The Sourdough Starter Topic

[rustwood]

1 minute ago, cakewalk said:

And from this he makes a living?

 

That's the nature of basic science - one never knows how or when the results of basic science might be beneficial - either directly or as part of a long, anonymous chain of discovery.  The applied/beneficial science that the public generally sees as important and worthwhile would not be possible without the foundations that are being laid by people doing basic science.  The questionable-sounding work that tends to generate a lot of press and public interest is often done by professors at universities who teach a full set of courses and do research on the side with their students - often on their own time and using their personal funds to buy supplies.  Although such research can sometimes sound funny or frivolous, it contributes to the literature and it engages future generations of scientists.

 

Unfortunately too many people have no idea how research works and thus they are enraged by stories of researchers wasting tax dollars on "frivolous" research - even though tax dollars may not be involved at all.  There may have been a time when it was easy to get funding for any given interest, but those days are long gone.  Competition for public grant dollars is fierce.  Talented researchers with well established track records are abandoning their careers because they want to have some degree of confidence that they will be able to provide for their families.

 

 

[cakewalk]

I think there's a bit of a gap between the research you're talking about in your post above, and the starter thing. 

[Soupcon]

To set the cat among the pidgeons.... I understand that the yeasts found in the sourdough levain can be and are found anywhere in the world. The difference in the bread itself is in the flour and the baker. French flour is not the same as Canadian flour which are both not the same as US flour. Anyone in the world can bake sourdough bread. The sourdough yeasts found in the San Fransisco area can be found in Toronto, London England, Bejing, and Canbera. I think maintaining the levain itself for that long is to be admired.

 

[cakewalk]

9 minutes ago, Soupcon said:

The difference in the bread itself is in the flour and the baker. 

 

Yes. Maybe the water, too. (And on a separate note, the oven.) But I'd put most of my money on the baker. Even if I used all the same ingredients as your baker, I have no delusions that my bread would be like his. 

[chromedome]

On 29/03/2017 at 6:11 PM, chromedome said:

I believe the batches involved in the recall were sold only in the Western provinces. 

...aaaaannnnnd, the recall has now been extended nationally. Per the CFIA, check your pantry for lot codes containing BB/MA 2018 AL 17 and 6 291 548. 

[pastryani]

Not sure if this is the right place to pose this question but I got some starter from a very generous baker and I'm quite anxious to use it.  She said she feeds hers everyday which I know I won't be doing (once a week would be more like it for me).  My question is - since it's kept in the fridge, what is your process for making bread?  That is, do you take the starter out of the fridge and use it right away in your recipe (as-is without feeding), or do you take it out and feed it the night before and then use a little bit of the starter in your recipe the next morning, or something else? (Can you tell it's been a while since I baked bread?!) 

[cakewalk]

I'd feed it and let it come to room temp before using it in a recipe. (About 2-3 hours or so.) Often the recipe will specify the timing. But I wouldn't use cold starter. 

[pastryani]

Thanks @cakewalk.  I've got a Tartine olive loaf in the fridge for an overnight fermentation, but I'm concerned because the dough feels dense and heavy. It was very wet while pre-shaping so I kept adding flour to cut down on the stickiness.  It doesn't seem like it's developed a lot of gassy bubbles and I'm worried that tomorrow it'll bake up like a salty rock.  Any suggestions for getting it airy before baking?  I'll keep it out for 3-4 hours to come to room temp.

 

Edit. I should add that I almost doubled the amount of levain called for (used 190g instead of 100g), but I took out 45g each of water and flour from the final formula to compensate.  Could this have made the boule heavy?

Edited April 26, 2017 by pastryani (log)

[cakewalk]

@pastryani, I think someone more knowledgeable about the science might better answer you. Tartine is generally very precise in their formulas and instructions. (Olive loaves can often be dense and heavy, intentionally so.) If you added a lot more flour because of the stickiness, it may well make a difference. As you mentioned, let it come to room temp; if the starter is active it will rise. It might need another couple of hours after it reaches room temp (but be careful not to overproof). Someone else might be able to weigh in with better advice. But I would also say this: if it doesn't look like it's doing what it should, I would bake it anyway. See how it comes out. Even if it's inedible, it's a learning experience under your belt. (I have many, many such experiences, and I know there will be many more to come.)

