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.

Has anyone made Maggie Glezer's "Sourdough Semolina Bread" from her book, A Blessing of Bread? I am trying to make this but need help converting my sourdough starter for this formula. 

The formula calls for firm starter refreshed 8-12 hrs prior, then using 30g starter with 80g water and 135g flour. I assume this is the same as using part of your regular sourdough starter and doing a build? If not, could you point me in the right direction?

I currently have an active starter that I feed weekly and refrigerate. I keep mine at about 80% hydration. How would I use this for her formula? 

Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks!

Here are the loaves I'm currently working on:

I used:

150g 1:2:1 starter - Dulce (3 days after feeding)
50g 2:4:5 starter - Blarf (14 hours after feeding)
1085 Giusto Ultimate Performer (high gluten flour)
721g water
24g salt

I fermented for 5 hours.
Shaped 2 1000g boules and proofed for 4 hours.
Baked for 34 minutes at 475 with 3/4 cup steam.

The loaves were definitely underproofed, and barely rose. I would use more active starters next time. They also almost stuck to the coiled wicker basket, and were difficult to remove. I want to increase the hydration a bit, but that means I will have to proof for less time.

Let me know what you think.

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

Usually when I get it in my head to cobble together a formula based on two or three things I've seen mentioned on this forum, two more in my head, and a bit of whimsy, the results are not pretty.  Especially when it comes to baguettes.  The last two or three times I've tried to make baguettes, they've come out flat, with closed crumb and, with the sourdough versions, crust that provides a thorough jaw workout.

But not this time, oh no!  This time I tasted victory.  Victory, and some very yummy bread.

Here's what I was trying for:

• 100% Sourdough baguettes
• All white flour
• Two preferments (saw this mentioned a couple places and it sounded good).
• Roughly 65% final hydration (also based on some other posts at thefreshloaf)

To this I arbitrarily decided that 50% flour weight would be prefermented, of which about half and half from a 50% hydration pate fermente and a 100% hydration wet starter.  Because, y'know, why not?  I decided on 700g total flour and worked out the math to get:

• 340g wet starter (170g flour, 170g water)
• 273g pate (180g flour, 90g water, 3g salt)
• 350g final flour
• 200g final water

Got to set up a bakers math calculator for myself.  Anyway, the formula ended up being thus:

Liquid Levain

• 32g active starter (I'd converted part of my firm starter to 100% hydration the day before, but I doubt it matters much)
• 150g Stone-Buhr bread flour
• 150g water, room temperature

Sourdough Pate Fermente

• 45g active starter (50% firm starter, in this case)
• 150g Stone-buhr bread flour
• 75g water 
• 3g salt

Mixed starters at about 9:30pm the day before baking and let them sit overnight.  My firm starter had been in the fridge since that morning, so I used warm water for the pate. Began the next stage at 7:30 the next morning.

Final Dough

• 350g Stone-buhr bread flour
• 200g water, room temperature 
• 11g salt
• Liquid Levain (all)
• Sourdough Pate (all)

Mixed Flour, water, and liquid levain until a shaggy mess, then covered and left to autolyze for 45 minutes.  Held off on adding the pate partly because it seemed like The Proper Thing To Do(TM), leaving out the salt and all that...but mostly because the pate looked pretty sluggish and needed at least another 45 minutes to ripen.

Added pate and salt and kneeded for a couple minutes.  The stiff pate really didn't want to incorporate, so I gave it a 5 minute rest then kneaded a little more until the lumps were more or less dispersed.  Then it was into a bowl to rise.

I gave the dough 30 folds in the bowl with a rubber spatula after 30 minutes of fermentation, then again after 2 hours.  Total time for the first rise was 5 hours (I meant for it to be 4, but got confused, and anyway it wasn't rising hugely).

Preshaped the dough into 4 ~10oz pieces (yeah, yeah, switched measuring systems midway), and let rest for 10 minutes.  Then final shaping, and rising on my well-floured couche-tablecloth for 2 hours.

Baked at about 475 (my oven's temperature sensor is wacky) with steam for 22 minutes, opening the oven a crack after 10.  Then left the oven cracked and turned off for another 5 minutes before removing the baguettes from the oven.

The results:

Sourdough Baguettes, Exterior:

Another Angle

Crumb Shot

 I was incredibly pleased with the results here.  The scoring is easily the best I've ever done, though there's clearly room for improvement.  The mere fact that the things didn't turn out flat was a huge improvement of my last attempt at a sourdough baguette.  The crumb turned out well.  The flavor was wonderfully complex, moderately sour, with a thin, crisp crust that was just slightly chewy (hey it's sourdough, after all).

I'm on the verge of throwing in the towel.

