The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Sourdough taste

Troodledoodle's picture
Troodledoodle

Sourdough taste

I've been making sourdough bread for a couple of months now, and got it down to a fine art. I do a no knead bread, which only uses a teaspoon of starter. It's a rye/spelt/einkorn flour mix (I'm not good with wheat), I also add a little honey. The bread has a good rise, keeps beautifully fresh, and is especially good toasted. But. And it's a big but. It leaves such a nasty taste in your mouth. A really sour, almost vomity taste, so much so that you have to brush your teeth after eating the bread,. And this taste gets worse the longer the bread keeps (because the sourdough flavour of the bread definitely grows with keeping, which I believe is normal).

I can't work out why this is, my starter is healthy, not overly acidic, I discard and feed regularly (it's kept in the fridge, which helps control it), and I'm using such a small amount of it per loaf (1 tsp to 500g flour). Is this normal? Is there anything I can do? It's getting almost to the point where I'm ready to give up and go back to yeast. But I really don't want to do that, because there's no doubt that sourdough suits my digestion better. But at the same time, I dread the mouth feel and taste so much that I almost don't want to eat the bread!

Troodledoodle's picture
Troodledoodle

I should add, I feed the starter exclusively with rye flour, if that has any bearing on it......

KathyF's picture
KathyF

The general rule is for more sour, use less starter and rise longer. For less sour, use more starter and rise for a shorter time.

When I make no-knead bread, I use 1/4 cup of starter for one loaf of bread and let it rise overnight for 9 to 12 hours. I have not noticed that it was overly sour.

Troodledoodle's picture
Troodledoodle

About the same, 12 hrs.

KathyF's picture
KathyF

Is your kitchen very warm? That, along with the whole grains could make it over-ferment. Try using very cool water and a shorter fermentation time along with a larger amount of starter.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

especially of you are using whole grains in your breads.  one of the things that keeps the mix from going off is the acidity that the SD culture brings to the mix.  When making a new starter, before the acid in the culture builds up, all the bad wee beasties take over the culture and run wild. But after a few days the good ones that like an acid environment start to take over.

I am wondering with such a wet but not acid environment the bad wee beasties are showing themselves like they so the first few days of  new starter?

When i make a fresh Rye stater for Hamelman's Dark Pumpernickel,you jsut mix whole rye with water and add to it for 2 days and then  toss half and feed it again and then on day 4-5 you make the rye bread. before then the bad wee beasties were in charge.

I think if you up the starter inoculation the problem might go away

Happy baking 

Troodledoodle's picture
Troodledoodle

Wouldn't that make the loaf itself taste bad?

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I thought you said the bread tasted kind of  like vomit?

Troodledoodle's picture
Troodledoodle

Not the bread itself, just the after taste. It's hard to explain!!

rgconner's picture
rgconner

different acids and byproducts.

Lactic acid tastes relatively sweet.

Acetic acid tastes sourbread sour. (white vinegar) 

Stomach acid, aka vomit is hydrochloric acid. More than likely it is the incomplete breakdown of amino acids and proteins that taste bad.

I think the honey is your issue, as my best guess. Giving raw sugar like that is going to make the bacteria go crazy, and by the time the yeast catch up they are crowded out.

Two things I would try:

add a little acid, vinegar to the starter. this will give the good yeast a leg up.

add the honey as late as possible, if you must have it. 

rgconner's picture
rgconner

is going to give the bad beasties a jumpstart, putting the good beasties at a disadvantage.

 

ccsdg's picture
ccsdg

I used to have this exact problem when I was on my first or second starter too, down to the good rise, vomit-inducing sour etc.  My starter today makes mild tasting, barely at all sour bread, and the sour that it does have is pleasant and rich.  I think now that I had not allowed the earlier starters to fully mature before I started making bread with it, even though it was rising regularly.

I am not a sourdough expert.  But you could try what I did - keep the starter on the counter and give it an intense feeding schedule for a few days (eg 3 or 4 times a day) to get the mature beasties more settled and the less mature ones out.  As if simulating the last few days of creating a starter.

Troodledoodle's picture
Troodledoodle

I'll try that, thank you. I'll also try not including honey.

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

You could probably do something like Chad Robertson (Tartine Bread SF).  He uses his starter to produce a leaven a couple of hours prior to mixing.  He does that (if I understand correctly) to have a mild tasting starter.  The younger the leaven (or starter that has been elaborated to produce the quantity of starter you need for your formula - often referred to as leaven) the milder the flavor contribution to the finished product. 

Of course there are other factors that influence the tartness/sourness of a finished loaf but if one is thinking starter and not doing a long cold retard with the dough I think I would try that. 

Troodledoodle's picture
Troodledoodle

I'll try this, thank you! I think I've got a little lazy with my starter feeding, because it sits in the fridge, and so I have only been refreshing it once a week, and not necessarily before making bread. And then, not even measuring out the ingredients properly, and discarding some of the old starter, but just plopping in some flour and water. So perhaps its got far too acidic, and that coupled with the long ferment is creating the problem. 

I've discarded all but 1/4 cup, fed it, and I'll try making a loaf tomorrow, see if that helps things.

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

If you are thinking your starter is sort of "off", make sure your starter is healthy again before you have too much in the way of expectation.  If the loaf doesn't turn out better tomorrow, you might be better off to keep only a few grams of starter and start building it up again. 

ccsdg's picture
ccsdg

Seconding this advice (further to what I said before).  While I was feeding mine more intensely to fix it up, I was also watching it closely to see how it behaved, rather than just counting down the number of days.  In my case I was able to see a change in the starter's texture too (behaved more like dough than glue), and only after that did I consider making bread again.  Good luck!

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Are you sure that your starter is actually producing enough acid to get the pH below 4.0? How do you know?

Troodledoodle's picture
Troodledoodle

Success!! I ditched most of my starter (which hadn't been fed for ten days and didn't smell too good), fed it three times over the course of 36 hrs, and when it seemed really healthy, tried another loaf, this time with cool water and no honey. best loaf ever!!!

KathyF's picture
KathyF

Glad it worked!