October 6, 2016 - 6:52am
Kosher San Francisco Starter
Hi there, has anyone ever had experience in acquiring a sourdough starter from San Francisco. I'd love to buy, and don't know where to turn! If anyone got a clue, I'd be very greatful!! Thank you
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from making your own.
If you wish for kosher starter but don't wish to make your own then either get some starter from someone who keeps kosher and made their own. And since starter is never cooked and bakeries will be very strict it should only be flour and water then it should be kosher already. After all that (now ask your rabbi about this) a few good feeds only using a little starter each time to inoculate fresh flour and water should be ok.
I initially though you meant a religious kosher but after reading the post I believe you mean a legitimate starter. Am I correct in that?
I have heard you can buy starter from some of the San Fran bakeries but there is not much point as after feeding it a few times the local yeast and LABs will start populating the culture. I was very disappointed when I first heard that but I have come to appreciate the deliciousness of my starter and not worry about it. All the exotic starters from Bulgaria-Timbuctoo,etc are like buying a bouquet of fresh flowers. Enjoy for a short time. The yeast/LABs are present in the flour and in the environment-we do, after all, live in a microbial soup. You can make good SD bread using your own starter. You have to learn the tips and tricks of feeding/keeping it so the bread you make has the tang you want. It is in the feeding/keeping of the starter and the technique used in making the bread.
Have fun
Have some delicious fun
for 35 years. You cannot buy authentic SF sourdough stater from any of the original families because they have an agreement to not share any with anyone under any condition. From what we now know, it doesn't really make any difference because the theory has been updated twice. The first update says that local Yeast and lactobacillus will take over your starter, the second theory claims that the Yeast and lactobacillus that is already on the flour are the ones that develop the new colony (and outgrow then starve out any local competing Yeast) so making your own should yield perfectly fine starters. Keep in mind that the pioneers that cross the US continent developed their starters as they crossed the country slowly so it could not have been a true SF starter because they have not arrived to SF yet. (If the theory that one strain of Yeast is responsible for the flavor and that strain stays the same throughout its life, then what we are calling SF sourdough strain actually came fro New York City. Go Figure.
San Francisco starter being unique has been disproven. The Lab and yeast strains thought to be only present in San Francisco starter has been found all over the world. I believe the "special" sour associated with San Francisco starter started off by being added anyway, i.e. it didn't come from the starter itself. In other words No two starters are the same, even two starters in San Francisco. It's become the stuff of legend. You can make your own starter and control it's sourness by how you maintain it. Sour isn't even sought after by different cultures. The French prefer theirs less sour but that doesn't make their starters any less unique or tasty. You don't have to go for labels. after all sourdough is an ancient way of making bread for thousands of years long before San Francisco appeared on the map.
What is the basis of this belief?
That because everyone wanted more sour that bakers in San Francisco added the sour in. It's more recently they've turned to real sourdough bread. Whether true or not the point is that the sour comes from acetic and lactic acid in the starter which is present in all sourdough starters.
First off, it's tricky.
No one seems to Know exactly what wheat variety was being used circa 1849. Sonora Wheat was widely grown at the time in California and served the needs of Spanish California well. Sonora is low protein (soft) and has met with a difference of opinions when it comes to making sourdough bread from it. This has been discussed on TFL here.
Either way it has to be assumed that Gold Rush sourdough was made using the flour of this wheat using the biga or mother method. The implication is that for any starter to be authentic it would need to be kept sustained with Sonora Wheat flour. I do hear stories about the bread made from Sonora wheat and starter have a delightful smell and taste.
Think I'll get some organic Sonora White and start a starter for sale company with money from a kick-starter account - just thnking about the outrageous claims that can be made for such a starter is plainly staggering...,
Wild-Yeast
Sourdough changes overtime with the flour it's being fed. Two people can make a wheat flour starter and get different starters, depending on many factors. I know myself how a starter changes and reacts to different feeding schedules, flours, temperature etc. I high doubt that those travelling to San Francisco back in the gold rush days had a perfect continuous feeding schedule to maintain this unique starter. It's largely the stuff of legend which would have accompanied something like a gold rush. hat could be better than making your own and eating bread made from that. There are ways to manipulate a starter to make it more or less sour etc (thank you for your tip on my other forum topic).
@Lehem, Like I said; "it's tricky". Using a particular strain of wheat that's been growing in a particular terroir will assume a particular symbiotic form of wild yeasts and LAB bacteria. Most of the papers performed on "SF Sourdough" were on samples from existing bakeries - essentially bearing no proof of authenticity to that which was used before and during the period of the Gold Rush - the strain was already well established in the 17th Century (Sonora Wheat). So your argument of transport is, well, the stuff of bakers who arrived late in the game and decided to make up a story about how proprietary their particular varietal was in order to differentiate their commodity product from that of their competitors. It's not legend it's a made up story to improve one's fortunes in the baking business. Is there a difference in taste between one strain and another? Now that's even more en plus délicate...,
Wild-Yeast
I can think of one San Francisco bakery in operation today for which this may be true.
I, too, have read a LOT about S.F. sourdough and cannot corroborate the belief that area bakeries, apart from the one alluded to above, artificially added sourness. Unless you can cite an authoritative reference for that belief, the known documentation of S.F. sourdough doesn't support it.
Agreed that one entity in particular trades on the lore and legend of gold-rush-era sourdough, immigrant bakers, 100+ year-old starters, "the fog", "the air", "the local yeast", etc., and aggressively manipulates that lore and legend for their own P.R. purposes.
In all likelihood they didn't, yet they used sourdough to leaven their bread and feed themselves. It demonstrates the resilience of sourdough cultures and their ability to survive under less-than-ideal conditions.
Yes they're very resilient. Ive heard of starters being left in the fridge and being revived after a year. I like the fact that they're all unique too. Makes the bread a lot more interesting. My current project is learning how to manipulate my starter to produce different results. Sourdough tends to be more tasty anyway but now I wish for it to work for me and my tastes rather than stumble across a nice loaf. Sourdough journey never ends.
Does anyone actually think that the "microbial soup" that begat the first sourdough culture has not changed immeasurably over time?
My thinking is that no matter how hard we strive to be "authentic" we are severely challenged because we humans have added a pretty big footprint to the earth one way or another. We can certainly try to replicate the taste we remember or what we think our ancestors experienced but I really don't see it being possible.
Does it matter? Some things are imponderable.
The bread we strive to replicate is still being made today in 2016 (I'm thinking of the bread baked for the Tadich Grill). The method is well documented and anyone can utilize it to achieve satisfactory results.
There is no point in overthinking it.