Establishing and Working with Homegrown Sourdough Starter

[Smithy]

Way to go, Anna! That looks like an excellent crumb, too. Did you use the recipe Mick listed some pages back, or something else?

[Anna N]

Way to go, Anna! That looks like an excellent crumb, too. Did you use the recipe Mick listed some pages back, or something else?

I used Mick's proportions veered off in my own direction in terms of procedure.

[pbear]

Congratulations!

[aliénor]

on 24 October 2014 - 02:10 AM

bethesdabakers  wrote a note and posted a worksheet of ingredients for three types of bread. i made the 800gram micks sourdough. it really was wonderful but i think it was too short on salt.  i waited thirty minutes after the first mix before adding the 8 grams of salt .  i personally think it needs at least 15-16grms salt rather than 8 grams.   otherwise the bread went well. took 40 minutes in a preheated gas oven at 410ºF

[bethesdabakers]

Great to see all you people making naturally leavened bread.

 

Generally speaking salt is reckoned as 2.0% of flour weight. In these health conscious days there is a trend to reduce this amount. In this formula the percentage has slipped down to 1.5%. But formulas are just guidelines. If you want to add more salt that's your choice.

 

Just keep baking!

 

Mick

[Anna N]

Thanks for all your help and encouragement Mick. Here is my second naturally leavened loaf. I won't post anymore on this topic unless I run into trouble.

[Smithy]

on 24 October 2014 - 02:10 AM

bethesdabakers  wrote a note and posted a worksheet of ingredients for three types of bread. i made the 800gram micks sourdough. it really was wonderful but i think it was too short on salt.  i waited thirty minutes after the first mix before adding the 8 grams of salt .  i personally think it needs at least 15-16grms salt rather than 8 grams.   otherwise the bread went well. took 40 minutes in a preheated gas oven at 410ºF

Do you mean you mixed the flour, water and starter, let it sit 30 minutes before adding the salt, and then began the knead/rest process? Why the wait? (This question is not intended as criticism; I'm learning about this as we go along.)

[Anna N]

Do you mean you mixed the flour, water and starter, let it sit 30 minutes before adding the salt, and then began the knead/rest process? Why the wait? (This question is not intended as criticism; I'm learning about this as we go along.)

[Smithy]

Thanks for that, Anna.

I've branched out into whole-wheat sourdough territory. The recipe was Mick's Classic Sourdough (from his "Sourdough Made Easy" book); it uses half whole-wheat flour. Our oven chose to go out - as in, quit working - before the loaf was quite finished cooking and before I could add a second loaf that was made with less fermentation time for comparison's sake.

I have to get the temperature of this oven worked out once it's repaired; the bottom of the loaf was tough and almost overcooked while the rest was slightly undercooked. It should have been a bit darker and more done in the center, and I'd like to work out a crisper crust, but it still made fine sandwich bread:

I really like the flavor of this loaf. Thanks, Mick.

[bethesdabakers]

Hi Smithy

 

This is my most basic bread in the sense that, for me, this epitomises what bread should be all about before bits and pieces are added for variety. So I'm pleased you are trying it and I hope you get your oven sorted.

 

When it is, try making a 2 Kilo loaf! I know people on this site are often going for smaller loaves than 800g but reckon a 2K loaf gives you the perfect proportion of crust and crumb for this rustic type of bread. In my oven I would give it 65 minutes. You can quarter it and freeze three parts.

 

Best wishes

 

Mick

[Syzygies]

 
A heads up, if one has an established sourdough starter for making bread, one can easily ferment the batter for Indian dosas. Commercial yeast isn't quite right, and trusting the ingredients alone can be hit or miss. A sourdough starter is already in the ballpark, and works nicely with predictable results.
 
Googling for recipes, note that the ideal fermentation temperature is about 31 C (86 F to 90 F), well below that of a yogurt maker (110 F). One can probably get by with a warmed oven. I have an Anova One immersion circulator, so I rigged a water bath. Not a reason alone to buy one, but tools that take up space need to earn their keep.
 
Note also the add-ins. Standard is urad dal and rice, we ground the urad dal after soaking in a Vita-Prep (much easier to clean than the Indian stone grinder I have in the back shed somewhere). We ground Massa Organics brown rice in the same Wolfgang Mock grain mill we use for flour for baking. Typical add-ins include a bit of fenugreek (actually also a dal), and chana dal (chick peas) to give that restaurant crunch.
 
