The Sourdough Starter Topic

[cakewalk]

So he and the neighbours were presented with apple brioche where the milk was replaced by a Normandy cider/pureed apple/honey reduction. I have to say it was very good:

 

When you do something like this, do you make any other changes? Milk is very different than a cider/honey reduction. Anything done to accomodate those differences?

 

My bread flour starter that was in the freezer for several months is now bubbling away, I'll probably bake this weekend. But the rye starter didn't make it, alas. I'll be starting a new one. I would have expected the opposite since rye starters are so easy, but there ya go.

[bethesdabakers]

Hi Cakewalk

 

No I didn't make any allowances for the difference in the liquid but it was a pretty casual baking session.I think I retarded the dough during fermentation and definitely for the overnight prove.

 

I stored my starters in the fridge for about five weeks while we were away. The wheat starter bounced straight back but the rye took a couple of refreshments and a few days which surprised me too.

 

Mick

[Ann_T]

I've been playing around with preferments again.

 

Friday morning I mixed one tablespoon of my starter into 200g of flour and 200g of water and left it to develop for the day.   Friday night I added the starter to a 750g flour and 487g of water and 20g of salt.

 

 

Left in the fridge until Sunday and baked Sunday night.  

 

 

Two baguettes and

 

 

one Kalamata olive baguette.

 

Saturday morning, I did the same thing, but used two tablespoons of starter in the preferment.  Added to a batch of dough Saturday night. 65% hydration. (800g flour/450g water/22g salt)

 

 

Baked Monday.

 

Sliced this morning for breakfast.

[bethesdabakers]

Oat & Honey

 

A bit more complicated than basic sourdoughs. Uses oats three ways. First you make a porridge. Then you add toasted oats. Finally the dough is coated in oats.



To coat the doughs you need two trays, one is lined with a wet tea towel and the shaped dough is rolled in this before being rolled again in oats in the second tray.

 

Proved doughs after three and a half hours:



Finished breads|:



Mick

[cakewalk]

Mick - when you say you make a porridge, is that the same thing as a soaker? Is it actually cooked, or do you just let it stand in water overnight? And when you add the toasted oats, are they whole or ground? Those loaves are very nice. A friend has asked me to bake bread for Thanksgiving dinner, and she wants something "with a lot of grains and seeds and whole wheat." I've been playing around with soakers, but I've been cheating and using yeast.  I'd love to do a grainy, seedy sourdough! I don't see how it could get off the ground (so to speak) without some bread flour and/or some yeast. Any advice? 

[bethesdabakers]

Hi Cakewalk

 

Yes you cook it and the toasted oats go in whole.

 

If you can wait until tomorrow I can give you my Multigrain formula - 50:50 wholemeal/strong white bread flour/four grain soaker.

 

I have to crank up my Thanksgiving bread (pecans/cranberries/bourbon) for my American customer in two weeks time!

 

Mick

[bethesdabakers]

Multigrain
 

Dough

Soaker

 

Make the soaker a few hours in advance of the dough and allow to cool.

 

Use your usual method for mixing and kneading the dough (I do three short bursts of ten kneads in total for pretty much any dough).

 

My timings in a moderate climate would be four hours (or retarded overnight) fermentation and three and a half hours prove, followed by fifty minutes @ 210C.

 

Sprinkle a little of the same grain mix in the bottom of the proving basket.



Mick



 

[cakewalk]

Thank you so much. This is next weekend's project. And I guess it has to work, because it's the last weekend before Thanksgiving. I will probably have questions for you during the week. But for starters: what are jumbo oats? I have regular rolled oats (not quick-cooking or instant), which I figure will do the trick, no? I will probably refrigerate overnight, I can never work out a sourdough in one day. The one thing that is really glaring at me is the salt. I am tempted to double it. Would that completely kill the dough? When do you add the soaker? At the same time as mixing the dough together, as long as it's cooled down?

[bethesdabakers]

Hi Cakewalk

 

It's no more complicated than making a straight white sourdough. The reason for soaking the grain is so that it doesn't draw water from the dough which should be able to stand alone so, from that point of view, it shouldn't be adding water either. (Health freaks would also say that it makes the bread more nutritious by making the grain more digestible but that's not my concern.) The cooled soaker goes in at the same time as the other ingredients.

 

Jumbo oats are just large rolled oats http://www.mornflake.com/our-oats/types-of-oats.aspx

 

Salt in bread is usually reckoned at 2%. I have reduced mine to 1.7% because customers are very aware of salt these days. Doubling it won't hurt the dough.

 

Mick

[bethesdabakers]

A fine tombstone of a focaccia made from scrap dough. Monday night I made a batch of 80% hydration dough for pizza and put it in the fridge. Thursday I made pizza. Saturday it was time to either sling the remaining dough or bake with it. Poured the dough into a baking tray, poked in some rosemary, dimpled the dough with my fingers, poured over a few tablespoons of olive oil/water/salt emulsion and, as soon as the oven was up to 250C, wacked it in.



