Bill44

HungryC, take a small amount of your malt, mix in a little water, add a very small amount of yeast. If it brews it is diastatic malt, if not then it will only act as a sweetener.

Starters are strange things, and having a whole family of them I can vouch for the fact that they have their individual likes and dislikes. I went into this subject in some depth on another forum, but for the sake of brevity I'll just say that some of my starters prefer to be kept at 100% hydration, some at 166%, some are quite happy with feeding at 24 hour intervals, and one that gets positively sulky if it is not fed every 12 hours. May I suggest that, if you have the time, you experiment to find the most favourable condititions and feeding regimen for your starter. You may find the time spent to be very rewarding.

After 26 years of baking sourdough and experimenting along the way with all forms of making starters, I have found that for me just flour and water is the most reliable method. Whether you start with unbleached white flour or rye flour is up to you, be prepared to have a failure or two along the way, and be patient with feeding your new starter until it is truly strong, I usually advise not to bake with a new starter until it is at least 3 weeks old. You will find that there is sufficient wild yeast in the flour, captured as the grain is growing, to innoculate your starter, and if you leave it in an open bowl near an open window it should capture enough of the local lactobacillus variety to quickly innoculate your starter and provide protection.

I would do as Cajungirl suggested for the recovery of your starter. I would suggest that you use about 80g of starter to 200g of flour for your sponge, this represents 40% starter in bakers terms but as for the overall sponge percentage it will reduce to about 25%, and this is within the recommended range.

When I do a raisin loaf I don't soak the raisins and I don't add any butter to the filling. I have found that raisins have enough moisture in them already. What I do to the raisins is put them in a plastic bag with some flour, shake them until they are coated, and then put them in a sieve to shake off the excess flour. I find they bind into the dough without any of the air pockets around them in the baked loaf.

11.7% protein flour is quite a good protein level to work with (I use 11.9%). The need for Hot Shot is to improve his baking skills, not his flour protein level. Too high a protein level can quite often lead to bread with a leathery crumb. Quite a lot of commercial bread is made with flour around 11% and French breads are quite often made with 8-9% protein level.

is this just so that the proofing takes longer? often, that is the temperature of the dough off the mixer. with the yeasties going at it, i would think that the dough will get warmer during proofing? ← A good point raised here, dough will generate some of it's own heat during proofing. The bigger the lump of dough the more heat in the core. This can be overcome to some extent by using cool or cold water in the dough mix.

I use both, the steam in the early stages of baking help produce a crusty loaf. Commercial ovens quite often have a steam injection system that is used for the early stages of the baking.

I'm starting to worry about the fragile state of the US residents. I've seen this type of statement from quite a few people in the US. Abra, you live 40deg 24min North, I live at 33deg 15min South and I bake all year round. We have a good Aussie climate, it was only 44C (111.2F) on new years day this year, just nice baking weather.

As it says in the recipe, use plenty of flour when working with the dough, it's very soft.

Pastrymama, the recipe came from here in the special recipes section, there are 32 recipes in there.:- Northwest Sourdough I made a half batch and used half milk half water instead of just all water.

I don't use commercial yeast, I'm a dedicated sourdough baker myself. Basic White Loaves. Kaiser Rolls

English Muffins (sourdough)

This is one of my Focaccias.

Is this what you were trying for?

The knob on the side of the box is for adjusting the temperature, the thermostat is from a chicken incubator and is accurate to +/- 1/2 degreeF which is great if you wish to do an accurate Detmold 3 stage starter. The box itself is made from scrap ply which cost me nothing and the thermostat cost me A$80.00. I think you can get cheaper thermostats from a pet store, they are used for reptile cages. I bake 5-6 loaves a week year round, so the cost of the thermostat quickly paid for itself, and I do like the accuracy. The size of the box is big enough to take a 11Litre dish for bulk proving, and it will take 4 oval 1Kg bannetons or 3 round 1Kg bannetons

This is my proofing box, made out of plywood and heated by a thermostat controlled 40Watt lamp.

The acid content of sourdough is notorious for attacking metal bowls, in particular stainless steel. You may not notice it just when mixing, but the prolonged storage of any sourdough in a metal bowl should be avoided.

Increasing temperature may not be a good thing. If you take a look at the Detmold 3 stage process it has specific temps for different activity. The point to consider is that maximum yeast growth occurs at 27C, there is research somewhere to show this for various strains of yeast. If you want a quick process use commercial yeast, but if you want flavour do it the slow sourdough way.

With high hydration doughs I usually do 4 kneads and three stretch and folds. If you practise your technique you will find that 1 Tsp is quite enough to do this. I suggest you do a search on Dan Lepards method, highly recommended.

1 teaspoon of oil on your benchtop is not going to make the slightest bit of difference to your recipe. Oil is far superior to water, trust me.

Cajungirl, for handling high hydration doughs you will find that a small amount of olive oil spread on your bench and hands does wonders for the handling.

A moderatly underproofed loaf will still rise and give good oven spring and quite a good crumb. An overproofed loaf is as seen in the picture already posted where the gas cell walls are weakened to the point where they can't support the weight of the dough and collapse, and the crumb becomes dense and rubbery. A very overproofed loaf turns into a gooey blob and bakes like a brick. Perfect proofing is the balance point at which the maximum amount of gas has been produced (through dough fermentation) without the gluten structure being weakened by overfermentation.

One glance at the loaf tells me it is overproofed. Do not aim for doubling in size. With your first fermentation you only need to establish a good network of tiny gas cells for the dough to be ready for shaping. After about 3 hours slash the dough and see if you have a good network of tiny gas bubbles, if so the dough is ready for shaping, if not try again in an hour. Give the dough a gentle folding knead, without tearing the surface, for about a minute, then shape your loaf. The next stage is the hardest part of sourdough baking to learn, when to bake. Experience will tell you, but for a guide just proof to the point where the loaf only barely springs back when you poke it gently with your finger. Remember it is far better to bake underproofed than overproofed.

It is possible that the temperature you have been using in the past may be just borderline for the "puff" to take place, as evidenced by some of them not puffing. An increase in temperature may work.