In this instructional video, Cris Sebok (referred to as Speaker A) walks through the complete pre‑baking workflow for a 50 % whole‑grain sourdough loaf that includes a variety of seeds. The discussion begins with an overview of sourdough starter ("madre") – its nature, maintenance, and how a small amount (1‑2 g) can be refreshed and scaled into a levain (20 g starter + 100 g white flour + 80 g water) for baking. Sebok explains the timing (6‑8 h rise, then refrigeration) and the importance of using the levain at its activity peak. He then details the night‑before mix: 25 g whole‑grain flour, 350 g water (including 50 g boiling water for the whole‑grain), and 10‑13 g salt, emphasizing precision to the gram and the role of salt in controlling proofing. Seed preparation is covered next: 12 g linseed/flaxseed pre‑soaked in 12 g boiling water, and a 24‑25 g blend of roasted sunflower, sesame (black & white), and pumpkin seeds, all roasted dry to avoid excess moisture. All components are assembled the night before, allowing the dough to rest and the seeds to hydrate. The target final loaf is about 500 g. Throughout, Sebok’s tone is conversational yet instructional, with an enthusiastic, supportive attitude toward home bakers.
Chapters
Go. So Mario asked me to explain how to bake sourdough, 50% whole grain sourdough bread with seeds. So pretty much The recipe I'm doing, I'm going to show you now, can be used for other sourdough breads. The logic and the principles are the same. But since this is a whole grain bread, we are doing some extra steps. So the day before you bake, you start preparing the bread. Every bread starts with what we call a starter. In Portuguese, I think it's levedura natural. Starter is nothing but water and flour mixed together and fermented to a point where it has proofing capabilities like yeast, but there is no yeast. It just captures the bacterias in the air and transforms into a proofing agent, a proofing agent just like yeast. So this starter here I received from a friend who received from another friend. I have no idea what it is. It could be 10, it could be 20, It could be 1 year old, it could be 100. Because the point of a starter is once it catches, once it becomes this agent, it lives forever. You just feed it with flour and water and it just goes on forever. And all you need is a small 1 or 2 grams of this to be able to scale it up. So a starter is kept in the fridge for people like me that don't bake a lot. If you bake a lot, you don't have to have it in the fridge, just keep it on the shelf and feed it every day. If you keep it in the fridge, you just need to feed it once a week. This morning Mario saw the process of feeding. What happens is I need to remove most of it That's called refreshing the starter, and just feed a little bit of starter with a lot of flour and a lot of water. Usually it's a 2 to 1, even 3 to 1, even 5 to 1 ratio. So 5 parts of flour to 1 part of original starter. And then what do you do with the rest? So you either bake, or what I showed Mario this morning, you can even just fry it and it's Very tasty pizza or whatever Mario called it. Anyway, this is my starter. It's we call it madre, which is the base starter from where I get I get the starter and and produce what we call a levain. Levain is nothing but a starter but ready for baking. So how do you make a levain? I'm showing you just theoretically because I already did it this morning. You remove 20%, 20 grams, sorry, of original starter, of madre, and add 100 grams of white flour. This is white wheat flour and 80 grams of water. When I say wheat flour, it's important because the type of flour you're using does influence on the bread. So it can be wheat, it can be spelt, it can be rye, it can be many different things. So this was Madre, the original starter, and the levain, which I prepared this morning, is this one. So here we have the 20 grams of original starter, 100 grams of flour, 80 grams, 100 grams of white flour, and 80 grams of water. So this, you leave it for around 6 to 8 hours to grow. It will Double and sometimes even triple the size, and you shouldn't leave it for more than that. Since I already left it for eight hours, I put it in the fridge not to lose its its active point. Time to bake bread is when it's in when the levain is in its most of when it's in the peak of its activity. But we lost that, so in this case it will be a bit different. This bread, let's see, it's still. Okay, because I put in the fridge and we'll only start baking tomorrow. So anyway, the day before, what you should do is prepare this. What I already prepared. Add 25 grams of whole grain flour. I'm using wheat flour. I'm using actually. A Hungarian species of wheat, which is a breed between wheat and spelt. But anyway, you can use wheat, or you can use even spelt. Spelt flour works fine here. So we're just adding 25 grams of whole grain flour and 50 grams of boiling water. I just boiled it, and I'm adding 50 grams. 350 grams of water. And yes, it seems funny that I'm being so precise, but baking is about precision. It's not like cooking, it's not about creativity, it's about precision. So down to the gram, it's worth being precise, otherwise the bread does change its properties. And I'm gonna add the salt to this mix.
How much?
I'm gonna add 10 grams of salt. You can add from 10 to 13, it's okay. Salt is not only about the taste. Salt is an important agent because it Controls the proofing activity. It slows it a bit down and helps it to be more uniform. So even here, it's better to add salt already at this time so this mixture won't overproof. Of course, this won't proof at all, but won't go bad. Will be still okay in the morning. This mixture here is just a trick. You don't have to do it, but it's a trick to keep the bread softer for longer. Myra said it's useless because we eat the whole bread immediately anyway, but in case you don't, the bread is still soft after a week.
It's sad.
No bread you buy in bakeries will ever be soft after a week.
And this is done the night before too?
This is all done the night before. We're doing it now because we're gonna start baking tomorrow. And we mix them together. So this is done. What else is done the night before? In this case, since I'm doing bread with seeds, I'm going to prepare the seeds. You just— you don't just throw in the seeds in the dough because seeds also absorb water, so that will change the ratio of water and flour. So what you do, the linseeds have to be prepared separately. Because they're the ones that linseeds absorb most of the water. So the recipe I'm telling you now is 12 grams of linseed or flaxseed, they call it. With 12 grams of boiling water again, the water will be absorbed completely by the morning. By morning. Okay. Let me just let it sit there for now. And what do we do with the other seeds? Because I'm doing a bread with flaxseed. Sunflower seed, black and white sesame seed, and some few pumpkin seed. So I have a mixture of seeds here which I already pre-prepared with all these seeds I just said except for the linseed which is separate. And all I do is roast it a bit because it has to be dry. So just in a frying pan Without anything, you roast—
How much?
24 grams of a mixture of seeds. 25 grams. At the end, we're gonna get a loaf of around 500 grams. Around a half a kilo loaf of bread. This is what we're preparing now. The roasting is is okay once the sesame seed turns golden, a bit light brown. Then it says it's right right. And that's it. So you just leave these 3 things sitting all night. So we have the— I always forget the name of this mixture, but whatever— this mixture of flour, the linseed, and this— the mix of seeds sitting here all night. And we'll continue in the morning when we're going to actually start kneading and mixing the flour.