On a more subtle note, first attempt at croissants for about 15 years. Not quite as good as the photo pretends but a reasonable starting point. Starter at 35%.

 

Mick

[ElsieD]

Beautiful layers on those croissants.

[cakewalk]

Well that dough came out of the fridge this morning looking and feeling exactly the same as it did when it went in last night. My starter looked fine and bubbly to me, but something happened between then and now. I wanted to save it somehow, so I added a bit of yeast and water. I'll see what happens and wing it. The flavor of the dough is very nice, shame to waste it. (I ended up using 10 g of salt.)

[keychris]

 

 

65% hydration, 25% rye, 25% whole wheat flour. 24 hours cold proof. Baked one after the other, I'm not sure why the second loaf had less steam, but it's clearly not as golden. Still tastes just fine though

I have one more batch of dough still in the fridge for a 48hr cold proof

 

[Ann_T]

Good save Cakewalk. 

 

KeyChris, beautiful loaf.  

[bethesdabakers]

Not a lot of point in trying to explain why I don’t see adding yeast to an apparently dormant dough as a triumph.

 

But that bread, along with 5 Seed with Spelt, was one of the first breads I devised back in 2007 when my microbakery started to take off. Although there’s nothing very clever about it and it’s highly derivative of other formulas, it resonates with some customers who won’t buy anything else.

 

One customer had a dog called Tog. She had an awkward journey and worked long hours which, together with a lot of family commitments, meant she tended to buy several loaves when she could call by and load up the freezer. Tog had toasted Mulitigrain for breakfast and when supplies occasionally ran out, he lay down and pined. I’m with Tog.

 

Mick

[DianaB]

Back in September I posted in this topic after just beginning to make bread from a starter I had purchased on-line. Kind comments and advice followed, within the topic and by personal message. In the weeks that followed my time was in demand professionally and while I continued to bake bread I didn't get to any further reading until the start of this holiday break.

So, a late thanks to everyone who passed on their advice and comments. I believe that we never stop learning, or at least that we should never stop learning; places such as this are so precious as a source of ideas. 

 

My own adventure with bread in some of its many forms continue. The starter is still going, I divided it into 2 so that I will have a second chance to hand should I manage to kill or damage the other. I feed mostly with strong white flour but occasionally with rye flour as someone here suggested. The depth of flavour these starters have added to my bread really is remarkable. I have always made bread but it has taken until now to appreciate the range of flavours to be found from different ways of using the basic ingredients and I believe I'm only at the beginning of this learning experience.

 

I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone here has been creating and discussing over the past few months. 

 

Thanks again to to all who helped with my questions of last September and who wrote kind words of encouragement.

[Smithy]

Two and a half years ago, I discovered and fell in love with San Luis Sourdough's Rosemary Olive Oil bread.  It has a pleasantly sour bite, good texture, just the right hint of rosemary, and makes killer grilled cheese sandwiches.  Unfortunately it's hard to find: it seems only to be available in California - maybe in Arizona - and it's not carried by every grocery chain.  I decided to try to make something like it for myself, given my difficulty getting it.  

 

I was just able to score a couple of loaves of the San Luis bread, and as it happened I had a freshly-baked loaf of my attempt.  Here they are, for comparison:

 

 

Theirs, on the left, has better shape.  I'm still working on timing, and tend to overproof my loaves due to inattention or poor planning, with the result that my rounds aren't very.  Theirs crisps beautifully in the toaster, but since it's an all-white bread it can get mushy when bitten.  Grand flavor, especially with the above-noted grilled cheese sandwich. I've been overindulging on them lately, but without adequate freezer space I must use this bread before the mold gets it. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

 

Mine, on the right, is half whole-wheat.  At 80% hydration, with a good slow initial proof, it's getting a good airy crumb.  It's a bit firmer than theirs, and doesn't get the contrast of crisp shattery exterior with soft interior from the toaster, but it also doesn't get mushy.  I haven't tried it yet with the grilled cheese sandwich treatment, but I'm very pleased with its flavor as toast or standard sandwich bread. 

 

 

 

Progress: it's what pulls the world forward!  I'm quite chuffed.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Smithy
Corrected misspelled word (log)

[pastryani]

Wow so impressed by all your bubbly and active starters.  I used to have one which I ended up killing by neglect.  It was equal parts white flour and water by weight (I think that makes it 100%?).  

 

Anyhow I've been craving some seriously sour-tasting sourdough bread, which means it's time to start a new starter.  So I have a couple of questions.

 

1.  What is the most ideal composition and conditions for the most sour of sourdough starters?

 

2.  Is it safe to put dairy in a starter?  I saw a YouTube video that was equal parts white flour and low fat yogurt.  It's an interesting idea and they had great results after 16-17 days (it tripled in volume), but I've never heard of dairy in a starter before and have some concerns about it going bad since it'll be at room temp.

