Sourdough and other home made bread of any type ...
 

I just wanted to share with others the absolute joy of giving birth to my very first succesful and completely natural sourdough starter. No shenanigans. No grape peel. No apple peel. A real natural starter with airborne flora after 10 days or so.

I know this boasting is now going to reward me with a complete flop of a first loaf, but we must always get our joy as and when it first comes! I know it's going to end in tearsbut let me just have this moment to savour before I fail miserably. :):(

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Uk1 is there any particular reason you went down the route of growing your own versus taking someone else's (other than the challenge of starting from scratch?)

I've been toying with the idea of jumping on the sourdough bandwagon, but frequent travel means I'm worried I won't be able to feed it enough.

I have bought some starter before but it was a con and totally unnecessary. Let me give you courage. Imagine your own natural grown starter. The article I read debunked everything.

All I did was put a quantity of rye flour into a bowl and added the same quantity of water and mixed it. I put a hotel hair hat over it to keep stuff off but let air in. I did nothing until I saw a bit of action after around .... I dunno .,. about 6 days or so. It started to let off some gasses you could smell. Then I simply added some more flour ...around 50 gms or so and the same amount of water and mixed. From then on, I simply added a bit of both if it looked hungry ie started to quieten after bubbling. I think you could give it a feed and put it in the fridge to sleep a bit when you travel. I reckon it would work a dream. I think the doze would mature and improve flavours and you certainly wouldn't kill it. I've been doing that with my poolish/bigga when making starter for baguettes and pizza and it adds flavour.

All the precise stuff is rubbish. I don't think it is precise at all.

Have a go. It is rewarding. I'm going to let my first loaf mature for a day or two. I'm sure it will tell me when It's ready to be baked. I'm going to use steam.

Many thanks. I'm travelling for a few weeks in October but I think I'll give it a go upon my return. I really do like the taste of sourdough.

I'm intrigued. How do you know that the critters who have taken up residence in there aren't poisonous/going to make you sick? Or is that not even a concern and I should stop being silly?

What do you do to turn this starter into bread?

Awesome. Please send me some bread. :)


Nothing better then hot sourdough bread with butter.

See this for an explanation.

It is exactly like yeast. It just starts to bubble and expand. It produces a slightly sour smell. Adding quantity to the flour to make bread is just trial and error at first, but basically the less you add the longer it takes to rise and therefore it produces greater flavour. Obviously baking stops and kills the little critters! :D

I tried some of the other methods using grapes or apples but it always ended in tears. I also use to seed the starter with a few grains of yeast but it isn't the same. I still do that (before this starter) if I'm having some pizza in a few days. Starting from scratch with just flour and water and being patient has been really easy. I'm surprised that so much myth has surrounded it.

Obviously I still haven't actually produced a loaf yet, but things are looking pretty good!

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Nice!

I have a culture that sadly just died due to neglect (blame a holiday in Sri Lanka). But I think it's time to start up a new one along your lines - that kilner jar is looking rather lonely.

If it helps, this recipe has done me really well:

The 150/190/150 mix gives a really nice texture - but the it's up to you how close or consistent you like it (I know a lot of people prefer sourdough to have a much more open texture!)

Thanks.

Can you just explain the quantities please? Is that starter or bread? I'm having some trouble remembering flour to water hydration rates for my bread!

I have a box on the garage with kilners, but with the benefit of hindsight, isn't a pyrex bowl with hotel hat better? It's about surface area exposure to natural flora?

Ta.

Sorry, missed a key line when I was c&p-ing...

150/190/150 is the ratio of starter/water/flour when you refresh - the actual values depend on the amount of starter you are actually refreshing (which could be all of it if you're not baking).

You refresh the whole lot each time, adding new flour and water (well, you can throw some out, but adding refreshed sourdough to dormant sourdough doesn't really work). You then take the 290g sponge (or whatever factor of that) you need for a batch, and replace the rest in the fridge.

I'd say that for an established sourdough, a kilner jar is a good option. You want to keep it as dormant as possible while it's between bakes/refreshes, so it should be sealed and in the fridge - otherwise you risk it producing too much alcohol and killing itself. But you also don't want it to explode/buckle, which is a risk with Lock & Lock. It'll generally keep for 3 weeks like that - but it's worth draining off the fluid as it appears. After 3 weeks you need a refresh.

The pain de campagne from that recipe is delicious - the little bit of rye flour gives an extra dimension to the flavour without making the dough unworkable. It does need a proving basket, however (unless you're using a tin) as the dough isn't strong enough to self-support.

Thanks for your efforts!

I can see a number of 150/190/150 ie 490 and then a number of 290 sponge. I'm confused.

I bought the baskets, but I'm afraid that I got in a real mess and they are also in the garage. I'll try again.

