Sourdough and long fermentation specifically

[Deleted User]

I have been a long time sourdough baker, I do have periods when I just let the starter go to sleep but it is easy to revive. I am back into a sd phase, it has taken me three days and my starter is ready to climb out of its pot. I feed it with any flour, 00 makes it revive quickly and rye gives it sourness. Over the past few days, I have fed it with four different flours, its a greedy thing and will devour all of them

I also like long fermentation bread, just slow bread, using the fridge. I always use organic flours for all my breads. This can be made with sd or yeast or both

These breads cost a lot in the supermarket and when they say sourdough, well it is often a blob of sourdough in with yeast. Sd and yeast do work well together and you do get the good `explosive` rise but generally I am a purist and don`t put yeast or additives in but you can do

I have the genes and always come back to home baked bread. I do buy sd sometimes but an organic sd 400g spelt loaf was £3.29 last week. I am making a larger sd organic spelt loaf today, it will cost me £1. I have my ways, I use a peel, lame, banneton, cloche and so on but there are ways to get around all of these things

[Deleted User]

Today I have fed my starter with a bit of strong white, spelt, 00 and some peasant heritage flour containing ryes and pea and bean. It already looks as though it wants to get going so I may slow it down in the fridge as I want to bake this afternoon

In one bowl I have a spelt/salt mix, in another a mix of thirds peasant flour, flour with lots of crunchy malt flakes and strong white and salt. Just 500g in each. I will bake both in tins as I want wet doughs and cannot be bothered with the bannetons today. Later I will put water on top of both, lightly mix and leave for half an hour or so. This will give me much tastier bread and it will be easier to handle. Then I will add the same sd to both and basically knead gently, stretch and fold, several times

thriftwizard

Kittie, are you still out there?! Or other experienced sourdough bakers? I've gradually been getting into making proper sourdough, and was thinking today that you can't actually get much more OS. BUT I may have to start investing in some decent kit, as I'd like to make just about all our bread this way, from here on in. It's so much more easily digested, and tastier too, but it's somewhat on the expensive side to buy regularly.

So far I've been winging it with bits I already own; using a smallish metal mixing bowl rather than a banneton or brotform to form the dough, clean linen tea-towels instead of calico liners, a big Le Creuset casserole rather than a stone & cloche, a craft knife rather than a lame etc. etc. My starter's good & so far the loaves have turned out well, and vanished pretty quickly.

So, which bits would you recommend investing in? I'm not, by & large, a gadgety type, but good bread, after all, is the staff of life...

caronc

thriftwizard wrote: »

Kittie, are you still out there?! Or other experienced sourdough bakers? I've gradually been getting into making proper sourdough, and was thinking today that you can't actually get much more OS. BUT I may have to start investing in some decent kit, as I'd like to make just about all our bread this way, from here on in. It's so much more easily digested, and tastier too, but it's somewhat on the expensive side to buy regularly.

So far I've been winging it with bits I already own; using a smallish metal mixing bowl rather than a banneton or brotform to form the dough, clean linen tea-towels instead of calico liners, a big Le Creuset casserole rather than a stone & cloche, a craft knife rather than a lam! etc. etc. My starter's good & so far the loaves have turned out well, and vanished pretty quickly.

So, which bits would you recommend investing in? I'm not, by & large, a gadgety type, but good bread, after all, is the staff of life...

I've been making sourdough for a couple of months now following this guy's method https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=APEavQg8rMw&fbclid=IwAR2B4B08DxN1vEyEBv_MkL5rnHZiq3u3KLOUCSq0zRLK9yjPNM_wHNnNSVo&app=desktop. I use a value plastic mixing bowl to prove, tea towel and cheapie doughscraper from ebay to shape etc. I use a heavy steel casserole to bake in. So far my results have been grand and the only thing I've bought was "cut throat" razor from ebay for £4 to slash the dough with. While I agree good bread is worth the effort I'm not sure special kit makes any difference if you have a robust starter, a bit of tlc and patience:)

thriftwizard

Thanks, caronc, I'm glad someone else out there is just using stuff they already had to hand! Interesting video; he's also using a cast-iron casserole, so it's clearly not a total "only-a-beginner" idea! I like the idea of misting the loaf quickly before popping into the oven & will do that next time. It's also good to see the "folding" & stretching in action, rather than just - written down.

Wraithlady

To be honest, I make rolls from my sourdough for lunches and the only special equipment I have is a non-stick sheet for the baking sheet and a Kenwood chef for making the dough (yes, I could do it by hand but I don't).

caronc

thriftwizard wrote: »

Thanks, caronc, I'm glad someone else out there is just using stuff they already had to hand! Interesting video; he's also using a cast-iron casserole, so it's clearly not a total "only-a-beginner" idea! I like the idea of misting the loaf quickly before popping into the oven & will do that next time. It's also good to see the "folding" & stretching in action, rather than just - written down.

I use a plant sprayer for misting, I had it anyway for spraying clothes while I was ironing and got it from a pound shop. My son's fiancee who got me started just dips her hand in a bowl of water and sprinkles the dough. She gets good results!

thriftwizard

Ooh, I have several plant-sprayers, only a couple of which are being used to spray plants! Nice idea, thanks again!

silverwhistle

I've never had a great deal of success with sourdough; maybe my cultures have never been that vigorous although they certainly worked and I tended to use organic flours.

I try and do long fermentations when I make yeasted bread and often make a starter the day before like last week's ciabatta. For pizzas in my wood fired oven frozen (and defrosted!) dough has worked well to make it really pliable.

In the normal oven a plant sprayer comes in useful (being careful not to use the vinegar one..) but not needed for the wood fired pizzas.


PS: No need for razors for slashing: a fine, well sharpened knife should do. Anyway, not sure I'm to be trusted with such a razor, my legs would end up in a right state. :-)

Vanlady

Hello fellow bakers :wave:
I'm another one who is passionate about making my own bread; both yeasted and sourdough.
I really don't think that special equipment is needed either, I use a plastic bowl to mix, a very sharp knife to slash, a used olive oil spray bottle to mist, another one here with a cheapo scraper from ebay, a jam jar to keep my starter in and an upturned pyRex bowl to use as a Dutch oven.
I was gifted some sourdough starter about 2 years ago. Once I got the hang of feeding it correctly (took me a little while)the penny then dropped for me and now there's no going back. I feed mine 50/50 water flour. I've tried all types of specialised flours but ive found that even the most basic cheap (strong flours) work.
I wholeheartedly agree that the one thing above all to the success of a good sourdough loaf, and indeed for all breads, is time and patience. It takes me about 3 days to produce a sd loaf. ....1 to feed the starter; 1 to mix and knead/ fold the dough, and 1 to bake. I also leave mine in the fridge for 1 or 2 or sometimes 3 nights depending on when I want to bake it.
I find it amazing and shocking at the same time that the supermarkets have jumped on the sourdough bandwagon and charge a hefty price for adding a blob of sourdough to a yeasted dough!
Happy baking everyone !

PollyWollyDoodle

I'm really interested in this, I have recently got into bread making and I sometimes make a starter the night before, or leave the dough in the fridge overnight, but I haven't tried proper sourdough yet.

My brother-in-law makes sourdough bread regularly, and he says that a fermentation jar from L*keland (originally intended for sauerkraut) has given him the best sourdough ever.

I'm not keen on buying loads of equipment unless you're going to use it all the time so it's encouraging to read the comments above. Vanlady do you actually bake the bread under the upturned bowl?