 

Edited February 19, 2017 by pastryani (log)

[cakewalk]

No expert here, as I usually just wing it. But I've had my current start for over 3 years now, and it's just bread flour and water. I've also read of starters begun with yogurt, or sometimes fruit pulp. There's a wonderful Nancy Silverton you tube somewhere about this. But to me it always seemed like an overcomplication, unless you are aiming for a particular flavor. If you just want a basic starter, I don't think there's a need for anything other than flour and water. Also, if you want to maintain the starter for future use, it would be much easier to use just flour and water. 

 

I remember reading somewhere that lower hydration, or a stiffer starter (say that 3 times fast), will produce a more sour loaf. The King Arthur Flour website has something about this, with a recipe for a very sour bread using a stiff starter. I remember making it once, and I liked it very much. 

[paulraphael]

I think the science is pretty well established that using things like yogurt and fruit juices in starters amounts to old fashioned sophistry. Some of the wild yeasts and bacteria that make for a good starter can survive their presence, but none of them is encouraged by it. Organisms that like wheat aren't going to be found in fruit. I don't believe there's ever any good reason to put something besides flour and water in a starter.

 

It's also been mostly established that when you start your own starter, your not doing it with organisms from the environment, but organisms that were resident in flour (probably from the wheat itself). I haven't seen hard science on this, but a number of fairly well controlled experiments have led to this conclusion. There may, of course, be exceptions. How often and under what circumstances is a question for someone who's studied this process..

[keychris]

I wonder if the addition of yoghurt to a starter would be a simple lowering the pH for the acid bacteria to do their work - my first starter I ever made I followed Reinhart's "pineapple juice" method and it worked perfectly.

 

As for ideal composition and whatnot, for starting out I used 100% hydration starter (that's equal quantities of flour and water), now I run at 66% (50g water, 75g flour) because it lasts a couple of days before needing to be fed again, and has a nice flavour.

[paulraphael]

The acid bacteria make acid, they don't consume it. Lactic acid, and occasionally acetic acid, are byproducts of the bacteria in sourdough metabolizing sugars. Active yogurt contains its own lactobacillus bacteria, but these will be different strains that thrive in different environments.

 

According to the interwebs and Google Scholar, the bacteria in yogurt are typically strains of lactobacillus bulgaricus and streptococcus thermophilus.

 

In sourdough it's typically strains of lactobacillus pontis, lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, lactobacillus paralimentarius, lactobacillus fructivorans, and lactobacillus fermentum. Part of the environment that these  strains are especially adapted for is the yeast itself, which is likely to include saccharomyces exiguus, candida milleri, or candida holmii. 

 

The coexistence these bacteria and yeasts works in sourdough because the organisms are mutually tolerant of each others' waste products. Both types of organisms use their waste products as chemical weapons, to discourage the growth of competitors. The lactobacilli produce lactic acid, which inhibits most other bacteria and yeasts (including commercial baker's yeast—saccharomyces cerevisiae). But not our friendly sourdough yeasts. Likewise, yeasts produce alcohol. This discourages most bacteria, but not the right strains of lactobacilli. 

 

This is true up to a point. Eventually the dough can get too acidic for the yeast. This is why it can be hard to get extremely sour bread to rise much.

 

But the broader point is that bacteria and yeast that thrive in an unrelated environment are not going to thrive on wheat flour. Maybe there's some utility in pre-acidifying the flour, to prevent infection by other types of organisms before these acid-resistant ones take over. That's just a wild guess. But you're not actually going to be colonizing flour with bacteria from fruit or dairy products.

Edited February 20, 2017 by paulraphael (log)

[keychris]

 

5 hours ago, paulraphael said:

But you're not actually going to be colonizing flour with bacteria from fruit or dairy products.

 

no, of course you're not - I was merely saying perhaps the acidity in yoghurt may reduce the pH to an agreeable level for the bacteria in sourdough to proliferate. Thanks for such an informative post

[teonzo]

What @paulraphaelsaid.

If a bread tastes really sour then it's not a good sign, it means the fermentation was far from optimal. You can't get a proper fermentation if you aim for a really sour bread: a balanced fermentation happens within a certain pH window, where the fermentation gives a certain balance between lactic and acetic acid. With a proper fermentation you get a bread that is slightly sour, not definetely sour.

If you like acidic tastes, then I would say it's better to aim for a well fermented bread (not too acid), then add something sour/acid when you eat it.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[paulraphael]

55 minutes ago, teonzo said:

If you like acidic tastes, then I would say it's better to aim for a well fermented bread (not too acid), then add something sour/acid when you eat it.

 

I'm curious about how it works in San Francisco sourdough (which I like very much, but have never made. I've read that many Europeans think the stuff is vulgar!)

 

I've seen recipes but don't see anything in the technique that explains how so much sourness doesn't interfere with the rise.