So what we're going to do now is,

is we're going to show you how to make some sourdough bread.

Sourdough has got quite fashionable and trendy.

It's on a lot of restaurant menus.

Sourdough is trending since about 5000 B.C.

It's the oldest form of leavened bread.

So while we think we've a big tradition with soda bread,

your granny might have made it -

this is what her granny's granny used to make.

This is what we're all trying to get back to.

So the big revolution, the big future in food,

the future in bread, is about going back. Back to the past.

And this is what we're trying to get back to.

Beautiful, beautiful sourdoughs,

naturally fermented, with our seeded sourdough

a bit of malthouse.

As I say, you could have a hundred different types.

In order to make sourdough bread,

is to make your sourdough starter, or your sourdough culture.

The process is very, very simple.

It's simply just a mix of flour and water.

So we've got 50 grams of flour

and to that we're adding 50 mls of water.

Stir it together.

And that is simply it.

Now what we're going to do is to leave that to sit out

in your kitchen, just gently covered,

ambient temperature, overnight, for about 12 hours.

So at the moment, we're surrounded by wild yeast.

It's a good strain of bacteria, it exists everywhere.

You breathe it in everyday.

And then basically over a process

of using simply just flour and just water,

it eventually picks up that bacteria in the air.

And that bacteria starts to ferment. It starts to live off

the protein within the flour, so it starts to rise and collapse.

Realistically it takes about 7 or 10 days to make it.

But for a lot of people, I know,

I'm not making a loaf of bread if it takes 7 or 10 days to make it,

but the idea is, once you get up and going once,

that's virtually about it.

As long as you don't use it all, you'll never run out.

So you only have to do it one time in your life.

So we'll mix it together, flour and water.

About 12 hours later, it looks a little bit like this.

So at this stage, we would be due to mix this

with another 50 grams of flour and another 50 mls of water.

Stir it together and that's it.

Again, we let it sit overnight.

Day 3 we repeat the process.

Then on Day 4, we can already see

it's starting to become lovely and bubbly.

You can see all these little bubbles coming lovely and active.

And this is the sign of life starting to form.

This is exactly what we're looking for.

It's starting to ferment.

It's all the good things in life - wine, beer, cheese, bread.

All based on the same principle.

So you will find it starts to take on a sweet, vinegary kind of smell.

But don't worry, that's exactly what we're looking for.

But if you find a little liquid starting to come away from it,

don't worry about that either, just put it straight back in.

So we're going to give this another day.

And we're going to feed it again - one more time.

And by the time it's ready,

most likely on about Day 7.

Don't worry if you find that maybe,

on Day 6 or Day 7, it's not exactly there yet.

Don't be afraid to give it an extra day.

Because it will differ, depending on the environment it was kept in.

So if it needs an extra day, just give it an extra day.

But now we've got our lovely active sourdough.

It's got that lovely vinegary smell.

You can see it's been kind of rising up the glass.

This started about here earlier on and now it's climbed up to here.

So it'll continue to rise

and then it will drop back down.

So at this stage, it's basically ready to go.

Well, if I'm completely honest, this is Day 2.

This is Day 4.

And this is Year 9.

I've had this for 9 years.

So as long as I don't use it all, I'll never run out.

So all I'll simply do, for example after we make our bread today,

I will have 200 grams left over.

I will simply stir in 200 flour, 200 water,

and tomorrow, it's ready to go again.

Because I keep mine at room temperature,

I've to feed mine everyday.

But for the home-baker, who might only bake once a week,

or at weekends when you've a bit more time,

it can become quite an expensive pet to keep if you feed it every day.

So what you can simply do is keep yours in the fridge.

Because it's based on bacteria, cold won't kill it.

It'll just slow it down.

So for example, you're going to be baking on a Saturday morning.

Take it out of your fridge on a Friday, just leave it sit

in your kitchen to take the chill off it.

That evening, say whatever weight you have.

For example, 200 grams.

Stir in 200 flour, 200 water leave it sit in your kitchen.

Next morning it's going to be lovely and bubbly.

lovely and active, ready to make your bread.

Take what you need to make your bread,

whatever is left over, back in your fridge, that's it.

So you've a little once a week cycle.

You find it gets better with age - the flavour starts to develop.

So even if you're not baking,

you still have to feed it, because technically it is alive.

So if you're building up too much,

just bin some away, just keep back enough to keep it going.

And the easiest ratio to work off,

is whatever weight you have here,

same weight of flour, same weight of water.

Could not be simpler.

Now, in order to make our sourdough bread,

we've got our sourdough starter. As I say, it takes about a week.

Get it going today, you'll be ready by next weekend.

Ready to go, perfect to make your bread.

