Sourdough and long fermentation specifically

Grumpysally

Check out Bake with Jack.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTVR5DSxWPpAVI8TzaaXRqQ/videos


I've finally cracked sourdough baking following his methods

Camomile

I'm still learning how to make the sourdough.

I’ve baked with commercial yeast for years but they work a bit different to wild yeast in starter culture.

No expensive equipment needed, I prove my loaves in wicker basket with cloth, oiled and sprinkled with oats/rice flour pyrex bowl and 2 big pyrex measuring jugs. Seems to be working.

I could never understand the levain thing.I keep small amount of starter in the fridge, take it out of the fridge and feed generously in the evening,leave on the worktop, by the morning it’s ready to use. I take most of it out and jar goes back to the fridge.

I know that more starter means more rapid fermentation so I’m able to work my loaves a bit faster.I mixed the dough this morning, shaped at noon at baked in the afternoon.

Apodemus, thanks very much for breadstick suggestion.
I also don’t have so called “discard”because I hate any waste and can’t see much sense in it.

thriftwizard

I'm also still learning. I do do a levain now; at the moment I'm baking once a week. I take the starter out of the fridge the day before & refresh in the morning, then in the evening I make a very sloppy dough (1 cup flour, 1 cup water) and add half of my starter. In the morning that's lovely & bubbly, and I'll add in 2 cups of flour and 1 more of water, leave for half an hour or so, then gently work in the salt. I do some stretching, then shape it, pop it into a mould (currently a metal mixing bowl, but I found a real banneton being sold as a "basket" for £2 on the market today) & it's ready to bake late afternoon. But I'm still working on getting a fluffy crumb; it's not bad but it's not brilliant. A lot better than when I wasn't doing a levain, though.

Hoping to pick up some more tips from my chef friend tomorrow!

thriftwizard

Well, it appears that the levain, done as I was doing it, is actually directly equivalent to a second refresh! And if I get my proportions right - a 1:3:3 refresh, leave for 6 hours, then using 20% of the flour weight of starter for the dough, & rise for 6 hours, all at a steady warm temperature, I shouldn't need to do the leaven. So basically there was too much of a very lively starter in that last loaf for the length of time that I'd let it rise.

I suspect that some of my problems have also been down to not being able to keep the temperature steady enough. There's a lovely warm spot above my floor-mounted combi boiler, which has a small integral storage tank. It's warm enough to dry chillis, dry out corncob husks to be fire-starters, & raise yeasted dough, and I even once kept a live egg viable up there for a couple of days after a fox attack, long enough to pop back under another broody hen; it did hatch. But it's near the door to the garden, and the temperature will plummet when the door's left open, which wouldn't have harmed the egg - broody chickens often leave their eggs for half an hour or so a day, and continually turn them so some move into the warmest spots and others to the cooler bits on the edge of the nest - but probably didn't do my dough any good! And sometimes it's a bit hotter, which will have changed the balance of the micro-organisms in there.

Pondering what to do about it... can't keep it all on top of the BT box, which is often used for raising dough when there's no room above the boiler!

Vanlady

Afternoon everyone,
Grumpysally, I'm also a bake with jack fan.
Pollywollydoodle, thanks for sharing your weekend bakery website - some lovely ideas on there.
Thrift wizard, what's 1.3.3? It all sounds a bit technical.....
So, Friday I gave my starter a good feed. I prefer to use wholemeal flour as I just lurve the spongy starter it produces rather than a gloopy one that I find white flour gives. Although rye is I think the best, I don't have any in at the moment.
I've just made my dough and it is now sitting in its banneton on the kitchen counter, and I'll put it in the fridge in an hour or so and take it out tomorrow morning ready to bake late afternoon when I plan to have a full load going in my oven.

I've found this formula works best for me - 3 cups of strong flour. Today I've used 50/50 white and wholemeal, but recently I've subed a bit with chapatti flour if I need to use some up. 1 and a bit cups of water. And a good dollop of starter, probably about half to 3/4 cup full. Olive oil. About 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of salt. Wheatgerm. Mustard seeds - I use these as I buy big bags of them from the continental shop; half the price of poppy seeds, and don't really taste of mustard and give a nice 'pop ' in the bread.
I use this formula when we're away glamping as i dont have any scales with me. After a bit of autolyse ( we love that word don't we ) I kneaded/stretched and folded. This is the bit I LOVE as it gives me a good idea of consistency and water/flour ratio.......I aim to work on a 70% hydration.....way hey!! New term to work with chums!!! I find this gives the best result for any bread and doesn't produce a dry loaf.
Even though I've been making sourdough bread for about a year; I still feel I'm learning too. It took me at least 6 to 8 months just to get the hang of successfully feeding the starter, and I honestly nearly gave up a few times. But I'm SO glad I didn't. There is nothing more satisfying than making fantastic natural bread from so few ingredients is there:p

Ps you're so right Apodemus - thank goodness were not on the aitkins diet!:D.

thriftwizard

1:3:3 is one part starter to three parts flour & three parts water. It's the ramping-up stage, giving your microbes a moment of "yippee lads, all we could ever want, let's get stuck in!" so they are at peak activity when you want them to raise your dough. I think!

I've probably also been under-hydrating & over-kneading. Off the top of my head, the last few loaves were around the 60% mark - not enough. But the amazing thing is, they were still loads better than supermarket "bread" in both taste & texture!

Camomile

I must say that I don’t measure the starter feed,I just chuck in enough lukewarm water and flour to make a thin paste. I give it quite a bit to munch so it would be enough to be processed overnight, then quick refresh in the morning if it went down.

Thriftwizard, whatever you make home will be always better than shop bought stuff.

thriftmonster

thriftwizard wrote: »

Just baked a batch of savoury overnight-risen rolls; "Khubsa bil Ashab" from Jane Mason's The Book of Buns. Fabulous... although risky; I've eaten 3 already!

There are some other really good recipes in there, if you should chance upon a copy. All recipes can be made with a sourdough starter - she tells you how in the first chapter - and she also gives amounts for fresh yeast, instant yeast & dried yeast for each recipe. My entire family are now hooked on Norwegian Shilling Buns...

I have just ordered this from Ama**n as a used copy as my book purchase of the month (have had to limit myself to one a month )
Looking forward to trying all these on your recommendation.

thriftwizard

I have just ordered this from Ama**n as a used copy as my book purchase of the month (have had to limit myself to one a month )
Looking forward to trying all these on your recommendation.

Hope you like it, thriftmonster! We've loved the Norwegian Skillingsboller and the Khubsa Bil Ashad particularly so far - I suspect I'll be making the latter on a weekly basis for lunchboxes - but there are plenty more to try.

Apodemus

thriftwizard wrote: »

Pondering what to do about it... can't keep it all on top of the BT box, which is often used for raising dough when there's no room above the boiler!

Thriftwizard, I often wonder on threads like this, if we don’t start to over-think it all. I reckon breadmaking has to work in my circumstances rather than me adapting everything to suit an all-demanding monster of my own creation.

For several thousand years people have been making bread across a wide range of latitudes, summer and winter, in palaces and hovels. It’s bread! If today’s doesn’t work as well as I’d like, tomorrow’s might be better.

My sourdough starter lives on the kitchen counter, it’s use and feeding comes and goes. It’s activity (and acidity) varies with how often I use it and the warmth of the kitchen and in turn, the bread varies as well. A lot of the time it wouldn’t win any awards, but it’s bread, it’s edible and almost always better than the supermarket!