Register

Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

For all refugees from the old Beeb Food Boards :-)
Chill out and chat with the foodie community or swap top tips.
NOTE: CHATTERBOX IS IN THIS FORUM

Moderators: karadekoolaid, THE MOD TEAM, Stokey Sue, Gillthepainter

User avatar
Posts: 3919
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:33 pm

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby scullion » Mon Apr 27, 2020 7:16 pm

ZeroCook wrote:Scullion - fwiu sourdough yeasts aren't location specific - they're particular strains and combinations of lacto bacillus and yeasts found on grains /flour, fruit etc.


they sort of are - having made quite a lot of sourdough over the years i know that they aren't strictly location specific - but the varieties that abound in your kitchen/location/on you are probably in different proportions to those found in the s.f. starter and are likely to colonise your sourdough starter quite quickly, changing the microbial make-up. you may not lose all of the s.f microbes but it will, inevitably, change unless you grow it and divide it in sterile conditions - and only use the same flour/grains etc used by the producers of the s.f starter - which is unlikely.
'the art of fermentation' by sandor ellis katz (page 441) quotes dan leader, from his book 'local breads' who describes this, and showed it by lab analysis on a s.f. starter taken from san francisco to new york and again after four days.

Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2020 11:38 pm

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby ZeroCook » Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:28 pm

scullion wrote:leader, from his book 'local breads' who describes this, and showed it by lab analysis on a s.f. starter taken from san francisco to new york and again after four days.


That's interesting. Four days seems like a really short time for that sort of change to happen. Was he feeding/refreshing every day/sevetal times a day I wonder? And was he using the same flour from the same bag?

Actually, as we're talking particular strains of particular yeasts and - not being a microbiologist - I was thinking the lines of flours and fruit rather than locations. I've seen so many opinions by sourdough bakers and bloggers over the years that believe yeasts are airborne and therefore location specific, which doesn't really make sense if yeasts live on grains and fruit etc. I would have thought that it's what the starters are fed with that changes them - and who knows where the grains in any given bag of flour are grown.

Gill and Suffs were your breads made from apple starter particularly sour?

User avatar
Posts: 1076
Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:16 pm
Location: Greater Manchester

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby smitch » Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:38 pm

Not bread related but we went on a tour of the Cantillon brewery in Brussels last year. They are the last lambic maker in the city and told us a lot about the wild airborne yeasts they use during the brewing process. Their whole set up, including the rooms themselves and the time of year they brew were all designed to optimise the wild yeast productivity.

User avatar
Posts: 6058
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:19 am
Location: East Anglia

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Suffs » Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:47 pm

Mine wasn’t at all sour ... not sweet either despite using honey, whereas the ‘quick yeast’ wholemeal loaf we’ve been making for the past couple of years uses a tablespoon of honey and the flavour has a slight sweetness.

Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2020 11:38 pm

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby ZeroCook » Wed Apr 29, 2020 12:13 am

Thanks Suffs. Wondered, as it wasn't long fermenting which is useful to know if looking for a less sour sourdough. As it were.

Back to the airborne vs flour borne yeast debate it seems that the ongoing debate isn't really a debate as the flour source of yeast is generally accepted and the airborne one is more a romantic flight of fancy. Makes sense of course.
Interesting experiment by a baker on thefreshloaf, plus comments
[url] http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/37259/ ... -yeast/url]

User avatar
Posts: 3919
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:33 pm

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby scullion » Wed Apr 29, 2020 2:04 am

but that isn't the debate here.
the point i made is that the s.f starter is bound to change either from any possible local airborne source or from different strains of microbes in the subsequent flour used to refresh it - unless the original flour is always used.
no-one here is trying to get a starter going from a sterile substrate (and the method used to try to prove the point is hardly scientific).

User avatar
Posts: 3719
Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:53 am
Location: near some lakes

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Gillthepainter » Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:00 am

For me, the colonisation of a leaven can really only be checked thoroughly in a lab.
So debate about the experiences you have, and your reaction to the starter you feed, = an opinion.

So, IMO, if you start a levain with raisins and yoghurt, (it is a different starter to one with just flour and water).
No matter how many refreshes in your own kitchen, it will remain cultivated by those source ingredients, raisins and yoghurt. That is the point after all.

I never told a vegan, that my bread making was vegan because of this source. Even 10 years on, the lactic source of the culture was from yoghurt.
And remained part of the thriving colony.
I don't feel that it was ever superseded and died off. It will have multiplied in there. Keeping it non-vegan.

& I still would not know which was the dominant bacterium in there without lab testing. But the source of yeasts and bacteria would not be diluted.

With the san francisco lactobacillus, I still think it is not a "hoax" as it were.
The isolated culture when you buy it dried, will actively thrive on elseparts in the world.
Still giving the baker that renowned flavour hopefully.
The SF leaven is supposed to have a remarkable flavour. Which I should think will perpetuate on in your yeast culture, even in Cheltenham.
Or Hong Kong or Sydney - I know a baker who's whole blog is based on the SF packet she got.

But is it the dominant? I wouldn't know until I bought it.

It's also stable. Home grown starters have the ability to turn against you without rigorous attention.
But this starter doesn't.

It looks like I'm talking myself into getting a packet doesn't it.

User avatar
Posts: 3719
Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:53 am
Location: near some lakes

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Gillthepainter » Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:11 am

breads made from apple starter particularly sour?