After too many attempts to count, I do not seem to be getting any closer to a great loaf of bread. Some have bascially good flavor but do not rise up in the oven into beautiful loaves of bread.

I've tried multiple formulas and it seems that the only remotely acceptable results is when I use a high gluten flour like KA Bread or Wheat Montana Natural White.

That said, my latest attempts have been with Giusto's Artisan Bread flour which I believe is around 11.5.

If I were to follow a recipe that called for 68% water, the dough is entirely too wet—regardless of how many french folds I do. I say regardless, but the most I have done is 4.

I set up a calculator in excel to get the amount of dough I need to fill two bannetons and came up with the following:

GRAMS

Stiff Levain 25.00% 190.4

Water 65.00% 495.1

Flour 100.00% 761.7

Salt 2.00% 15.2

TOTAL % 192.00%

TOTAL DECIMAL 1.92

TOTAL DOUGH 1462.5

PROCESS:

25 minute autolyse.

5 minute mixer knead on speed 1

5 minute mixer knead on speed 2.

I added a bit of flour at the end of the knead during the last minute or so because the dough was sticking to the bottom of the mixer bowl.

The above I used with today's dough and had cut the water from 68% to 65% and still ended up with a pretty floppy dough.

I guess my question is: What's the secret? Should I do stretch and folds til the cows come home? Until the dough is stiff and muscular? Should I add more flour—less water? Today I did 1 stretch and fold—but it was about a minute or less of folding and turning folding and turning etc, until is felt like a springy mass

I used wet surface and hands with the stretch and folds.

I know today's batch will not be very good. The dough, even though doubled in the bulk fermentation, was simply droopy, and began to oooze off my work surface. I'm thinking that when the dough is dumped out is should more or less hold it's form in the shap of a big mound. My dough starts out as a mound and then oozes into a large flat shape. I would essentially say that it has no gluten at all.

Hello everybody.  My name is Thane and I just signed up.  I've been baking on and off for most of my adult life, but just began baking regularly about 3 months ago.  I've decided to venture into sourdough, so am building my own starter (I like to start things from scratch).  I've been following Maggie Glezer's advice in "Artisan Baking," but had a question for you more experienced yeast catchers...

I've followed her instructions, and my sourdough seems to be... progressing faster than normal.  I'm on day 4 (tried a different method before and it tanked).  I am using her 50% process, but when I mix it up, it doesn't stay very solid.  It still smells sour, and it does expand some, but mostly it just... goos.  I'm familiar with extended fermentation, so I know that as the water soaks into the flour that it softens.  But it seems that this just sorta gets really gooey without rising much.  Am I just impatient?

It kinda looks like its supposed to look in Maggie's pictures, but the timeframe is off (I fed it this morning at 4:15, and it has already grown some, gooed, and smells sour, but doesn't seem to stay as firm as Maggie seems to think it should).

Thank you in advance for your assistance,

Thane

I've been trying and trying to get my sourdough bread up but have had little success.  The 1-2-3 recipe worked out ok except it was always too gloppy to make anything but ciabatta.  So I started experimenting with different forumlas, twice a day for two weeks. I think I've hit on something and I'd like some of you guys to maybe try it out and see if it works as well for someon else as it does for me.

I maintain two starters...a 100% hydration white and 100% hydration whole wheat.  I used Gold Medal AP Flour for everything, both refreshing the starter and making the dough.  If I want a wheat bread I use the wheat starter in the recipe, the same a white bread.  All ingredients are measured in grams for simplicity's sake.  So here's the formula:

1. part ripe starter

1. part water

2. parts flour

2% salt

Here's my technique.  I take a nice ripe starter and measure out the first part.  Normally I use 150g as a base.  Then I stir in 1 part water (150g) to make a slurry.  To this I add the 2 parts flour (300g) and mix in to incorporate.  I use a fork and my fingers to get everything mixed completely.  After everything is mixed I let it sit for about 20 minutes to autolyse.

After the autolyse I sprinkle in the 2% salt (12g) and give the dough a quick 5 minute knead in the bowl.  Part of this experiment was to cut down on the amount of crap I had to wash and clean up.  After the knead I let rise until doubled.  This could take anywhere from 1-3 hours.

After the dough has doubled, I flour a work surface and scrape out the dough.  It's should be a little on the sticky side but easily workable on the bench.  I've only made batards and baguettes so far, but the dough could probably hold other shapes.  I shape it into a rough oblong, give it a flatten, then do a quick letter fold and let it rest about 10 minutes.  Now a stretch, flatten and make either the baguette or batard.  I have a makeshift couche (read: old napkin) that sometimes doesn't work so well, so I tend to place the formed loaf right onto parchment with a little cornmeal on it.

