paul o' vendange

@Ann_T, wow, spectacular! I also love Khorasan. From time to time, I'll venture into both emmer and einkorn, but though I love their flavors and aromas, I really like that Khorasan is both really aromatic and as easy to work with in my experience as wheat.

Brutally cold today, -24 F. Good day to bake. An old favorite I haven't made for awhile, a recipe from a German friend of mine Björn Hollensteiner, aka "Der Brotdoc." Björn is a family physician, clinician, incredible baker and author. He also runs the FB page Angebacken, a page and community I've been involved with a few years now. Kasseler is an everyday bread that German schoolchildren always look forward to coming home to. It is commonly made as a milder, more wheat-based bread. This one is a "würzig" or "spicy" variant, because it is higher in whole grain rye than wheat. I mill at home. Kasseler (würzig)

Just a simple bauernbrot, made with both rye sourdough starter and a "Vorteig," a poolish. Also made some fresh farmer's cheese to go with it for dinner.

It's hard to say one rule for everything, because needs can be different. Whole grain flours provide more nutrition and enzymes (especially in the case of whole rye flour), so your culture is going to burn at hyperspeed, relative to their metabolism when using white flour. If you want more of a leavening purpose v. flavoring component to your starters, you will want younger, fresher, vibrant starter. I used to refresh my stiff wheat starter every 5 hours - around the clock. My rye liquid starter was refreshed twice daily. I decided to get a life. Now, usually, I will refresh my rye starter twice weekly, and my LM 3x weekly. Most times, I refresh the rye and LM at the same time, so they both get 3X weekly. the rye starter is 1:1:1, 50 grams starter, 50 grams water at 40C, 50 grams "T1150," 1.15% ash, Central Milling's "medium rye flour," kept at 28C x 4 hours. My LM is 10 grams "old" LM, 50 grams water at 35C, 100 grams T550/white bread flour, kneaded just as a bread dough, until smooth, elastic and satiny; rolled into a ball and cross-cut with scissors 1/3 of the depth down the ball. This is also kept at 28C x 4 hours. For the rye starter, which I now use in most of my sourdoughs, even French levains (I no longer maintain 4 starters - stiff and liquid wheat, liquid rye, lievito madre), the starter has good leavening plus the more aromatic, spicier, somewhat more sour flavor component. For the LM, it's all about leavening power, and a very mild taste - like cultured dry yeast, developed with wild yeasts. So it's all about very frequently refreshed, young yeasts, at the height of their replication period (and not after they've gone deeply into anaerobic fermentation). Though again, time, hydration ratios, temp. can all engineer different qualities. For instance, the Germans have several regimes they do for using "Anstellgut," or starter. 1, 2 and 3 stage developments ("Detmolder Ein-, Zwei, oder Dreistufenführung" - each stage favors yeast, lactic acid bacteria, or acetic acid bacteria), a salted starter ("Monheimer Salzsauer," gives the ability for a very flexible baking day, as the starter development is retarded), a short starter process ("Berliner Kurzsauerführung") and so forth. If I bake with these the next day, or day after, I usually won't refresh. Any longer, and given my weekly schedule, I will have refreshed and used the fresh starter in the day's bake. The German use of Anstellgut or ASG almost always, in fact, calls for a cold ASG that has sat at least overnight in the refrigerator. Of course, this cold ASG, which is the German equivalent to the French chef, is usually then used to do any of the starter regimens mentioned above. I've learned to sweat it less, and pay more attention to the senses - again, smell, sight, touch of the dough, how it looks while bulk fermenting and proofing, etc.

Sorry, missed your last line. When developing a new starter, no, I'm not to careful. I let the beasties fight it out, though I take reasonable measures to not introduce any contamination - clean spoons, etc. The starter container is basically a closed system, an ecosystem, and given time and the right conditions (at this stage, mostly, temperature), it works itself out for a good starter. Later, when actually using it in breadmaking, especially German baking, temperature, time and starter hydration ratios ("stiffness") matter when it comes to encouraging various yeast or bacterial species. When refreshing and discarding old starter, yes, I do clean the container out each time. Though to be honest, I don't think it's necessary. As to the readiness of your starter, looks good to me. More and more over time I not only look for activity (e.g., bubbles), but go on smell and taste. Does it smell sharply acidic? Does it taste pleasingly tart, or sharp, like vinegar? Does it smell solventy, and look grayish on top? Does it smell like good old white bread dough we made as kids - direct ferment, toss some cultured yeast in, ferment/proof/bake same day? Does it smell like fresh green apples?

Thanks! These cows are the most loved cows I've ever known. The two brothers have devoted their lives to living rightly - as soon as you start down the driveway to their home, you feel a kinetic difference, really. They rotationally graze the girls on small paddocks loaded with grasses, forbs, clover. One of the cool things about using raw milk is that you taste the seasons in the cheese - the spring and summer cheeses are loaded with grass, floral and herbal notes, the winter cheeses are creamy, more luxuriant, richer. One of the most beautiful things to watch is the first time they're out on pasture after the spring thaw and the ground has hardened up enough to let them out - they get as giddy as puppies, spin in the air and play. Never knew cows have such personalities until coming to know Jeff and Greg and their friends.

