Establishing and Working with Homegrown Sourdough Starter

[bethesdabakers]

Of course, it's possible to be too rustic:



Another one of baking's dirty little secrets - assembling a high hydration pizza on a metal peel can turn into a car crash, especially with my dexterity.

 

Lovely buns, Keychris, if I'm allowed to say that. It's always interesting to hear how other people organise their sourdough. Generally speaking I refresh at 1:1:1.

 

Mick

[Jim D.]

Mick,

I have had the same issue using a wooden peel with high-hydration dough--on New Year's Eve with multiple guests standing around the kitchen, watching the disaster unfold (whoever thought of open kitchens should be taken out and shot).  So I have learned (from pizzamaking.com) to put a piece of parchment under the dough, cut to the size of the pizza to prevent burning the paper in the oven, then slip pizza with parchment onto the stone.  I wait 2 minutes until the dough has firmed, then reach in with tongs and yank out the paper.  I know it's cheating, but it works.

[Ann_T]

Keychris, love the look of those buns.  What glaze are you using to get the seeds to stick?

 

I maintain a  12 oz starter which I feed usually once a week.   I feed six ounces of the starter with three ounces of flour and three ounces of spring water.  Usually doubles in six to eight hours.   And I use 60gs of the discard, mixed with 225g of flour and 225g of water  to make a preferment for the next batch of dough.   

 

~Ann

[Smithy]

Ann_T, do you usually keep that 12 oz of starter in the refrigerator? That seems to be the only way I can keep my starter healthy and feed it less often than once a day.

I'm with Mick: this is really interesting to see the different feeding ratios. Yours for maintenance seems to be 1:0.5:0.5, but then when you're starting your preferment (I still read that as a legal term instead of as 'pre-ferment' :-D) you do a 1:4:4 ratio. Have I got that right? Do you use different flours for the maintenance feeding, or only for the preferment stage, if ever?

[Ann_T]

Smithy, yes, once it has doubled it goes back into the fridge.    Gets taken out next time I feed it. And the discard is used in a new batch of bread.   As long as I feed it once a week, the discard is strong enough to make the preferment which is added to a 1000g of flour.

 

I keep two going.  One is fed with the bread flour I use and the other with rye.  I'm actually going to get rid of one.  I don't really need two.

 

 

 

~Ann

Edited January 29, 2015 by Ann_T (log)

[ElsieD]

Keychris, love the look of those buns. What glaze are you using to get the seeds to stick?

I maintain a 12 oz starter which I feed usually once a week. I feed six ounces of the starter with three ounces of flour and three ounces of spring water. Usually doubles in six to eight hours. And I use 60gs of the discard, mixed with 225g of flour and 225g of water to make a preferment for the next batch of dough.

~Ann

Specific questions for Ann:

This is all very interesting. When you add the flour and water do you leave it out of the fridge until it has double and then put it in the fridge?

And you mix the 60 grams of the discard with 225 gm each of flour and water and mix that in with 1000 gm of flour for a loaf (or two) of bread?

General question - anyone?

Finally, I tried to make a "mini" sourdough loaf yesterday that came out of the dense side. Is there a limit to how far down you can scale a loaf? I applied baker's % when scaling. Or maybe I didn't let it rise enough? When I poked the dough the hole slowly filled in about 80% so I thought it was ready. At that point it had been in the banneton for 3 hours.

Edited to fix typo.

Edited January 29, 2015 by ElsieD (log)

[keychris]

How mini is mini? How much starter did you use? 3hrs is a while, but if you have a cool kitchen, it may take longer - my sourdough in winter often takes all afternoon to rise enough.

 

 

Keychris, love the look of those buns.  What glaze are you using to get the seeds to stick?

They don't stick so well, because I just moisten the top off the ball with a damp paper towel after shaping and then dunk the whole top half of the ball into a bowl of seeds. I don't like the extra colour that egg or milk put on the top of my bread, so I tend to not glaze with anything.

 

 

Lovely buns, Keychris, if I'm allowed to say that.