After the loaf is formed you can do two things,  cover it and let it rise to about doubled.  I use spray oil to lubricate a piece of saran wrap so it won't stick to the loaf.  Again, this takes about 1-3 hours for me, your mileage may vary.  About halfway through the second rise preheat oven to 450.  Steam the oven, slash the loaf and put bread on a stone or cookie sheet.  After five minutes I give the oven another spray for more steam.  After another five minutes I give the bread a turn for even browning and reduce heat to 425 for another 15 minutes or so.  Here's how the white bread turns out...

and here's the wheat...

I've also formed the loaves and retarded overnight in the fridge.  This really brings out the sourdough twang.  I'm also experiemting with the salt percentage, 2% feels too high in some loaves. 

I would appreciate it if someone else could validate this recipe and let me know if it worked out as well for them.  Thanks!

This is my second effort at sourdough.  A few days ago you all encouraged me to "bake with it", so I did.  Now I'm back, with more questions, and more results.  First though, a short story of this bread.

I created this as what I thought was a 64% hydration dough, with a 100% hydration starter, but I think my scale is not working perfectly because this dough was wet!  It was a challenge to get it ready to ferment, and it was impossible to shape any more than just to pull it around some. I used the french fold on the young, undeveloped dough, and did 3 stretch-and-folds at 1 hour intervals during fermentation.  It was still too wet to do any serious forming of the loaves.

Here is a shot of the loaves after proofing, not long before I put them into the oven.

I measured out my ingredients, and did two expansions of my starter before making up my dough.  When I made up my dough a I let it autolyse for 30 minutes, then added the salt and levain.  It was stickey right from there, and I felt like I should have added more flour, but decided to stick to the batch requirements this time.  Mistake number 1?

I tried my best to be real patient with this dough.  Still trying to get used to the whole sourdough thing. After making up the dough I set it to ferment for 3 hours.  When that completed I "formed" the loaves, and retarded them overnight in their "couches", in the fridge (42F).  Had to get some sleep.

This morning, I put them on the counter (room temp avg 75F) for 3.5 hours while we went to town on some errands (yes, it takes that long).  Then I preheated the oven, with two shelves lined with unglazed quarry tiles, to 450F. (Mistake #2?)  As soon as the oven was saturated I put the loaves in on parchment and sprayed twice for steam.  Needed more, but my spray bottle broke.  After 15 minutes I swapped shelves on the loaves and turned the temperature down to 425F.  After 20 more minutes I swapped ends and shelves, and turned the temp down to 400F because I thought things were going a bit fast. (Mistake #3?)  Another 10 minutes and I "thumped them," to see of they were done.  They were ready.  After cooling 20 minutes (I could not wait any longer!  I just couldn't!) I cut into one, and here we go...

and the crumb shot:

We could not help but eat some (half a loaf or so!) and the taste is wonderful.  The crust is crispy but leathery, and the crumb is chewy with a "creamy" bite to it.  The flavor is a credit to my young starter and I really hope it does not change too much as it matures because I really like the flavors it produces.

So, there are the story and the results.  Now, I have some questions:  Is there such a thing as too wet (and how wet is that)?  The crust on this dough is quite crisp, but not too thick.  Is that because of the hydration, the lack of adequate steam, or both?  Obviously, my starter is vigorous enough, but how does this crumb measure up for a "standard" sourdough white french loaf?  Please keep in mind:  I'm not fishing for compliments.  I want to get better at this!

Thanks, in advance,  to all for your support!

OldWoodenSpoon

Does anyone happen to know what the protein content of Wheat Montana Natural White flour is.

I've have really good luck with it the past two bakes of pain au levain. It does not seem to be as strong as KA Bread flour though.

Yesterday though, my order of Giusto's Artisan was delivered and my bread today does not have near as much rise and strength. I did make dough yesterday, did a 3-hour bulk ferment and then retarded. This morning I formed the boules and proofed in bannetons. The forms proofed for 3 hours. I was having a hard time determining whether they were ready to bake using the poke method. Maybe I should have only allowed them to proof for 2 hours.

I don't know if the dough just overproofed, or if there is a significant difference between the protein/gluten in the two flours. When I used the Montana wheat, there was no retarding though. I bullk ferment for 3 hours and then proof the forms for somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5 hours.

Hello,

Does someone know if I can make a sourdough starter from "Sourdough extract"?

Today I've seen a packet (15gr) of something labeled as "Sourdough extract" and I have bought it. The ingredient list says it contains only "Rye flour and Enzymes". I wondered if this is some kind of dried sourdough culture and if I could bring it to life.

Anyone have any experience with something similar?

Thanks in advance,

narabio