The starter on the window would curdle a sour thing, it was so sour smelling.
But it wasn't passed on to the loaf.
I got a fantastically reactive dough to manipulate. Easily pliable and elastic.

You know when you smell a starter it smells of beer, or pear drops. But taste it and there nothing but water and flour?

The apple water yeast was syrupy, and like cider to taste - sweet too. But this was not present in the final loaf.
It's not apple like, nor that sour, although it is distinctly a sourdough you create. But you'd have to use a rye or dark flour in your bread to get that sour hit.

This is a one off method to get yourself a mountain of breads in a couple of days.
If you are either out of yeast. Or want to see if you can indeed make sourdough bread.

The care and attention of a levain companion forever in the fridge is of course, a different matter.

Posts: 886
Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2020 11:38 pm

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby ZeroCook » Wed Apr 29, 2020 4:44 pm

Gillthepainter wrote:It looks like I'm talking myself into getting a packet doesn't it.


It does! And it will be very interesting to know the results.

Sure, a lab is the only way to get anywhere near a conclusive result and you'd probably have to examine the flour first for what yeast spores are in it - I noticed that someone mentioned possibly destroying enzymes by heating/baking the flour. Tis interesting tho.

My longtime starter gives a pretty sour flavour. Maybe I should should do several refreshes to dilute that down a bit.

User avatar
Posts: 6058
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:19 am
Location: East Anglia

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Suffs » Fri May 01, 2020 12:02 pm

I made another batch of apple water the other day (this time with a dessert apple - Golden Delicious?) and this morning we had a much livelier leaven ... now the dough is having its first prove :thumbsup

The discard has been frozen in golf ball sized knobs.

User avatar
Posts: 3719
Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:53 am
Location: near some lakes

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Gillthepainter » Fri May 01, 2020 1:31 pm

Suffs and her new lively dessert apple starter:

Image

Maybe I should do several refreshes to dilute that down a bit

Or add a bit of honey to your breads. A nice addition to bread sometimes; I particularly like it if I'm having smoked salmon.

User avatar
Posts: 6058
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:19 am
Location: East Anglia

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Suffs » Fri May 01, 2020 2:45 pm

You’ve been peeking through the window Gill. :lol:

User avatar
Posts: 3719
Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:53 am
Location: near some lakes

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Gillthepainter » Fri May 01, 2020 2:49 pm

ha ha ha
I've just taken one of my nuggets out of the freezer to begin the process of making some pittas, Suffs.

User avatar
Posts: 6058
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:19 am
Location: East Anglia

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Suffs » Fri May 01, 2020 4:09 pm

See Gill, you were right ... I have a big cushion ...

IMG_1659.JPG

User avatar
Posts: 3719
Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:53 am
Location: near some lakes

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Gillthepainter » Fri May 01, 2020 4:51 pm

Pillow-y, Suffs.
You could make all sorts of breads & bakes with your skills.

User avatar
Posts: 6058
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:19 am
Location: East Anglia

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Suffs » Fri May 01, 2020 6:19 pm

I don’t know whether I’ve said on here that my paternal grandmother taught me to make bread (and other baking) when I was a child ... probably between the ages of 9 and 12 ... she only came to stay one fortnight a year so it didn’t happen a lot ... but her father had been the village baker in Guilden Morden in Cambridgeshire, and his father before him ... so I’ve never been frightened of yeast cookery etc ... then when my children were growing up I was at home full time helping with the family business so I always made the bread for my family ... I’ve gone back to doing it since I retired. :D. but I have a lot to live up to ... although there’s no one around who’ll remember Gt Gpa Rule’s baking ;)

User avatar
Posts: 1812
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:21 pm

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby aero280 » Fri May 01, 2020 7:33 pm

Those are looking a bit more lively than my sourdough.

I have another loaf about to go in this evening. I always smell my starter before I use it. It's always smelled of beer, but today the main smell was beery, but there was strong hint of pear drops. I wonder if the starter is slowly taking on its own structure, rather than continuing the original yeast?

User avatar
Posts: 3919
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:33 pm

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby scullion » Sat May 02, 2020 10:20 am

my starter always smelled sort of apple-y rather than beer-y.
as my partner is beginning to get concerned over the dwindling yeast (none came in the drop yesterday - neither did bread flour) i'm considering blagging a starter from my daughter or another source who has offered me some of theirs. for some reason he's resisting the pâte fermentée method - which resulted in a decent sourdough taste after a few bakes (i don't think he's a fond of sourdough as i am).

User avatar
Posts: 6058
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:19 am
Location: East Anglia

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Suffs » Sat May 02, 2020 10:30 am

The starter smelled lovely ... just yeasty, not sweet or sour ... quite hard to describe really ... and the bread doesn’t have that really sour taste that some sourdoughs have ... the flavour of the flour really comes through (I used one third strong white and two thirds granary for this bake).

I’ve been looking online at ‘proper’ starters but there seems to be a bit of a run on them at the moment ... has anyone bought from the Lake District place? I was thinking of the European rather than the Californian one they offer.

User avatar
Posts: 6058
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:19 am
Location: East Anglia

Re: Sourdough ... your experience and tips please

Postby Suffs » Sun May 03, 2020 2:27 pm

As no one has said 'avoid the LD sourdough starter like the plague' I've ordered one .......... I've also ordered two sacks of flour organic strong white and wholemeal, to be delivered next week, from a local (and very good) bakery ... https://www.bread-source.co.uk/

PreviousNext

Return to Food Chat & Chatterbox

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 21 guests