The 150/190/150 is just a ratio - but the idea in that case would be that you create 490g refreshing dough. After 12h, you take the 290g sponge, and put the remaining 200g back in the jar. If you don't have some left over, you won't have any left for next time!

Then you have 200g left over, and can choose, when you're refreshing, whether you want to refresh 150g next time, or use the 200g, match it with 200g flour, and up it to 253(ish)g water. And your sourdough quantity would keep growing...

If you get in a mess with the baskets (I've got some compressed fibre ones that work great, and are only slightly reminiscent of hospital sick buckets) remember that rubbing flour in will pretty much always get any mess out...

OP, I's like to congratulate you on that gorgeous starter! I have always been afraid to attempt my own. I keep having visions of the detritus that will end up in the starter no matter how carefully I cover the bowl. You'll let us know how the bread comes out? Please?

While I am very much a fan of all kinds of hot bread (with butter) and sourdough is extra special there is something better. I wanted to be clever and insert a link but I can't find one...I know that my little hometown in Italy can't be the only place that makes this.

It's bread with fatback. You chop up the fatback and render it down until most of the fat is gone and pretty much only the crispy pork remains. You then mix that lovingly and thoroughly into a lump of French bread dough then bake until the loaf is golden and as tall as an Easter hat. Hot out of the oven this bread is pure bliss.

But nowhere near as pretty as a fresh loaf of sourdough (or the OP's starter :))

Thanks!

Hi this was the first one. I used a loaf tin purely because I had over hydrated and I wanted it to be more than a flatbread.

:D

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...CC2D4B0D23.jpg

My question had been answered ... I missed it.

I find - particularly when using sticky rye flours - that rubbing linen liners with corn flour before giving it the usual dusting of rye or wheat flour will effectively stop the proving (sp?) dough from bonding with the cloth.

I have a couple of oval cane baskets (same trick works with them), but lining a colander/strainer works fine for when I want a round loaf.

My absolute favourite flour for bread making (rarely use fresh yeast anymore, sourdough all the way) is from Cann Mills, Stoate & Sons. This in particular:
http://www.bigbarn.co.uk/marketplace...1477~cann-mill
Sensational.

It looks great...

How did it taste?

Thanks.

I'm really pleased to have produced my very first loaf without yeast but it was too dense and too sour. Not really edible. Today's one looks better. I retarded it overnight in the fridge and hoping to have it today with pasta. I guess it was a good sign that I needed to retard it.

Good luck! Hope your culture works out.

I think to attempt this is super brave and to be applauded. I have thought about making standard bread... seeing this might be the impetus I need to get started.

OP, that is one gorgeous loaf of bread. I wonder, since you say it's "too" dense and sour, if you don't enjoy eating it out of hand maybe it would be good for stuffing?

You've thrown down the gauntlet (oven mitt?) Now I want to bake bread this weekend.

2nd loaf. Still too high hydration so had to use a tin again. Rotten shape but that is life! I could pretend I intended it that way. :D

The bread was really good although a touch more sour than I expected. I did however allow it to prove for around 30 hours or so.

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...ED2CBE8166.jpg

Thanks OP, this is fun...like a chemistry experiment diary. The daily loaf. That interior looks nice and moist.

Don't worry about the appearance. In today's world of "tablescapes" and morsels placed just so with "eat me" drizzled in sauce on the plate it's easy to get caught up in appearances. As long as it's tasty :).

Oh, how I want a nice hot loaf of sourdough. Nothing good in my neighborhood.

I bet that tasted good with a nice layer of butter!

I know that I am a boring fart, but all I wanted to do was to make a loaf of bread without using a rising agent. It basically became a war of wills. The sourdough starters I'd tried so many times and it always ended in tears. So I just wanted to make one loaf from a sourdough starter I'd made. I think it's prime-evil. Like rubbing two twigs together to make a fire. Which I have in fact never done.

Now I have (the bread not the twigs), I have concluded what I think I always knew. I don't like most sourdough. It's sour.

So I have gone back to a method that I devised for myself when sourdough had failed every time - but produces for me a bread of really good character and taste and a depth and personality and is also so much more easier. Basically I make a poolish / biga starter. I just seed some flour and water with a few grains of yeast and allow it to mature and bubble for two or three days or so and use that. It is allowing that time that adds the flavour and depth. It is a compromise, but a compromise which gives a result that I prefer.

It gives personality and depth of flavour - and produces ciabatta, focaccia, baguettes, pizza and I even use it for bagels - and is an easier less demanding child than sourdough and gives in my view and to my taste a better bit of bread.

Does anyone else regularly (often) bake or even think about bread any more?

I was a bit suprised that more than one person was interested in sourdough and I am sorry if I have let anyone down by this drawing of a line.

