December 4, 2013 - 1:40pm
New member question on San Joaquin Sourdough
I am new to this group and would like to try this sourdough recipe but i have a few questions from a novice. I have been making Italian bread only and have just started using a Biga and the results are good so now to try this. I see the recipe but it calls for Liquid Levain? I am making a starter from scratch using peter reinharts method whole wheat flour with pineapple juice and it's been a couple of days not there yet but still waiting. Being a home baker i don't understand bakers percentages but i can convert the recipe from grams. I use a Bosch universal mixer and i have figured out the window pane technique finally was never kneading enough hence a heavy loaf but much better now. So any help you could give a newbie would be great.
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jafwiz:
I've made several attempts at SJSD and have had fair success. It is a high hydration dough and thus is very slack ... not sure you'll be able to windowpane test this if you follow the recipe and use all of the water called for in the instructions. With that said gluten development is pretty important in this recipe ... stretch and fold is something you might want to learn. I suppose another possibility would be to reduce the hydration ... dunno.
When your sourdough starter can regularly double in something less than 12 hours it will probably be ready for use ... (I could be wrong, I'm still learning). Suggest you dredge around for Dave Snyder's posts on how he feeds his starter, etc. Will definitely help.
I use a 100% hyrdated starter, flours are unbleached AP, rye, and WW (50%:25%:25%), although if it comes out on the slack side I tend to add a bit of flour to stiffen it up.
Keep us posted.
-Dave
When you say 100% hydrated what does that mean? 50%all purpose 25% rye 25% whole wheat how much water?
100% hydrated means equal parts in weight of flour and water. So if you have 100g of flour, then you would have 100g of water also.
Hydration is the ratio, by mass, of water to flour. So, 100g water:100g flour = 1, in percent that is 100%.
As far as the mixture of flour I use to feed my starter, if I was going to feed it 100g of flour, I would mix 50g unbleached all purpose flour with 25g of rye flour and 25g of whole wheat flour. To achieve 100% hydration I would then add 100g water.
one that I baked after joining the fresh loaf! You have chosen wisely. If you can make that bread then you can make just about any of them:-) Keep at it and follow David's easy to follow directions completely - any questions just ask. Your starter will be ready to bake with it in about 2-3 weeks if you get it to take.
Happy baking,