[lindag]

On ‎3‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 0:47 PM, Soupcon said:

 

The one on the counter smelled of nail polish remover. I can't for the life of me figure out what would cause so it must be some strange bacteria from somewhere.... either in the flour or picked up in the house. I have just pitched it as I can's seem to get the smell to go away even after a few refreshments.

The one in the fridge is still in hibernation. I am not sure what to do with that one. Any suggestions?

Could the odor have come from the container?

[I have a herring problem]

On 08/04/2017 at 1:50 AM, pastryani said:

Not sure if this is the right place to pose this question but I got some starter from a very generous baker and I'm quite anxious to use it.  She said she feeds hers everyday which I know I won't be doing (once a week would be more like it for me).  My question is - since it's kept in the fridge, what is your process for making bread?  That is, do you take the starter out of the fridge and use it right away in your recipe (as-is without feeding), or do you take it out and feed it the night before and then use a little bit of the starter in your recipe the next morning, or something else? (Can you tell it's been a while since I baked bread?!) 

 

I keep my sourdough out of the fridge and feed every day, but when I have kept the sourdough in the fridge, I take it out a few days before I want to bake with it and feed 3-4 times minimum before I use it for baking.

I personally think the smell (and taste) of the sourdough is more pleasant when it is very active and has been fed daily, compared to a sourdough that has been in the fridge for a week and only been fed once before baking.

I use the sourdough to bake with when it has risen to the maximum level, or just when it starts to fall. This is also when a spoonful of the sourdough will float in a glass of water.

 

This also seems to be the recommendation of Chad Robertson of Tartine. He writes to keep the sourdough at warm room temperature for at least 2 days and to do 3 to 4 feedings to refresh and reduce the acid load that builds up while the sourdough is stored in the fridge.
 

Regarding the olive bread, Tartine bread doughs always seem very wet to me. This is something I've had to get used to as the bread doughs I grew up making were much more dry and easier to work with. I also have always been used to using flour to avoid the dough sticking to my hands, whereas the Tartine book recommends using wet hands.

The Tartine (olive) bread recipe mentions that the bread only increases 20-30% in size during fermentation.

The folding technique also helps to make the dough less sticky - Richard Bertinet has a video on youtube and on a DVD that comes with his book "Dough" that shows this type of technique quite well.

A wet dough will typically develop more air bubbles than a dry dough, so if you have added a lot more flour than the recipe stated, then that is likely to be the reason why your bread seems more dense. It will still rise, but it will be more dense and have smaller, more even air bubbles than the usual Tartine bread that has larger and more unevenly sized air bubbles. It will still taste perfectly fine, but the texture will be different.

I don't think there is much to do about a too dense dough so late in the process - I cannot imagine that adding more water at this stage will be successful. Just let it rise as per the recipe, and then bake as per the recipe.

Good luck

[JoNorvelleWalker]

16 hours ago, lindag said:

Could the odor have come from the container?

 

My guess, the odor is from fermentation and depends on what brand of nail polish remover you use.  Have you read Raymond Calvel The Taste of Bread?

 

[Soupcon]

On 4/26/2017 at 9:44 AM, lindag said:

Could the odor have come from the container?

I never did find out as I pitched both starters and started again, this time with great success. The smell of nail polish has not returned to any starter I have on the go now. I have two: a whole wheat starter and an AP starter both of which I have successfully baked from.

[Luke]

On 3/14/2017 at 5:47 AM, Soupcon said:

Updates? Sure. I am glad you asked.