If not, you could always

get down to your local baker.

Most real bread bakeries will happily give you some starter.

If you check out realbreadireland.org

it's got all the real bread bakers across Ireland.

And most of them like myself, are happy to give you a little starter,

if you can't get your own going.

So with this one, we're going to make enough for two loaves.

The great thing about this is we can bake two loves.

We can pop one in the freezer and have one to try fresh in the day.

And sourdough comes back great from the freezer.

So we've get 800 grams of strong flour.

To this...

we're going to add 460 mls,

or 460 grams of water.

We're taking about 10 grams of salt.

Salt is an essential ingredient.

Salt acts as a natural flavour enhancer.

We've got our flour, we've got our water,

we've got our salt and then finally,

we just need a little bit of our sourdough starter.

So we're using 320 grams.

Just make sure we don't use it all.

Like you would any other recipe, just add your yeast straight in.

And in this case, our sourdough starter.

Once your ingredients are all in,

just start bringing everything together.

So once the dough roughly comes together,

just dump it,

straight out on the table.

The gluten forms once we add a liquid.

At the moment, the gluten is quite weak.

So we want to build up the strength of our dough,

by what we call kneading.

The idea of kneading is you simply stretch

and work the dough.

So you will find the dough goes a little bit wet

and a little bit sticky.

Generally everyone's reaction at home is to immediately

reach for some flour and keep adding in there.

But if you keep adding flour, the dough will quite happily soak it up.

And then the more it soaks it up, the heavier the dough becomes

and the tighter your bread will be.

So when it comes to kneading, you will get a lot of recipes

suggesting the best technique, how best to knead.

To be honest, the one piece of advice I give most people

is think about somebody you don't like, and just go for it!

So I tend to use the heel of my hand, a little short stretch,

and then use my fingers.

Just pin the dough between here and here and hook it back.

And if you can pick yourself up a little dough scraper,

absolutely great.

It's almost like a little extension of your hand.

Bring it all back together again and keep working away.

So most recipes will suggest how long to need for.

Most of them will say 8 to 10 minutes.

Most of them are lying, but the thing is,

it's very difficult for a recipe to be exact.

Because everybody is a little bit different.

Some people are just stronger than others, some days you're tired.

The dough will always tell you when it's ready.

There's a thing called the window-pane effect.

You can see it's getting elastic, it's getting there.

But as I stretch and work it out, it's just ripping, it's tearing.

And that's just the dough telling me it's not ready.

It just needs a little more work. So just keep on going.

And if you do have a mixer at home, feel free to use it.

The dough hook will do exactly the same thing as your hands are doing.

You're going to feel the dough starting to change.

You can even see already, how beautiful and silky

how lovely and smooth the dough has become.

Like you saw earlier, when we tested it initially,

it just kept ripping, it kept tearing. So we'll take a little oil

in your hands. It'll stop the dough from sticking to you.

And nice and gently stretch the dough, working it out.

You can see the shadows, the membrane behind it.

It's exactly what we're looking for.

So earlier, that just ripped and tore.

But now, that's holding. It's elastic.

It's got the strength we need, that's exactly what we're looking for.

So bring your dough back together.

Back into one piece. Into your bowl.

And now I'm going to let it prove.

With sourdough however, because it's a more natural process,

everything tends to happen much, much slower.

So where most yeast recipes need to prove for about an hour,

this one, we're going to be looking at about three hours.

So you need to leave it plenty of time.

So we're going to let this prove for three hours.

So when you come back to it,

you'll be looking at something like this.

What we'll be doing now, is we're simply knocking our dough back.

Because as much as we say the longer you prove it the better,

you don't want to over-prove your bread.

Simply take it out of your bowl

and try and make it into a round ball.

And again, don't over-think it.

By making it into a ball, you'll have simply

knocked it back knocked all the air from it.

So you're kind of back to where you would have been three hours ago.

So now, what we need to do at this stage,

is we need to shape our dough.

So with the quantity we made, it gives us the perfect portion

to make two lovely sized loaves.

So when we're shaping our breads, we use proving baskets.

Because it's going to be proving for another three hours,

it would just slowly start to prove out,

and go very, very flat.

So by using the basket, it gives the dough support.

It encourages it to take on that shape, so instead of proving out,

it proves up. But if you don't have a basket,

you could use absolutely anything.

A tin, a tray, a box, a bowl.

It's simply something that's going to support and help your dough out.

And probably, I'm sure all of us have...

a Pyrex dish at home.

If you don't have it, your mum has, your gran has.

They're always kicking around everywhere.

We take a little flour and dust it all over.

Coating it with a little coating of flour,

will stop the dough from sticking.

So the best thing to do is simply take a clean tea-towel.