:eek: :)

You shouldn't have given up so quickly. I am not surprised that your bread was too sour when you leave it to prove fo 30 hours. - I have been baking sourdough bread for 8 years now because I was fed up with the so-called bread from the local supermarkets; there are no independent bakeries where I live. I have even stopped bringing back bread from trips to Germany. - I leave my bread to prove up to 24 hours, sometimes only for 16 hours. The shorter proving times will result in a milder less sour bread. You could also add some wheat flour instead of baking a plain rye bread. To have some variety I also like to bake wheat bread with a wheat sourdough.

TomUK

+1

Rye is extremely tricky. I used to keep two sourdough starters - a rye one and a wheat flour one, but rye ferments on a completely different timescale to wheat. I don't bother with the rye sourdough starter anymore - too needy. Also, I find the process for making breads with rye COMPLETELY different to those with wheat.

I also think the OP gave up too soon.

Also, my kitchen worksurface always suffers from the extreme stickiness of rye... That's why I go for the white-with-a-little-rye approach.

uk1, don't give up. I wouldn't do more than a 12h refresh and 4h prove with sourdough - you just need to plan the timings around when you're going to be available to do the kneading and stretching. It's definitely worth persisting.

Thanks for the responses. Sorry if my post lacked clarity. It is nothing at all to do with giving up.

I seeded the starter with rye but fed it then onwards with wheat. I only made wheat loaves not rye loaves. I actually don't like most purchased sourdough bread, and this is only slightly sourer. I simply wanted the challenge.

I enjoy the pseudo sour I normally make using my hybrid poolish/biga sponge starter. It has almost the character of sourdough but less sour. It is more a traditional baguette/compagne result in the steam approach I use. It isn't a matter of giving up as I achieved what I wanted to do and that is simply making a couple of loaves without using yeast to see if I could as I'd failed before. I never intended it to be a daily thing as I prefer all of the wide range of other breads I make. I mostly make pretty decent authentic baguettes.

Thanks.

:)

Just MHO, but I don't believe a sourdough should be more than very slightly sour (the 'sour' in the name refers to the starter, not to the loaf).

It's also worth experimenting with different recipes for different styles of loaf. All down to preference, really - if you like sourdough bread to have an open texture (rather like ciabatta) you obviously need a looser dough. Thing is, that makes the dough significantly harder to work with, especially if you're doing it manually.

It's also worth researching stretch & fold and boule-forming techniques if that's something you don't do with poolish methods (it's more important with sourdough). The former gives (IME) much better results when you're knocking back than either just tapping or kneading - that little extra texture in the dough. The latter is key if you want a non-tin loaf - you seriously need to get that surface tension to keep the dough in the right shape (even with a proving basket). Gives a better crust, too...

Quite right.

I even find Poiline and Gails a touch to sour or whatever word you'd prefer. I am a sucker for flour experimentation and I must have around 20 different flours open at the moment. It's a bit of a waste of time trying to convince someone to like something they aren't particularly bothered about.

Envelope folding and using the square rising boxes above are two of the key reasons why the baguettes are my favourite daily bake. The folding is key when using higher hydration. Baguettes are still my preferred daily loaf. Sometimes morning and evening.

:)

Ah, Poilane. So overpriced!

I do like Gails, although that's partly because it's available on Ocado...

Before they opened in the UK, I had some Poilane overnighted from Paris at some considerable cost. The problem was that the driver was a smoker and he delivered the bread absolutely full of stale tobaco. I think the loaf of bread cost me nearly £40 and it was binned.

I had a mate who is a real sourdough nut taste my final loaf and he pronounced it better than Gails except it's shape and I'm happy it was a reasoanbly optimal example. Much of my cooking is simply time wasting ie perfecting or trying something for the sake of it, and this was that. I spent a couple of years on batters for example and other deep frying .....:D

I think they great discovery from a bread viewpoint is how easy it is for those that travelled to France a generation or so ago and yearn for proper bread they use to eat when it was fully prepared in bakery - and how much easier it is tahn they probably think to recreate that in the kitchen. Poolish, small amount of rye, envelope folding, and steam. The other thing is the simplicty of making real home made pizza which as we all know is about the base and not the topping which is less is more.

Everyone knows the secret of good pizza is in the sauce.

I strongly disagree that it dies in 3 weeks. We can go 1-2 months at times without waking our 25 year old starter. Seal it in the fridge. When you want to use it, take it out 1 day in advance. Mix it AND ALL THE LIQUID on top with a ratio of 1 cup water to 1 cup bread flour. Feed it twice a day until you want to use it. When it is awake, the starter makes a great base for pancakes as well.

Best bread I've ever tried in the UK was from the Flint Owl Bakery in Lewes (the reason I got turned on to the Stoates & Sons flour from Cann Mills). In London, hands down favourite sourdough is from Fabrique next to Hoxton Station. I can get good results from the same Shipton Mill flour they use there. However, they really bring out this wonderful "creamy" quality the flour has much better than I can.