Have fun! All my cheeses were from raw, pasture-raised Ayrshire cows, two brothers, friends of mine, smallhold. I made Abondance, a hard, long-aged French alpine style, tommes, again, hard, alpine style, and reblochon, this one a soft, stinkier, richer cheese. So many species can foul a cheese and make it unedible, but not unsafe. E-coli is usually introduced pre-make, i.e., fecal contamination somewhere prior to the make. Salmonella can be the same, but also through process errors, i.e., poor sanitation. Listeria is particularly dangerous and can be deadly. It is usually not a problem in the making itself, but plant sanitation, i.e., it is a species that can survive the cold temps of storage, and is particularly nasty as it forms a (self-protective) biofilm resistant to sanitation after it is given a foothold. Sadly a cheesemaker I once knew killed several people due to Listeria. It turns out it was his lack of proper sanitation protocols. Once in a plant, nothing but a complete overhaul of all surfaces everywhere will do. A few pics of my cheesemaking - and the cows they came from.

Staff note: This post and responses to it have been split from The Sourdough Starter Topic discussion, to maintain topic focus. Interesting. I've actually never had that issue so I'm sorry to say I can't help much with what happened, but I can say my experience - whether it's bread, or cheesemaking - is that if I set the parameters to favor the species I'm looking for, eventually, they'll win out. Some people use things like apples or potatoes or some other means to sort of give a "jump start" to their new starters, hoping to avoid the ecological "war" that takes place (the "yuck" part of the battle) before things settle down and you get a working starter. I used to play around a bit with things like active barley malt (to encourage easy access to sugars from starch) and salt in small amounts (to discourage/slow down unwanted species in favor of the more desired, salt-tolerant species). Such as the Gerard Rubaud method, attached. Now, I do nothing more than flour, water, and time. While I am making new starter or refreshing starter, I do clean the containers. But honestly, I don't believe it's necessary. In cheesemaking, where yes, sanitation is extremely important (i.e., Listeria is deadly), on aging surfaces like wood shelving, it's more important to worry about giving the desired species competitive advantage by temperature and humidity, than trying to achieve a sterile surface/substrate for rind development. That's why when an official in upstate NY wanted to ban wooden shelving throughout the country on terrible science, many, myself included, raised the alarm, and prevailed (thankfully UW Madison's Center for Dairy Research joined in, with solid science). rubaud levain-starter-formula for new levains.docx

Not sure what happened here (and are you sure it's not just dried up starter?), but over time if you keep the ambient conditions where you want them (mostly, temp, ratios of starter:water:flour), your desired species should prevail. It's much like a brand new starter - you will pass through some truly foul-smelling and looking days, but shortly, you have a beautiful ecology of great yeasts and lactic acid bacterias.

I used to maintain 3 starters: A stiff wheat starter, with the flour blend as used by the late French baker Gerard Rubaud (70% bread flour, 18% 50-50 blend of hard red winter and spring wheats), 9% spelt and 3% rye. I followed his methods explicitly, which included always refreshing the starter at peak - which meant, 24/7, every 5 hours at 28C, religiously. You got that right - woke up in the middle of the night to refresh a stiff starter. A liquid rye starter. It has been my main starter for a long time, for any kind of bread regardless of the grains or flours. I use Central Milling's Type 85 flour, with 0.85% ash. It corresponds to a French T85, or a German T 850 if they had it (the Germans don't have an equivalent - the closest wheat they use with this ash content would be a T 1050, with 1.05% ash). Lievito madre. I used to refresh the rye, my only starter for a long time, about once per week. Now, with the LM, I do both usually at least 3x/week because although it will survive, a weekly schedule of the LM refreshment would significantly acidify the LM and defeat it's purpose, a mild, wild-yeast centric stiff starter. As to the discard, I don't really use the LM discard but I do save the rye discard and make fleur de levain - adding it from time to time as a flavoring component. Because it's spread out thinly and dried in the oven at about 200F for 90 minutes or so, it is no longer leavening. I grind the flakes into a powder and freeze it for later use at about 1 tbsp/1 KG dough.

A few of late. Ötztaler Saatenbrot. (https://www.mannbackt.de/2023/09/25/oetztaler-saatenbrot-echtes-alltagsbrot-mit-sauerteig-92448/?srsltid=AfmBOoqnXwXcQzivyHDuwz6LdkCGkMtJBXAI4QVYNM_lqmUS3qaRbtez) 60-40 blend of home-milled Khorasan and Central Milling´s T 85 flour, which would correspond to a T85 French or T 850 German flour. With lievito madre. (mine) Kerniges Toastbrot with flax seeds and oatmeal, lievito madre. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/366444498953863/posts/915143520750622/) Kraftiges Roggenschrotbrot. (book: Rustikale Brote aus deutschen Landen, by Bernhard Kellner.) French country levain - 70% bread flour, 18% 50:50 blend of winter and spring hard red wheat, 9% spelt, 3% rye, all home milled. (adapted from the late French baker Gerard Rubaud). Münchener Hausbrot, seen here. (Book: Der Brotdoc: Heimatbrote: Traditionsreiche Brote aus dem eigenen Ofen. Mit Sauerteig, Vorteig & Co, by Björn Hollensteiner, a friend of mine).

Just a couple of late. A pretty typical German bauernbrot, and a French Levain (an everyday one for us, recipe and process, the late French master baker, Gerard Rubaud). The Bauernbrot is high in whole meal rye, but it is soft, moist ("saftig"), very aromatic due to the use of altbrot, just flour made from my leftover and dried dark rye breads. Really helps the dough take in more hydration without becoming too slack.

Man that is insanely gorgeous. Thank you again.

Gorgeous!

I just looked him up - glad to say he's still with us. 90!