Ah, finally someone recognises my buns

 

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?

Here's a photo of my current starters, one is spelt, the other rye. I refreshed them last night, 11hrs ago, the spelt at 1:10:10 and the rye at 1:5:5. I should have marked the starting position on the jar, but the rye has doubled and the spelt is well on the way. Overnight kitchen temperature was around 15-16C.

The spelt I refreshed at a 1:10:10 ratio because when I checked it last night, after 24hrs it had become totally liquid, so I increase the ratio. Rye absorbs more water to start with so is a bit stiffer at the same hydration, so was fine at the 1:5:5 again.

[ElsieD]

Key chris, I used 259 gm of bread flour, 153 gm water, 69 gm starter and 4gm salt. First rise was 4 hours, they were proofed for 3. Baked at 385 Convection for 45 minutes. Kitchen is about 22 degrees celcius.

[Ann_T]

Specific questions for Ann:

This is all very interesting. When you add the flour and water do you leave it out of the fridge until it has double and then put it in the fridge?

And you mix the 60 grams of the discard with 225 gm each of flour and water and mix that in with 1000 gm of flour for a loaf (or two) of bread?

General question - anyone?

Finally, I tried to make a "mini" sourdough loaf yesterday that came out of the dense side. Is there a limit to how far down you can scale a loaf? I applied baker's % when scaling. Or maybe I didn't let it rise enough? When I poked the dough the hole slowly filled in about 80% so I thought it was ready. At that point it had been in the banneton for 3 hours.

Edited to fix typo.

[bethesdabakers]

Mick,

I have had the same issue using a wooden peel with high-hydration dough--on New Year's Eve with multiple guests standing around the kitchen, watching the disaster unfold (whoever thought of open kitchens should be taken out and shot).  So I have learned (from pizzamaking.com) to put a piece of parchment under the dough, cut to the size of the pizza to prevent burning the paper in the oven, then slip pizza with parchment onto the stone.  I wait 2 minutes until the dough has firmed, then reach in with tongs and yank out the paper.  I know it's cheating, but it works.

[Smithy]

... I just thought it might cheer people up to see one of my REAL disasters. ...

 

Indeed it did, Mick!  Gave me a good laugh, and it makes me feel better about posting my latest discovery: what happens when bread is overproofed.

 

 

Although, I suppose it could also be posted on the Regrettable Dinners topic.  

[bethesdabakers]

Smithy, I'd have baked it!
 

Later in the week I’ll be baking potato and black onion seed bread and apricot and almond fougasse for customers. But this to me is what bread is all about:

 

A two kilo Mick’s Classic Sourdough. No frills, just starter, strong white and wholemeal wheat flours, water, salt. The sort of bread you’ll find on French markets, probably made of T80 flour and three or more kilos. There they will sell you a piece by weight and at home the best approach is to cut it in quarters and freeze what is unlikely to be used in the next few days. But it will keep for a week and the flavour develops with time. Of course you can make smaller loaves but for me two kilos is perfect. It retains moisture and bakes evenly (65 minutes at 210C in my oven) and the flavour is affected by the crust/crumb ration of the larger loaf.

 

Impossible to improve upon.

Mick

 

[Ann_T]

Today's sourdough.

 

[Toliver]

Today's sourdough.

 

What a beautiful photograph! Perfectly suitable for framing.

Of course, the bread itself is singing a siren song to me. I enjoy a sourdough with a nice tang to it. All I would need now is some soft butter to slather on a warm slice of that sourdough.

Thanks again for posting the picture!

[Ann_T]

Thank you Toliver.

[bethesdabakers]

Todays sourdough:





English Muffin!

[bethesdabakers]

After all these years of making bread, I never made a muffin. But I'm planning a TexMex birthday brunch for a few people next Sunday and Robb Walsh has a recipe for Huevos Benedictos where the Hollandaise Sauce takes on some chipotle and refried beans come into the equation. So I look for muffin recipes and The Cheeseboard Collective Works, one of my favourite books even if it is all spoons and cups, had the answer.

