MikeJ

I can't help it - I'm still at the stage where I want to know everything and test everything to do with sourdough. Of course that will never happen, but my problem is I haven't even baked enough to be able to isolate the effects of a variable like temperature on a given loaf - there's too much loaf-to-loaf inconsistency right now, even when I don't purposefully change anything. I've got a test batch of sourdough a l'ancienne in the works right now... 12 hour preferment using 1/4 of the total flour, quick mix with ice water and the rest of the flour/salt, and into the fridge. I'm going to take it out in 48 hours and let it come back to room temperature, then shape and let it rise for 4 hours or so. If that doesn't give it a little tang, I might just give up altogether. I also want to try a loaf where I swap half the water out for a local unpasteurized cask ale. I don't know if the little microbes living in that will taste good in bread, but they sure do the trick for the beer.

Thanks for the kind welcome. The loaf in the picture was made in Vancouver, using Robin Hood unbleached AP flour plus 1/4 cup or so of spelt flour. In London I've been using Allinson's strong white bread flour, mainly because the store nearest my house carries it. I've tried their Very Strong White bread flour as well (13.9% protein) but didn't really like the texture it gave the crumb.

For the last few weeks I've been baking at my family's house in Vancouver and it's been pretty cold even indoors, so that's probably why I needed to add the extra time. I'm in London now, and left a boule in the kitchen to rise a couple hours ago. The kitchen is kept fairly warm by an Aga and the loaf has already doubled in size, so I guess that temperature change really is making a huge difference. I ought to pick up a thermometer sometime soon so I can put some numbers on the temperatures. I do have a setup that allows me to throw the loaves in a warm upper oven before baking, so I'll give that a try next time, probably after a slow rise at a cool temperature for flavour. Thanks! The sourness actually varies a lot from loaf to loaf, seemingly independent of all variables... some loaves are perfectly tangy, some not even remotely sour. Retarding the dough overnight in the fridge sometimes helps and sometimes doesn't. The camera is a Nikon D40, and the lens is a Nikor 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6.

Hi everyone - new member here, although I've been scouring the forums for useful sourdough information for about two months now. What a great resource this site is, and what an amazing group of people to be able to glean wisdom from. I started a sourdough culture a couple months ago using the flour+water+time method, I believe after reading Jeffrey Steingarten's article on his own experiences with naturally leavened bread. Aside from pizza dough I've actually never baked bread with commercial yeast before (I just turned 23, so that's not as strange as it might seem). My sourdough breads have been my first and only breads thus far, so hopefully I'll find it that much easier using commercial yeast when I eventually do. Anyways, I've been baking sourdough on a regular basis using my starter and jackal10's excellent Sourdough Bread Tutorial. My first efforts were fairly dense, bland and disappointing, but recently the starter seems to have improved in both flavour and activity despite (or maybe because of) surviving a 3-week trip from London to Vancouver and back. I've also adjusted the rising time from 4 hours to 8 or 9, which has made a big difference. Here are a couple pictures of a recent loaf: