I am interested in trying some sourdough oat bread using steel cut oats.  I want to either add them raw in an overnight soaker or  cooked when I mix the final dough.  Any thoughts about the relative merits of these approaches?

Presumably I will need to add more water than usual in the soaker if I add them raw, as it sounds like they take up a lot of liquid.

I have two loaves proofing in my fridge right now.  I've heard that I can go directly from fridge to oven.

Questions:  How would I do that.  I normally bake a 2.5 pound loaf (78% hydration) en Cloche for 45 minutes at 425, 20 covered and 25 uncovered.

Do I modify the time?  Do I modify the temp?

Any insights and suggestions would be very helpful.

Thanks,

Thane

I was so proud to be baking good sourdough bread here in Italy, having figured out the flour, made a starter from local flour, and gotten the steaming and baking up to snuff. (Well, I had baked three days in a row successfully after 5 days of making my starter.) Then my starter started looking dead. Not grey, just white and lying there like a slug. Asleep. I put it in a warmer place, as it's been very cold here. No luck. I found a Peter Reinhart link that said to add pineapple juice if you had used pineapple to start the starter. I hadn't, but I did it anyway (to half the starter). The other half, I have been stirring a lot, another of his suggestions.

It seems that a rogue bacteria can get in that makes bubbles but suppresses the natural yeasts. I suppose that's what I've got. Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Patricia

I am in charge of a 150th anniversary celebration of a church cookbook that includes several "light biscuit" and "roll" recipes using a yeast starter. The recipe for starter given in the cookbook involves hops (difficult for me to find). I'm wondering if I could use the mother starter (barm)  from Peter Reinhart's BBA that I keep on hand in place of the "yeast" called for in the two recipes below:

"Light Biscuit"

1 quart warm milk

3/4 c lard and butter mixed

3/4 c yeast

2 T sugar

1 t salt

flour to make a soft dough

The dough sits overnight and is then rolled, cut, and risen again before baking.

"Rolls"

Pint scalded and cooled milk

1/2 c yeast or 1/3 cake compressed yeast (Anyone have an idea how many ounces a 19th century yeast cake had?)

1 T sugar

a little salt

butter the size of an egg

1 quart flour

The dough "stands until light" and then is kneaded with additional flour (for half an hour!). It rises again, is rolled, cut into rounds that are folded into halves (sounds a bit like Parker House rolls).

Many thanks for any advice!

I am curious, as to why I have to throw out perfectly good starter in the feeding process. If I start out small enough, (I don't have to start with a cup of flour and one of water), could I not just feed it, adding to the starter and not throwing any out, at all?  I know that I will have massive amounts of starter, but, I am planning on making massive amounts of bread. My sisters and I will be baking all day long. I guess we plan on using up all the starter during our bread baking marathon. We have a large family, and they love our bread. We like being frugal and can't stand the thought of throwing something good out. Can anyone help us understand why we have to throw out the starter as we feed it? If it is thrown out due to the subsequent feedings creating a large volume, that is okay with us to have. We will use it up quickly.  Help!

Hello.

Have anybody ever used sekowa backferment on his/her loafs?

Is a special ferment made out of cereal, peas, and honey. I think the product is  german but I am not  sure of it. It is related to biodynamic agriculture and baking.

I write you because I am trying these days to make one of my own. I am interested in any experience you might have had with the sekowa and specially any information wich could help me to get a good result on my experiment.

Thank you!

Hi all:

I just finished baking an extended fermentation, 3-build, 25% WW, 25% rye, 50% Bread Flour this morning.  VERY happy with the outcome. 

Hour 0:

1/4 cup ripe starter

1/4 cup water

1/3 cup rye flour

1/3 cup WW flour

Hour 16-24:

All of Section 1 product (about 8 ounces)

8 ounces of water

8 ounces of rye flour

8 ounces of WW flour

Hour 40 to 48:

All of Section 2 product (32 ounces)

32 ounces of Bread Flour

22 ounces of water

1.5 tablespoons salt

1-1.5 tablespoon caraway (to taste)

Combine Section 2 product and water.  Mix well, whisking until frothy with air.  Add Bread Flour, salt and caraway.

Knead for 5 minutes (will be pretty sticky)

Autolyse for 20 minutes

Knead for another 3 minutes.

Bulk ferment until doubled (2-3 hours)

Divide into two 43 ounce portions.

Shape and proof (1.5 to 2 hours)

Bake en Cloche at 425 for 50 minutes, 23 covered, and 27 uncovered.

Hi all.  I finally got my starter going and this is the first sourdough loaf I baked (last week).  Very happy with how it turned out.  Looks quite a bit like the Desem that was posted a few months ago.  Thanks all for your advice on getting my starter going.

This was a basic lean recipe.

33 ounces WW (King Aurthur)  (100%)

24 ounces water  (73%)

1 tablespoon salt

8 ounces happy, well fed white starter (50% hydration) (25%)

Total = 198%

Mix water and starter with whisk until well combined and frothy.  Add flour and salt.

Knead for 5 minutes.

Autolyse for 10 minutes

Knead another 2 minutes

Allow to ferment at 62 degrees for 20 hours.

Divide in half for 2 two-pound loaves.

Fold, shape and ferment another 6-8 hours, folding 3-4 times.

Proof for 2-3 hours until nearly doubled.

Bake en Cloche at 425 for 45 minutes, 20 covered and 25 uncovered.

Thank you ALL for being such a great resource.  I've baked straight dough for several years, but now that I've found TFL, I am absolutely smitten with extended ferments and growing my own sourdough bugs.  TFL is such an awesome place.

I have read about the benefits of retarding dough during bulk fermentation in order to prolong that fermentation and thereby enhance flavor, about the signs of over fermentation, and about how longer fermentation is generally better for flavor than shorter or rushed fermentation.  I haven't been able to find any clearly stated way to determine when the bulk fermentation has peaked though.  For sourdough, how can I tell that I better get busy because my dough will soon be heading over the line?  Is it as simple as waiting for the dough to (roughly) double in volume?

How are these signs impacted by the composition of the dough?  Are the signs the same for (all other things being equal) a 30% rye/70% white AP dough as they are for a 100% white AP or a 100% whole wheat dough, and if not, how are they different?

Hello all! I've been lurking here for quite sometime. I'm fairly new to all this bread making 'obsession'. I say obsession because six months ago I went from buying a used bread machine to giving it way and buying my first heavy duty stand mixer and baking bread everyday! 

I've hesitated jumping in and asking yet 'another' sourdough question for fear of sounding redundant. But I've searched everywhere for the answer to this question and I still do not see it.

I got me one of those San Francisco sourdough starter kits a while back and it did exactly what it was suppose to do, I made a couple of very good loafs with that starter. However, being the uneducated bread baker wanna be that I am. I successfully killed it.

Wanting to try one more time at the sourdough starter, I purchased another starter. It is doing what the first did with the bubbling and aroma, but not the rise. It looks good, smells good but even the cup that I remove produced a dead glob of dough. How can it look good in the jar, with the bubbles and looking all spongy but produces nothing? 

I hope someone can help me, thank you in advance for you time. I have learned so much and I'm sure now that I've broken the ice you will see much more of me. Sorry for the long windiness of this post.

Virginia