Bread Flour

tastyhog

Clowance said:

wow amazing bread. We had a go at making sourdough starter last week,bubbled at first then went dormant/dead with nothing happening for a week. We fed it twice daily with organic flour and tap water and kept on top of boiler for warmth. Any idea what we did wrong?

Its normal for it to go 'dead' anytime in the first week or more, it's a 'false start' in that the activity you see early on is mainly from bad bacteria, it goes dead or activity slows when the yeasts and lactobacilli make the starter more acidic and other microbes that can't survive in it die off, things going dead are a good sign your 'colony' is becoming established and healthy, the activity will then rise when the yeasts and lactobacilli get more established. 

But don't discard / feed so often, its not needed and actually works against you, you're halving your 'colony' each time, and if you're doing it twice a day your starter is being diluted by more than it can reasonable expand before you're discarding again. 

For the first 3 or 4 days just add, don't discard, start with 25g flour / water, add the same for the next 3 days, you should build activity quicker, some will be from more 'bad' microbes, but your yeasts and Lactobacillus be more established. 

Day 5 you'll have about 200g starter, 'discard' down to 50g and add 25g of flour & water

Do day 5 over for each day until you see a noticeable rise and fall, or if the starter gets an alcohol smell, that tells you it's not getting enough food

You can then do the normal daily 1:1:1 feeding / discarding, I tend to go with 50g of starter / flour / water
Carry that on until you get a reliable rise and fall, it doesn't have to double at any time, mine only really doubles when I reduce the water content or use a higher protein flour.

Once your starter is established and working to make bread you can just keep 50g in the fridge and take it out to 'feed' it the night before you bake, I 'feed' it 75g of flour & 50g of water, which gives 125g to bake with and then 50g to store again, so you don't waste things by discarding each day, the 'ratios' are off a tad, but it makes zero difference to making a loaf, and it shows me better when it's at its peak for use

Of course if you bake more or more often you can keep more, or do the daily feed / discarding thing. 

carly

Does anyone have a foolproof way of making their own  sourdough starter. ?  My own starter died after being neglected whilst I was locked down away from home.  I have seen several methods online but most seem to have variable and unreliable results.  Thanks

lexihayes

My tesco's was full of it earlier today! I should have picked some up for you 

Bacman

Yes, you can can make bread with all-purpose flour or supermarket own-brand bread flour; I have tried variations - however the bread is chewier, sticks to the top of your mouth a bit and also has a slightly strange taste compared to quality strong bread flour. I bake my own bread a few times a month.

Nargleblast

I made a sponge cake today using white chapati flour (with baking powder added) as an experiment - and it worked! The cake rose ok, and tastes fine. It won't win any prizes in a WI baking competition, being slightly coarser in texture than a cake made with superfine flour,  but it's good enough for a family afternoon tea.  I think it would make a decent fruit cake as well. I made a successful wholemeal loaf with wholemeal chapati flour as well, so for me those 5kg/10kg bags are a good investment, especially if flour again becomes difficult to obtain.

Bacman

It will be heavier as the flour is not fine enough.
If you want to convert plain flour to self-raising, you got half of it right - to each 150g plain flour add 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda. Technically, bicarb of soda is actually baking powder with a little vinegar added, which is what activates the ingredient (eg 2/3 tsp lemon or lime juice, or cider/white or red wine vinegar).

Emily_Joy

If you want to convert plain flour to self-raising, you got half of it right - to each 150g plain flour add 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda. Technically, bicarb of soda is actually baking powder with a little vinegar added, which is what activates the ingredient (eg 2/3 tsp lemon or lime juice, or cider/white or red wine vinegar).

It's another way round - baking powder is bicarbonate of soda with a small amount of acid, such as lemon juice of vinegar added.

SadieO

Nargleblast said:

I made a sponge cake today using white chapati flour (with baking powder added) as an experiment - and it worked! The cake rose ok, and tastes fine. It won't win any prizes in a WI baking competition, being slightly coarser in texture than a cake made with superfine flour,  but it's good enough for a family afternoon tea.  I think it would make a decent fruit cake as well. I made a successful wholemeal loaf with wholemeal chapati flour as well, so for me those 5kg/10kg bags are a good investment, especially if flour again becomes difficult to obtain.

I just bought a 5kg bag of chapati flour from Tesco for £3. I am looking forward to trying it out. Apart from the odd tray of flapjacks I'd never really baked before lockdown so I am still a novice. I'd certainly never made bread before but I've made a few loaves now. Plus the obligatory lockdown banana bread/muffins! Fortunately my husband will eat pretty much anything so my experiments (none of which have been disastrous, thankfully) are never wasted! I quite like the idea of sticking to home-made bread in the future, whether I will feel I have the time when I'm back at work is another question. I am still working at the moment but from home, so it's easy to time my work breaks with my proving etc. (Not to mention popping on here for inspiration  )

Emily_Joy

tastyhog said:

Once your starter is established and working to make bread you can just keep 50g in the fridge and take it out to 'feed' it the night before you bake, I 'feed' it 75g of flour & 50g of water, which gives 125g to bake with and then 50g to store again, so you don't waste things by discarding each day, the 'ratios' are off a tad, but it makes zero difference to making a loaf, and it shows me better when it's at its peak for use

That's quite a bit of useful information, thanks! May I ask how much flour/water do you add to 125g of starter for baking and for how long do you leave the loaf to rise?

molerat

Asda had a full selection of yeast for the first time since lockdown.  Still no wholemeal and sparse stock of white bread flour though.