 

I used my most basic white sourdough formula - Strong White  Flour 100%, Water 59%, Starter 26.4%, Salt 1.5%. Fermented at room temperature for four hours, folded every hour. Then, pressed out the dough into a rectangle about ¾ inch thick, cut 3 inch rounds with a floured glass. Proved the rounds on a baking sheet liberally dusted with corn meal for two hours. Heated a baking stone on a low gas for five minutes. Dusted the baking stone with corn meal, cooked the rounds for 10 minutes either side. Easy or what?

 

Mick

[Smithy]

Suppose I have a recipe that calls for yeast, and I want to substitute my own sourdough starter. Is there a simple conversion to be made so I could do that?

For instance: in Foodman's eGCI course, Introduction to Lebanese Cuisine, there's a recipe for pita bread that has worked well for me. Here are the ingredients from that recipe, about halfway down the page:

• 3 Cups Bread flour or All Purpose flour

• ½ tsp Instant yeast (or 1 tsp Active Dry yeast combined with a Tbsp sugar and ¼ cup warm water till foamy)

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 Cup warm water (reduce the water by ¼ Cup if using Active Dry yeast)

I normally make this using the Active Dry yeast, 1T sugar and 1/4 c warm water. Would I just use 1/4 c of sourdough starter, then mix and knead until the texture was right? I'll bet there's a more scientific way to go about it.

(And yes, I realize these are volumetric measurements, but so are all my other recipes for pocket-style bread.)

[bethesdabakers]

Good grief! How do you Americans do it?

The long term answer is to store your bread formulas in grams in bakers' percentage format in spreadsheet calculators.

Can't help you in volumetric but if you convert your formula to grams, here's what you do. This assumes a starter at 100% hydration and between 25-30% of flour weight using bakers' percentage.

Add together the weights of the flour and water. Divide this seven and this will give you the weight of your starter. Divide this by two and subtract this number from the original flour weight and from the water weight (because your starter is equal weights of flour and water).

Good luck!

 

Edited to say: I was thinking in the bath just now, "What's special about this recipe that makes it authentically Lebonese?" And the answer is, "Nothing" - it's just a basic white dough. So why not just use a white soughdough formula? I use my basic wholemeal formula for pita.

 

Mick

Edited February 19, 2015 by bethesdabakers (log)

[cyalexa]

Suppose I have a recipe that calls for yeast, and I want to substitute my own sourdough starter. Is there a simple conversion to be made so

I am unable to access my files while traveling but am sure I got the info to do that from freshloaf.com.

[Smithy]

I am unable to access my files while traveling but am sure I got the info to do that from freshloaf.com.

Thanks, cyalexa.  That particular site didn't help, but I did find two sites that said, in essence, 1 cup starter for 1 packet of yeast.  This website has more detail, along with adjustments to be made and considerations for hydration level.

[Ann_T]

Rather than make a preferment with sourdough starter, as I usually do, I have started making sourdough by just adding 140g of discarded starter to 500g of flour.  This dough was handmixed - autolyze/stretch/fold method and left in the fridge overnight.

 

 

[Smithy]

*bump*

 

Over on The Bread Topic (2014-) Mick posted about his sourdough olive bread that was 50% starter.  Newbie that I am, I was startled and intrigued at the proportions, and decided to give it a go.  

 

Schedules being what they were, I decided at first simply to try the proportions and add rosemary, since I'm still trying to make a satisfactory olive oil and rosemary dough.  Then I had to set the project aside and let the dough proof overnight in the refrigerator.  By the time it was ready for the final shaping, I had found time to pit and chop a bunch of olives and sundried tomatoes.  I folded what I could into the dough as I shaped the loaf, but it was nowhere near the amount Mick had put in.  The distribution wasn't what I'd have liked, and the entire loaf was overrisen...but it wasn't bad as a first attempt.  Nobody complained.  The interesting side effect of having those chopped bits so close to the surface of the loaf is that they caramelized slightly.  Mmm, sweet tomato and olives!