The one on the counter smelled of nail polish remover. I can't for the life of me figure out what would cause so it must be some strange bacteria from somewhere.... either in the flour or picked up in the house. I have just pitched it as I can's seem to get the smell to go away even after a few refreshments.

The one in the fridge is still in hibernation. I am not sure what to do with that one. Any suggestions?

 

I would not throw it out. It happens to my starter as well, if left out of the fridge for a few days without a refresh of flour. 

 

The root cause is Ethyl Acetate. I think, but not 100% sure, it's caused by the yeast running out of food and being left at ambient temperatures.

 

I follow Ken Forkish's method for Sourdough starter, so when this happens (normally caused by lazyness or forgetting to put into the fridge after a bake), I simply remove all but 50g of starter, refresh with new flour and water, let it sit for a day at ambient temperature, and then pop back into the fridge.

 

Cheers

Luke

[Soupcon]

Hi all

My second starter (the really active one from which I have had some good bakes with AP flour and 1 bake using whole wheat) is now acting quite strange. I confess I left it out on the bench for 2 days without refreshing and when I remembered it, it had of course completely run out of food but there was no hooch at all. So I continued as usual. Next the starter decided to act really sluggish and took 24 hours to double or more so I increased the number of feeds to speed it up and it did oblige for a while and then slowed right down again. So I switched flours to a commercial brand (Robin Hood AP non bleached for those Canadians following this thread) and it again went into overdrive to the point where my ratios are 1:4:4. At 1:2:2 the starter more than doubled in 8 and appeared to be trending down to 7 or 6 hours consistently. So I increased the ration to 1:4:4. Now the starter takes 9 hours one refreshment to more than double and 15 to 18 hours the next refreshment. Huh? This has continued for the past 4 days. What on earth is happening and can it be fixed?

[joiei]

A very real and interested newbie here.  I have never baked  a loaf of bread that I though was interesting.  I saw a recipe for creating a homemade starter a couple of weeks ago.  I really have no idea what I am doing.  I went for it.  My memories of the best breads in my history is the loaves the bakeries in Tampa used to leave for the Cuban Sandwich places, I was in college and we would occasionally wander around Ybor city and help ourselves,  we were so bad.  Then in the mid to late 70s when I lived in San Francisco the Larabaru guy left bread for the day in the morning.  Sometimes it was even still warm.  Needless to say, 3 staff and a lb of butter stopped for this we called it breakfast.  So my experiences with bread making pretty much is some incredible bread memories and very little experience.  I have started creating a starter over the last week.  What do I do next.  I have about 2 cups of starter, remember this started as an experiment so can I actually bake a loaf of bread that I enjoy.  What I have now is this sort of medium thick mass, how do I use it?  The starter is in the fridge, do I feed it and immediately put it back in the fridge?  Unfortunately where I live there is no incredible bread bakery.  There are now a few patisseries that make acceptable bread but I want to make it my self dang it.  I have made loaf bread and i have experimented with the no-knead bread but they are boring.  Give me some direction.  I will be busy with steak judging this weekend but next week, my calendar is clear.  

[windyacres]

A friend gave me a 2 ounce sourdough starter.  How much do I start out feeding it?  I've been reading that you can feed it equal amounts of flour and water, or slightly more flour than water.  But, obviously, I don't want to feed this small amount of starter a cup of each or even half a cup of each!  I'm thinking perhaps start out with 2 TBS of each.  Are there guidelines regarding amounts to feed sourdough depending on how much you have?

[akonsu]

I usually throw away 80% of it in the morning and add the same amount of flour and water mix. You can feed it more often, look when it goes down, which means that it runs out of food and feed it then. It is not that it will die if you feed it more. It will just take longer to ferment what you fed it. That is all I know, but I am not a professional. : )

[lindag]

There's a mountain of sourdough knowledge at KAF, I highly recommend it..

