Capturing the wild yeasts.
I used the Bien Cuit bread book for the first time and the sourdough rye bread recipe lists two starters, one with sourdough starter and one with a little but of powdered yeast. I am unclear as to whether you are supposed to use one or the other or both! The recipe reads "add the starter" (singular), not the starters (both). I am stymied as to what is the right thing to do. Anyone know?
I was browsing through article on the web about the science of bread and sourdough, in preparation for my upcoming Sourdough Bread Basics course (which I'll be teaching in my home). I wanted something based in science that was understandable and easy to communicate to a variety of people. Some articles are thorough but very technical, while others are too simplistic and skip over some important stuff (leading to more questions).
Since I live near San Francisco (I'm on a small island right across the SF bay) I figure I should be able to get some local wild yeast going. But here are some questions I'm having:
Will any starter eventually pickup the local yeast and become local? I mean if I work with Carl's starter will it eventually become San Francisco starter? or will the original Carl's organisms always prevail over the local wild yeasts?
I have a thick baking steel that I was using for pizza. With pizza, I was looking for very fast bake (like 90 seconds). And where you might go 700F or higher with bricks or stone, I found that going much hotter than 600F with the steel was burning the bottom. So I have this notion (could be wrong) that steel needs to be less hot than stone.
Just watched this.. came in an email from bread mag.. very neat video.. very different type of sourdough.. one more thing on my bucket list.. visiting this bakery..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-UZGT_SfkE
...but the crumb structure is good and it's tasty.
I based this on Sarah Owen's "Honeyed, Spelt and Oat Levain" but the recipe kept on evolving. The three differences are thus:
It was from a $600 cookbook. It was featured in the New York Times. Sounded good. Didn't work out as planned.
