measure of control of the fermentation, yielding a choice of breads using different quantities of leaven.

• Cooking time: 480 minutes
• Servings: 1