The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Whoo Hoo! It worked!!

theresasc's picture
theresasc

Whoo Hoo! It worked!!

I have been reading up about starters, decided to jump in and find out what it is all about.  I tried doing the 1 Tb. water & flour deal that was on a recent thread but did not have very good luck that way.  Then I read about the pineapple juice starter, so I started up two, one with AP flour and one with WW flour, only I used orange juice instead of pineapple juice.

My starters finally started doubling up after about 11 days, so two days ago I built up the AP for a bake.  I used the 1-2-3 method of determining my starter/water/flour ratios for the bread, and shocking!  it worked!! 

The dough was quite a bit different from what I had been making using a poolish, and I did put it in the frig for about 3 hours after I mixed the dough up.  I then let it warm up and raise at room temperature, doing S&F's along the way.  One of the first things I noticed was that everyone is right, it takes ALOT longer to rise than a dough with commercial yeast.  It finally doubled up and I shaped it and let it raise in a banneton for about 1 -1/2 hours, then slashed and popped into my oven.  The loaf was really ugly coming out of the oven as I still have shaping issues and it seemed that one of my slashes caught up with my seam and blew the side of the loaf out.  Ugly or not, it is tasty!  The bread has a mild but better flavor than my poolish breads.  I thought that the poolish breads have been good, but this has been the best tasting bread, hands down!  I do not quite understand how it can be flavorful and mild at the same time, but there you have it - yummy!  The crumb is very open, a little chewy and the crust has a nice chew to it also.  I did not steam, I am tired of getting burned, so I wet the loaf down with my hands before popping it onto the stone.  Its ugly, but its good.  I feel like one of those old V-8 juice commercials and that I should smack my head and wonder why I did not try a starter sooner!

 

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Duplicate

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

bef0re long your starter will mature and give you an even better leavening quality, more flavor and more sour if you take it that way.

Nice baking!

linder's picture
linder

Welcome to the wild wacky world of sourdough!  Hang on for a wonderful, crazy ride, where there are more great formulas to make and try. 

Congratulations on a great looking bread - love the crumb!  Now for the next adventure--

Linda

Second Cooking's picture
Second Cooking

Looks like a very worthy first try at all natural.  Hope you keep 'em coming.

Take care, Todd 

theresasc's picture
theresasc

for the encouraging comments.  

Loaf number two is on the rise, this time using the whole wheat starter and a mix of 2/3 ap flour and 1/3 ww flour.  It will be intersting to see if the flours behave differently.

Last night I made pancakes out of the jar of dicards - pretty tasty stuff!  I have been tossing both the ap & the whole wheat discards in the same jar, iI figured that it would not matter, they are discards and the pancakes came out eith a very nice flavor.

baybakin's picture
baybakin

Great looking loaf.  Another thing to try with all thoes discards is crackers.  Once you have a batch of home-made crackers, you'll never go back to the store bought!