The Sourdough Starter Topic

[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.

[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.