When an accomplished baker sits down to write a new sourdough formula, why does he or she choose a liquid starter, or choose a firm starter? 

Susan from San Diego

I did the final build on a batch of sourdough last night from my 100% hydration starter.  Component calculations were done with JMonkey's Excel spreadsheet (thank you!), and for reference here's my batch build:

100% Hydration Starter:  810g (used two expansions from initial 50g)

50/50 KAF AP & KAF Bread Flour:  987g

Water:  643g

Salt: 20g

I mixed it all briefly leaving aside the salt, and set it aside to autolyse (is that word a verb or a noun?) for 30 minutes before going on with kneading.  The dough was extremely wet and sticky even after nearly 20 minutes of "wet dough stretch and fold" (as best I could) modeled on Bertinet's wet dough video.  The dough just would not come together, and I decided it was time to put it down for fermentation.  I planned to give it several more stretch and folds as it fermented. 

Then I noticed I had left out the salt!  I put the dough back on the slab, stretched it out and sprinkled the salt over it, folded it up and started working again.  The dough came together within just a few strokes, and matured rapidly into a very nice ball of tackey but silkey smooth dough that was easy to form up.

This is not explained by anything I've read so far about the actions of salt in dough.  Did this have anything to do with the salt, or was it because of the few minutes of rest the dough got as I was washing my bowl for fermentation?

Thank you!

OldWoodenSpoon

Well I jumped in and used my new starter, made some sourdough English Muffins this morning. I followed the recipe here (sorry I don’t remember off the top of my head who to credit) and they turned out great. I was a bit worried after shaping and letting ferment for 45min before cooking. They hadn’t showed much growth, but man did they spring to life when I put them on the griddle. B-E-utiful looks just like the ones in the recipe, and taste,,,,, better then any I have ever had before. Anyhow thanks to all for your contributions to this sight. Next up is a loaf of real bread and I think I will be trying some sourdough pancakes this weekend, can’t wait. 

Hello again from hot AZ.  I mixed 2 loaves of SD Bread yesterday. Had a perfect window pane test. Left over night 12-14 hours . Very hot in the room I would say close to  about 90 - 95 degrees.  This am the bread had rose perfectly except the out side crust was almost as if i had baked  for a few minutes in the oven. Was this caused by the exreme heat ?   Was a wasted of dough but I am well used to that. Bird did not get these two.

Have a nice day

Mr Bob

Hi!   My name is Arie and I'm a breadoholoic..

I'm lurking around this board for a short while. Very interesting and tons of experienced people around here (and exceptionally civilized too :)..

I started baking bread over 30 years ago. I have no training and when I started this there was no Internet message boards to learn from.. ) 

I learned by trial and error (lots of those) and developed a couple of recipes which I liked. 

After moving to the San Francisco area I fell in love with sourdough dread and started to play with it, again from scratch, by trial and error. 

I ended up with a great recipe which I and all my family and friends really like. 

more and more people were asking me for the recipe, and I ended up posting it on my website (http://litman.com/food/bread.html )..

After reading this board for a while I realized that I am using the wrong terminology, and the process I follow is very different from traditional sourdough bread. But, I am baking this bread for over 10 years and I like it the way it is. 

Another Hobie of mine is beer, which I consider Bread in a liquid state.. in the past year I started to combine techniques and ingredients which make both bread and beer more exciting. 

I used my sourdough  starter to brew beer (I call it sourdough beer) and I use wort or DME (malt extract) for add to the dough.. And sometime I use malted barley as a crunchy topping on my bread.

I want to thank you for this great board and I hope to be able to contribute to the discussion.

Arie

Ok, I’m a newbie here, so a little back ground is in order. I’ve tried to get a sourdough starter going three or four times in the past. With less then good results, I used dehydrated starters and they appeared to be going good but when I tried to make bread things fell apart. Ok that’s in the past and truly I couldn’t tell you what steps I took back then. 

So I’m trying again, I started last friday using the flour (whole wheat organic) and pineapple juice method to start my own starter. On day five nothing had been happening so instead of dumping all but 1/4 cup of the starter I just added another 1/4 of water and flour thinking it might help to keep all the yeast I might have already captured. It seems to have worked because the next morning it had really started to bubble and grew at least an inch or two (I marked the level on the out side of the jar). So that morning I dumped all but 1/4 cup of starter and added flour and water again, good results, no foam on top, but lots of bubbles and film on the inside, looks like maybe it rose and fell some. 

The smell is good, no off smell, no accumulation of hooch, but the foam on top I’ve read about is missing, will that foam appear over night then be gone before I check it in the morning? What is the next step, does it sound like my starter is active or should I keep feeding it every day for a little longer before I try making bread. I noticed the bubbles are coming on faster now, this morning, the seventh day, it started bubbling within a couple hours of feeding, and rose a 1/2 inch in the same time frame. 

I am attempting Glezer's firm sourdough starter.  This is week 1 and I was supposed to refresh it last evening and forgot.  I took care of it first thing this morning and it had a rather pleasant sour smell.  Do you think I'm okay or should I start over and hang the schedule around my neck.  Thanks.

Carol

Hello all, Need some help again I'm afraid. I was lucky enough to have access to a professional kitchen yesterday with a fantastic steam/bread oven. I baked some sourdough there, which normally at home, rises well, bursting through its crust and comes out airy and quite light with big holes. However in the pro' oven at the resturant it came out with a beautiful even colour but didn't rise so well, and was much denser than normally is the case. Perhaps I didn't get the pro' oven hot enough when it went in? As it gets to temp' (in this case 250) very quickly indeed I didn't think of getting the oven rampant hot to start, which I do at home. Is that where I went wrong ? Needless to say I'd greatly appreciate any advice.

Thanks for reading

James

I am currently keeping my starter Blarf on a 2:4:5 (starter:flour:water) twice a day feeding schedule. My room temperature is usually around 62F-68F.  It was on once a day, but I recently switched to see if I could get it more active. Blarf has only been on this schedulef or a few days, but he still does not seem very active.  He bubbles very differently from other feeding regimes I've had, but doesn't seem super active. Breads have not risen as much as I'd like.

Dulce is my firm starter, and she is kept at 1:2:1 once a day.  She has been somewhat active, but is not as sour as I'd expect from a firm starter.  I'm thinking of moving her to 2:2:1, as I'm thinking she might be getting too much food.  She used to be on twice a day, which I think might promote more sourness, but then I'm worried about her not being so active.

Both starters are just new to these regimes, and I'm trying to see if by just keeping the schedule consistent for a while longer, they will improve on their own.  Does anyone have any experience with these types of feeding regimes, or have any advice for me?

Thanks,
Danny - Sour Flour
http://www.sourflour.org

I recently created a starter using organic apple juice and whle wheat white flour.

The first 3 days were 2T whole wheat white and 2T apple juice, 4th day - pulled out 1/4 C discarded balance and added 1/4 C WWW and 1/4 water, will do the same on day 5 (today).

How do i maintain the starter after its been created?  Do I just keep adding flour and water in equal proportions until i need to use it?  Also, should I refrigerate it or not?  Do I close the lid tightly or allow it to breath?  I have it in a glass pyrex xontainer with a plastic top.