The pan is a 15" round, 1/4" thick Baking Steel. They will sell 1/2" thick as a special order; Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid for example recommend clay tawas for their thermal stability. Nothing offers the combination of nonstick and browning of a well-seasoned baking steel, and I can compare with more pans than any sensible person should own. Go with 1/2" thick to get the thermal mass, though 1/4" is fine and heats faster.
 
A bit of sourdough starter is plenty to get a dosa batter fermentation going. The wheat is a welcome addition. Six hours may be plenty; like the sourdough starter itself, the batter continues to sour with longer ferments. The usual guidelines to watch expansion of the batter only apply if the batter is thick enough to trap bubbles. A batter thin enough for use without further thinning won't expand while fermenting.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Syzygies (log)

[Smithy]

I've been traveling a lot over the last few months, and my sourdough starter is changing...not for the better. For various reasons I've just been feeding it (equal parts starter, flour, water usually; sometimes 1:2:2: starter, flour, water if I thought I'd get a chance to bake bread.) My starter has been getting thinner and, well, more sour smelling. The thinness surprises me, and I wonder what - if anything - I can do about it. Hooch starts appearing after 3 days, but the smell is pretty strong after only 2 days. I feed it almost every day to avoid the smell and try to keep it boosted to a "normal" (by my experience) viscosity.

I have no control over the water, unless I start using and carrying distilled water. I think the water we started taking on a couple of weeks ago has more dissolved solids and is harder, but I don't have a way to measure it. I haven't been taking pH measurements along the way, but the pH at home (where this starter was born) is around 8.7, so the alkalinity here shouldn't be unusual. The flour - well, I was faithfully using one brand but most recently I've had to explore other brands; all have been unbleached flour but it's possible the variety of wheat was different.

My maintenance has been regular and frequent feeding of the starter, but I've had to step up the rate. I wonder what's going on with it. It's sitting out at room temperature (no room in the refrigerator). Any ideas? Is it dying?

[bethesdabakers]

Hi Smithy
 

I know you say your maintenance has been regular but what you are describing are the classic signs of neglect – not enough food and/or too much heat. If it’s reasonably warm where you are and you are storing it at room temperature you should feed it every day (obviously you can’t be doing that or you wouldn’t know about the smell after two days and the hooch after three).

 

You say you are refreshing at equal parts of starter, water, flour. Is this by volume or weight? If volume, that explains why the starter’s getting thinner although the longer it’s left between feeds the wetter it will get.

 

Frequent changes of location won’t help your starter but it should settle down after a couple of days recovery.

 

Your best bet is to refresh it and insist on some fridge space – you only need to store about 100g. That doesn’t take up much space.

 

Good luck! It’s very hard to kill a starter!

 

Mick

 

[Smithy]

Thanks for that, Mick. I'll make a point of daily refreshing; refrigerator space is likely to be an issue for a while. I'm getting it down to a quick routine now, so that feeding the starter isn't as big an operation as it was at first:

1. Set a new, clean container (I have multiples of the same type) onto a scale and set the tare;

2. Pour starter from the current container into the new container until I get the amount I want (I've been doing anything from 50g to 100g);

3. Reset the scale to zero to eliminate potential mental maths errors, then spoon the appropriate amount of flour in;

4. Reset the scale once more to zero and add as much weight of water as I did flour, then stir the mix;

5. Take a deep breath and throw away the remaining starter. This is the most painful part, so I've been learned to keep the quantities down, but of course I don't want to come up short when I'm ready to bake. :-)

It's taken longer to spell out these steps than it does to do them, so I should be able to keep it up on a daily basis until the refrigerator is a bit less cramped.

[Ann_T]

I fed my starter on Sunday night and used 60g of the discard to make a preferment. Left out of the counter overnight. 

The dough was hand-mixed Monday and baked last night.

 

 

Sliced this morning for breakfast.

 

[bethesdabakers]

Of course, there's more to life than the white, high hydration ciabatta/baguette style sourdoughs that predominate on this forum.

I have a weakness for the other end of the spectrum:



Cistercian (rhyming slang - Cistercian Monk = drunk), a heavy beer bread with three flours - strong white, wholemeal wheat and wholemeal rye - and stuffed with pot barley. The barley is boiled in water until al dente and then soaked in beer which  makes the hydration slightly tricky. Fortunately no one had told me that using your judgement was baking's dirty little secret so I got away with it.



