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Thank you. I'd really appreciate it!
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Has anybody experimented with sourdough baking?
- Thread starter Winchester
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About getting it sourer, I hear if you use less starter (and no normal yeast), you'll end up with a sourer bread because of the longer fermentation time to get it to rise sufficiently. And vice versa, if it's too sour, start with more starter so it rises faster. I wasn't able to try that theory out myself because my sourdough experiments didn't work out too well. I'm so terrible at sticking to a schedule, one pet is enough for me right now. And everything I made with it made me bloated. I was trying to do a wild sourdough with rye grains and wheat flour, maybe it would have worked out better if I started with an established starter (and regularly fed it once or twice a day instead of um if I remembered).
I did find a great use of the extra starter that will build up in your fridge every time you feed it. Sourdough crackers!! I can't remember exactly the recipe, it was a bunch of butter and then enough flour to make it stiff, dry enough so that when you roll it out you don't even need to flour the cutting board/rolling pin, and whatever spices or seeds you want to throw on a cracker. The sourdough gave them a really savory, almost cheesy tang, they didn't even need a dip/spread/etc.
I did find a great use of the extra starter that will build up in your fridge every time you feed it. Sourdough crackers!! I can't remember exactly the recipe, it was a bunch of butter and then enough flour to make it stiff, dry enough so that when you roll it out you don't even need to flour the cutting board/rolling pin, and whatever spices or seeds you want to throw on a cracker. The sourdough gave them a really savory, almost cheesy tang, they didn't even need a dip/spread/etc.
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- #23
I'll have to look for a recipe for the crackers....I love crackers.
I know that if you start out with your own mixture, it will pick up its own yeasties from the air in your kitchen. And KA says that's true especially if you make a lot of your own bread. The yeasties are still there. But my problem was that I couldn't get it going properly. It was good and the finished bread was good. But not tangy. The sourdough flavoring I got from KA really helped.....you're supposed to add a full tablespoon to your recipe. I started out with a half tablespoon, but will increase it on Sunday when I make the pizza dough.
Once you get it working, then you just keep it in the fridge and a once-weekly feeding is all that's necessary. At least that's what I'm gathering. It took it a while to get it fed properly, but now I just keep the crock in the fridge and it's doing well. I'll feed it on Saturday night and keep it out on the counter for the night, then make my pizza dough on Sunday.
I didn't know that you could just keep the extra starter and add to it....thank you for that! But you'd still have to feed it like your would your regular starter. RIght?
I know that if you start out with your own mixture, it will pick up its own yeasties from the air in your kitchen. And KA says that's true especially if you make a lot of your own bread. The yeasties are still there. But my problem was that I couldn't get it going properly. It was good and the finished bread was good. But not tangy. The sourdough flavoring I got from KA really helped.....you're supposed to add a full tablespoon to your recipe. I started out with a half tablespoon, but will increase it on Sunday when I make the pizza dough.
Once you get it working, then you just keep it in the fridge and a once-weekly feeding is all that's necessary. At least that's what I'm gathering. It took it a while to get it fed properly, but now I just keep the crock in the fridge and it's doing well. I'll feed it on Saturday night and keep it out on the counter for the night, then make my pizza dough on Sunday.
I didn't know that you could just keep the extra starter and add to it....thank you for that! But you'd still have to feed it like your would your regular starter. RIght?
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If you leave the discard starter in the fridge, it's not going to be very active. I would add a couple spoons of new flour every so often if it was in there for a long time, but really since you're not going to be using it as a leavener, it doesn't matter if the beasties make so much acid/alcohol that they pickle themselves.... As long as it still smells good, it's useable. (So no acetone or strongly cheesy smells... if it's bad, you'll know it.)
If you're just waking it up once a week, that might also have an influence on how sour it gets. Every time you refrigerate it, you put some of the species in stasis, and the different stuff growing in there takes a different amount of time to recover from that. I was trying to go completely without refrigerating my main starter, because refrigeration kill off some species entirely. But feeding it every day gets teeeedious.
I was reading a discussion recently debating whether the yeasts and bacteria come from the air or the flour. Supposedly if you start a "wild" starter from scratch and always have saran wrap or similar over it, it'll still get sour, which seems to imply that the stuff in the flour itself is more important. I've also heard that using half rye flour will make a more flavorful sourdough. And changing the wetness changes the flavor, too (wetter starters are "faster" and drier starters are "slower", I can't remember specifically the flavor differences that are associated with each one). So many things you can tweak....
What's in the sourdough flavoring?
If you're just waking it up once a week, that might also have an influence on how sour it gets. Every time you refrigerate it, you put some of the species in stasis, and the different stuff growing in there takes a different amount of time to recover from that. I was trying to go completely without refrigerating my main starter, because refrigeration kill off some species entirely. But feeding it every day gets teeeedious.
I was reading a discussion recently debating whether the yeasts and bacteria come from the air or the flour. Supposedly if you start a "wild" starter from scratch and always have saran wrap or similar over it, it'll still get sour, which seems to imply that the stuff in the flour itself is more important. I've also heard that using half rye flour will make a more flavorful sourdough. And changing the wetness changes the flavor, too (wetter starters are "faster" and drier starters are "slower", I can't remember specifically the flavor differences that are associated with each one). So many things you can tweak....
What's in the sourdough flavoring?
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