 

 

[rotuts]

nice

[DianaB]

I came across this thread yesterday, just after my first sourdough bread came out of the oven. Over the past month or so I have read extensively about sourdough. I've been around eGullet for quite some time but stupidly I didn't visit here when first exploring sourdough, I could have saved both time and money.

I have baked bread for as long as I can remember, as did my mother and those before her. The only gap in this tradition was a period of 7 years when I lived in France. At first I didn't have an oven, when that arrived I had found great bakers so close to home where community news (aka gossip) was exchanged as we waited to be served morning and evening. My demi-baguette 'tradition' was always waiting for me and I couldn't have made better.

Returning to England in 2007 I quickly reverted to home made bread made in the Kenwood Chef and baked in a loaf tin. It was fine, not amazing. Thanks to eGullet I became aware of 'Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast' by David Forkish. We tried various of the recipes and the major change adopted from this text was introduction of an autolyse stage, higher hydration and baking in a covered cast iron pot.

We could now produce white or whole meal, or granary 'boules' with a crisp dark crust, and a tasty soft ' mie' reliably. Stupidly I had bought the book as a Kindle edition only to find that while that format is great for novels it doesn't really work for me for reference texts. I just continued to bake to the same recipe using a Kenwood Chef for kneading rather than Fornish's techniques but with wetter dough and loaves browned in cast iron. Higher hydration pizzas baked in 2 or 3 minutes in the G3 Ferrari pizza oven.

In the back of my thoughts lurked always the idea of bread from a poolish, bigga or similar. I should have come here earlier in the month to read this thread but for some reason that didn't occur and I ended up buying Victoria Kimbell's 'Fresh sourdough Starter' mail order from Bakery Bits, vendors who also supplied our marvellous Brød&Taylor folding proofer.

My knowledge of sourdough was (is) minimal. At this time of year in Europe we can watch France's 'Meilleur Boulangerie de France' and all of their wonderful breads made me more determined to improve our own results. It is a televised national prof baking competition.

Somewhere I read of Eric Kayser's Larousse du Pain (also in English for US market). Getting a hard copy this time and armed with my fresh starter, duly fed for three days, yesterday I was delighted with the results of the first recipe in the book 'La Boule'. I forgot to slash the top but otherwise this is the best tasting bread I have ever made. The recipe has some yeast in addition to the liquid starter.

Bakery Bits wrote to ask me to review their starter. By return I asked for advice as to long term storage and use of the sourdough to which I have had no reply. As a result I found myself back at eGullet this morning where I should have done my early research and where I found this thread.

I know that Mick has given instructions for saving money and getting a starter active from scratch. Some days in though one would be in the position I am now. My starter is active. Yesterday, having removed 100g for my loaf I transferred the rest to a clean plastic container with a good lid and put it into the fridge.

This morning I took the box out of the fridge and gave it a small feed of 40g strong wheat flour/40g bottled water. The lid is loosely replaced and the kitchen is 20c, normal here at this time of year.

Can anyone give more guidance on future management of the sourdough?

Assuming perhaps that each week I would use 3x100g to make dough, should the starter live at room temperature or in the fridge?

What would a 7 day schedule look like? Eg day1 - rest in fridge. day2 - feed 40g:40g cover, room temp. Day3 take off 100g to bake, rest at room temp.

The above is only an idea, I am hoping that perhaps Mick or one of the experienced bakers might help

I understand that ph can be a good indicator of a healthy sourdough starter. Does anyone check this?

This is my first attempt to include a photo on eGuller, if it has worked you should have an image of my first sourdough(ish) boule.

Thanks to all who have shared in the development of this thread and for the inspirational photos. Probably by now those of you involved at the start in October 2014 will have so much experience that the stuff I am unsure of has become second nature.

Does anyone still have their Autumn 2014 starter (or is that a stupid question)?

Edited to remove multiple photos.

Edited September 23, 2015 by DianaB (log)