Lovely moist, chewy, sourish bread, just right for winter.

 

Mick

[keychris]

 

Formula as per Reinhart's baguette formula in BBA - half bread flour, half regular flour. I'll post up some other pics of sourdough tomorrow when I find the pics

[Smithy]

It's a little lopsided, but this sourdough (half whole wheat, half all-purpose flour) has a good tight texture for sandwiches. I added rosemary and a bit of olive oil to the base recipe. The flavor is...okay, but the whole wheat flavor is a bit discordant with the rosemary. Next time I'll use more all-purpose flour - or bread flour, since I've finally gotten to a grocery store that had it.

Last time around (no pictures, but the texture was about the same) I substituted a small amount of mesquite flour for some of the wheat flour. Now THAT was nice. I'll do it again.

[Ann_T]

KeyChris,  beautiful loaves.

 

 

Smithy, the texture does look like it would be the perfect sandwich bread.

[bethesdabakers]

And then, if I do go in for the ciabatta type loaf, my preference is for something a little more rustic:



My version of Turkish pide, shaped by folding and stretching, egg washed and well sprinkled with za'atar.

Mick

[Smithy]

Hi Smithy

 

I know you say your maintenance has been regular but what you are describing are the classic signs of neglect – not enough food and/or too much heat. If it’s reasonably warm where you are and you are storing it at room temperature you should feed it every day (obviously you can’t be doing that or you wouldn’t know about the smell after two days and the hooch after three).

 

You say you are refreshing at equal parts of starter, water, flour. Is this by volume or weight? If volume, that explains why the starter’s getting thinner although the longer it’s left between feeds the wetter it will get.

 

Frequent changes of location won’t help your starter but it should settle down after a couple of days recovery.

 

Your best bet is to refresh it and insist on some fridge space – you only need to store about 100g. That doesn’t take up much space.

 

Good luck! It’s very hard to kill a starter!

 

Mick

 

I want to follow up on this.  I resumed daily feeding (in the evening usually, just before heading off to bed).  When the starter seemed especially puny - the first day or two - I used twice the mass of water and flour as starter; when it looked and smelled good I simply fed it on a 1:1:1 proportion. I finally managed to find refrigerator space once it was healthy (we hadn't been to the grocery store for a while), and only then have I gone 2 days without feeding.

 

One day my darling came in to find me admiring the revived starter: it was light and almost frothy with bubbles, but the liquid was so viscous that the bubbles had resilience.  I was rolling it around in its container, admiring the surface tension, the voluptuous bulges when I tipped the container.  "Look!" I gloated, "It's alive!" He tried, politely, to share my enthusiasm.

 

Still pictures don't do justice to its beauty.  Only a video would show how slowly it flows, how strong and resilient it is.

 

Thanks, Mick.

[keychris]

it's interesting. When I'm daily feeding, I use a 1:5:5 ratio, as I find 1:1:1 runs to slop within 24hrs (usually closer to 8) so the extra bulk gives me more time.

 

Fortunately no one had told me that using your judgement was baking's dirty little secret so I got away with it.

 

This made me laugh so loudly my wife came to ask what was so funny

[Smithy]

it's interesting. When I'm daily feeding, I use a 1:5:5 ratio, as I find 1:1:1 runs to slop within 24hrs (usually closer to 8) so the extra bulk gives me more time.

1 part starter to 5 parts flour and 5 parts water, by weight? Gosh, I've thought I was 'cheating' somehow by using 1:2:2 when I wasn't planning to make bread the next day! :=D Is that true for you year-round, or just now during your summer?

[keychris]

yup, 10g starter, 50g water, 50g flour. Even in winter (which is relatively mild here, I guess), I keep it the same. Been running with the same starter since 2010, so it seems to work for me

 

I only fall back to 1:1:1 when I've stored the starter in the fridge for any extended length of time.

Edited January 29, 2015 by keychris (log)

[keychris]

 

This loaf a 25% WW formula, I ferment the whole wheat portion with 25% of the other flour and the starter overnight to pull heaps of flavour out of the WW. Usually make a 1.8kg batch and bake in either two or three loaves.

 

The same formula, but with a crispy topping, basically make a paste out of rice flour, sugar, yeast and water then smear it over the loaf after final shaping. Bakeries down here call this "tiger topping", no idea if you guys in the US call it the same!

 

My kids love rolls, so this is batch of straight white sourdough rolls.