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Need help converting baker's yeast recipe to sourdough recipe

taiwan_bake's picture
taiwan_bake

Need help converting baker's yeast recipe to sourdough recipe

Hi bakers,

I want to make the recipe in the following YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqXDQdUUXsw

But I want to convert it to sourdough. 

Does anybody have any suggestions for how to do this?

Taiwan Tom

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

When I get home but just want to say that when converted it will be a different bread. Same ingredients, minus the commercial yeast and using a starter instead, but the final result will be different. It will now be a sourdough which will give it different flavour.

Without taking a look, as youtube doesn't work on the computer i'm on, i'll give you some idea of how i'd go about it.

Well firstly i'd convert the recipe into bakers percentage. I like to work this way but many don't. So flour = 100% etc...

Then i'd have a think what the final result i'd want. Mild or tangy?

Mild = more starter and less fermenting time.

Tangy = less starter and longer fermenting time.

Then i'd take a proportion of the flour + water in the recipe and use 10-30% of the final dough as starter.

That's the basic outline of how i'd go about it. You'd also have to consider the time you'd wish for it to take, how time you've got to spend on it etc.

 

 

taiwan_bake's picture
taiwan_bake

So far, I use the 1-2-3 method and have had a crack at baker's percentages, but I'm fairly inexperienced. The sourdough starter I grew took about 6 hours to double during the spring, but that was when it was about 23~26C outside. Now it's 35~38C, so I don't know how that will affect the growth. 

Yeah, I realize the bread will be different. I just want it to be the same in all ingredients except the sourdough starter. I'm pretty sure I'll like it if I can just get the percentages right.

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

conversion for a mainly white yeast bread. If it has more than a bit of whole grains in it you will want to increase the water since the 1,2,3, is only 71 4% hydration if you use a 100% hydration starter.

Happy Baking  

AlanG's picture
AlanG

http://delectableplanet.com/recipes/whole-grain-caraway-rye  It's 50% WW, 50% Rye by weight.  I just took a glance through Hamelman's chapter on rye breads and the recipes all call for added commercial yeast.  He notes in the preface to the chapter, "When changing formulas from yeasted to naturally leavened, a few things must be kept in mind:  bulk fermentation increases, with a 50% increase being a good rule of thumb, final fermentation takes longer, and bread taste alters slightly, with the finished loaves being more acidic and denser to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the vigor of the culture.

the heat of your kitchen is probably on the very high end according to your note above.  You will have to pay a lot of attention so that you don't over proof.  Your starter will also take off like a rocket because of the WW/rye combination.  I would go with a smaller starter build than suggested by Abe and drop it down to 15-20% of the total flour amount.  I scale at about 700 g/loaf so two loaves will be about 1400 grams total.  With rye and WW you are going to want to be high in terms of hydration.

Overall formula might look like this (Bakers % are in ()): 

  • WW Flour (50) 396 grams
  • Rye Flour (50) 396 grams
  • Water (70) 550 grams
  • Molasses (5) 40 grams
  • Salt (2.4) 18.6 grams

I deleted the olive oil as I only put that in pizza dough and not bread.  You can add it back if you want.  If you are going to do a 20% starter at 100% hydration for the starter, I would use 158.4 g of flour and an equal amount of water at the end of the build.  You would then need to decrease the numbers in the formula above to account for this.

 

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

and it's your lucky day... There is a recipe on breadtopia that is very similar and already done as a sourdough http://breadtopia.com/sourdough-rye-bread/ 

Word of advice: Stick to Molasses and Caraway Seeds and miss out the Aniseed and Fennel (too many seeds make it too strong). Otherwise follow the recipe.

His overnight bulk fermentation is taking into account your kitchen is room temperature and recommends 12-14 hours. So depending on how hot it is where you live then adjust.

 

taiwan_bake's picture
taiwan_bake

That's pretty much exactly the recipe I'm looking for. I'll try that. It would be cool, though, to have some kind of rule-of-thumb for converting quick yeast recipes to sourdough recipes. I guess the best way is using baker's percentages and working from the weight of the wheat. But I always get confused as to how much start should I use, and whether it should be considered a portion of the wheat weight.

So, I'm prepping my starter now. It's a hot summer in Taiwan so I decided to keep the little beasties in my air-conditioned bedroom overnight to let them grow. That recipe has such a long proofing time that I'm gonna have to wait until tomorrow night to get the first proofing started. 

During the proofing, will the air temperature make a difference. At night here the room temp hovers around 34C.

Tom

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

When converting just take some of the total flour and water as the starter like Alan said. There is no steadfast rule of exactly how much. It all depends on the result you are aiming for. 

Less starter will need more time so therefore a longer fermentation and a more flavoursome bread. 

More starter will need less time and will be more mellow.

When converting to sourdough the only thing that will be the same are the ingredients that go into the bread be it in the form of flour, water or starter. So the loaf will have the same raw ingredients just minus the commercial yeast. Some will be starter and the rest as flour and water etc. But results will be different. So all you need to think about is what goal you have in mind and tweak it. If you wish then send me a message and we can go through a recipe or two and I'll explain my ideas and thought process. 

Best of luck for this one. It sounds really warm where you are so watch the fermentation and final proofing carefully and adjust. 

AlanG's picture
AlanG

and should be figured into the overall formula for the bread when calculating bakers %

taiwan_bake's picture
taiwan_bake

I followed the recipe above, and after the 14-hour proofing, the dough was so sticky it was just unworkable. It was like sticking my hands in wet cement. I had to add a lot of flour to get it just to the workable stage. Now it's on its second proof cycle, but it's really not rising very much. Seems that the sourdough starter is working very sluggishly right now.

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

Rye only works well at high hydration. This dough is very sticky but if you follow the video it should be manageable. Flouring the bench and your hands well should make it ok to work with. I wouldn't have added in more flour. 

How did it come out? 

taiwan_bake's picture
taiwan_bake

I watched the video that guy made, and even at his high hydration, he was still able to handle it with ease just after a light dusting with flour. Unless he edited out the video other multiple dustings, it didn't look nearly as sticky as what I got. What I had, literally, became glue on my hand and was impossible to manage even after multiple dustings. I just kept dusting it until it was manageable. 

I just threw it in the oven, will let you know how it turned out in about 45 minutes.

taiwan_bake's picture
taiwan_bake

Probably the worst bread I've ever done. Not sure which of a number of things went wrong. 1.) The yeast didn't fluff it up; 2.) The hydration was just too high at first, it was more of a sticky batter; 3.) I didn't manage to close the seams properly.

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

I've done this recipe twice now and while it is sticky they've both turned out very nice albeit too many seeds that's why I recommended just the caraway. 

When putting the dough together it will be a thick batter. But after stirring and resting 3 times at 15 minutes apart the batter should come together and gel. Will still be sticky though. Then after the bulk fermention just tipping it out onto a well floured bench you should be able to flatten it out just enough to fold with well floured hands. Using the scraper to help if need be. All you need to do is good it then into a well floured banneton for the final rise. I suspect when you added extra flour to make it more dough like then it became too dense and heavy for the yeast to make it rise. I imagine it turned out like a brick. 

Also it is very warm where you are and there's a possibility that it over proofed. 

Have you made rye bread before?