[Metztli]

For a 100% hydration starter (this means the water weighs the same as the flour) you would use equal amounts, by weight, of the ripened starter, flour, and water. You could take one ounce starter and add one ounce of water and one ounce of flour - reserve the rest of the old starter in the fridge as a back-up, just in case. To cut down on wasting flour and having my starter take over the entire kitchen, I usually do a small amount like this until I am planning to use it. Then I will give it frequent feedings and increase the amount according to how much I will need for the recipe.

[Merry Berry]

Starters are so much fun and so hardy.  I took two out of the fridge a couple of weeks ago to revive them and bake with them.  They had been in the fridge since December 15th and forgotten about.  Couple of days of feeding and they were ready to go.

 

As stated KAF is okay for info on starters although I feel like The Fresh Loaf forums have better information.

 

OP, try not to stress out too much on the feedings.  I used to be so careful with my measurements and would drive myself crazy trying to get it right.  Once you get used to it, you can eyeball it.  Typically, when you feed your starter, you are trying to double the amount you start with.  So in your case, if you started with 2oz, then you would want to add enough flour and water to make the total weight 4oz (assuming you are not throwing any out...I hate to waste things so I typically keep the part I would throw out and make pancakes or such with them).

 

What flour are you using to feed it?  The type of flour you use will affect how much water you end up using.  I personally like rye flour, but it is so darn difficult to source where I live.

[Chris Hennes]

As usual, be careful taking random advice off of the internet! A well-established starter can be carried forward with many different ratios, and on many different feeding schedules. Anyone who tells you that it must be done a certain specific way is simply reporting their preferred method, not a hard-and-fast rule. Broadly speaking your goal is to make sure that your yeast and bacteria get enough to eat, don't run out of food before you have a chance to feed them again, and have a relatively stable pH. You don't mention what temperature you are keeping your starter at: if it's at room temperature you might be surprised by how much food it can run through!

 

As a good starting place, Modernist Bread's preferred feeding schedule is once every 24 hours, storing the starter at 55°F, and feeding 4x the weight of the starter in flour and an equal amount of water. For your example, then, you would feed 8oz of flour and 8oz of water to 2oz of starter every 24 hours, discarding (or baking with) the remaining starter. Personally, as someone who only bakes once per week, I find this a bit wasteful in terms of discarded starter, so I store mine in the refrigerator. On Friday morning I take it out of the fridge and put it on the counter (70°F or so). At 10pm or so I feed it according to the MB ratio. I put some of it in the fridge for the next week, and leave the rest on the counter overnight for the next day's baking. It's ready to use first thing the following morning.

[keychris]

I do basically what @Chris Hennes says above, except my ratio is 1:5 starter to flour. Recently I've changed to a 50% hydration starter and it's going very well.

[windyacres]

Thanks to everyone for the advice.  I ended up taking 1 oz of the starter and feeding it 2 oz of ww flour and 2 oz of water.  It is a ww starter.  I saved the other oz in the frig in case I messed up the first oz.  I fed it in the evening and let it set out overnight.  All I can say is it was magical.  The next morning the starter had doubled and was bubbly on top.  I couldn't believe it!  So, I did the same with the other oz and today it had doubled and was bubby.  I put the second one in the frig and decided to try to make bread out of the first.  I tried to go by this web site:  http://www.breadwerx.com/make-50-whole-wheat-sourdough-video/

 

I followed the written directions, but probably should have watched the video first, because I didn't really understand what he meant by the "pre-round".  Sigh.  I think perhaps I over worked the dough.  At any rate, it doesn't seem to have risen as much as it should.  Getting ready to put it in the oven and will let you know how it turns out. 

[windyacres]

My first attempt at baking sourdough bread turned out not so good.  The problem was I cooked it in a Dutch oven with a lid the first 20 minutes, then took the lid off and cooked it until I thought it was done.  Well, it stuck to the bottom and sides of the Dutch oven.  I had to tear it up to get it out.   I have a round cast iron griddle I could have cooked it on, but have no way to cover it during the first half of baking.  Suggestions?

 

The bread actually tastes pretty good, although it is somewhat gummy.