Earlier this week I had a dream about ham & cheese on baguette. Since this was a dream that I could turn into reality, I took up the task of making some baguettes. So many dreams just stay dreams, when you have one within reach: grab it.

I turned to Jeffery Hamelman’s book, Bread, and to an old bakery formula I had from years ago working as a baguette mixer at Red Hen. Pretty strait forward, poolish recipe. But how awesome simple formulas can be! To my delight these baguettes crackled, and tasted like butter and nuts and wheat. It was hard to bake them long enough because I kept wanting to pull them out of and eat them in one, huge bite. 

Dear Baguette,

I am sorry we were apart for so long. I took you for granted. One day you just weren’t there anymore. Maybe the separation did us both some good. I’ve moved a couple of times, have a new boyfriend, in general, things are progressing. But maybe we could think about spending some time together again. I really love the way you smell.

Yours Truly, Smoke Signals  

I made some French bread dough and it was rising. It had a smell like fingernail polish remover. I tossed it and am starting from scratch. What might have caused it? And how do I prevent it?

Thanks.

Steph

I started a new starter about seven days ago, using an 'offhand' method that's always worked reliably for me in the past to produce a starter with the classic yeasty/sour/yummy smell, stable and robust, with good rising characteristics. Now the same method has produced a starter that seems to rise very well and smells great, but more like someone took the top off a Calvados still: lushly, almost 'ether-y' fruity-sweet and clearly kicking out a (probably) flammable mix of ethanol and acetones.

I started with organic rye flour and tap water, 1:1, and used a scrubbed-and-dishwasher-sterile (i.e., mostly sterile, but not surgically so) glass, lidded container (old pickle jar, clean metal lid, holes poked with a nail). Discarded 3/4 and fed with more rye for three days at 12-hour intervals. Ambient temp was on the high side - maybe 85-90 degrees. But the stuff was bubbling up in the predictable way and smelled like a rye flour starter at first -- i.e., normal, with that harsh rye edge.

Once I was seeing doubling in small amounts, I began feeding with white flour (KA bread flour), starting at roughly the same "pour off 3/4ths, add 1:1" proportions and intervals, slowly backing off on the liquid to make for a 'doughier' starter, which seems to produce (for me) a more sour loaf. The sweet smell emerged with the first white-flour feeding. The stuff rises normally (double-triple in 3-4 hours). And now I've risen a test loaf with it -- first rise looked textbook, as did the second, and the dough itself smells great, except there's definitely a hint of this 'liqueur' aroma around it.

I've read several TFL threads via Search for 'sourdough smell,' and I'm not too worried about this. I assume the starter will settle down with further feedings and probably stop being so tipsy. But I wonder if anyone can see, in my description (which I know is sadly loose -- I've done this enough times with dead-on results that I've gotten to assume things will always 'just happen' in a certain way) something that explains why this starter smells so different from my prior efforts. Thanks!

Hi all, i've been baking on and off for about 2 months now and am really enjoying many of the recipes on this site.  I've mostly been making sourdoughs, ciabattas and my own everyday bread loaf i made up. 

The taste of the bread is great but my question is, Where's the smell?

You know the one I mean, that smell of freshly baked bread that you might remember from your Grandma's or from the local bakery.  For some reason my bread doesn't seem to want to give up a smell.

Any ideas?

After I have baked my bread, the smell of the bread (the inside) smells off... like sour.

I have made this bread before and it did not have the same smell, and it seems to be my yeast or flour.

i have a can of instant dried yeast (the one that looks like grains), I've opened it and it has a plastic cap, and I've closed it (obviously xD) and left it in a storage container under my table. Maybe I'm supposed to refridgerate it?

My flour is in a large container, with a cap (I had bought flour that was inside this container, and reused the container). I bought new flour for the below recipe (I made it twice), I'm not sure if the time I used the new flour if it had the smell or not.

Also, what is the difference between the paste/liquid yeast and the grainy yeast?

What brand of flour is "the best" or most recommended for soft breads (fluffy mm..)/breads that aren't dense.

Should I refridgerate my dry yeast (grainy one)?

the recipe i have used is : http://daddymommyloveraphael.blogspot.com/2009/05/japanese-butter-roll.html

Also, I'm looking for an online friend / group of people that I can talk about baking to, preferably a beginner like me so that we can discuss new techniques, problems, solutions etc. :)  maybe around my age (16) but doesn't matter so we can talk about times we make bread and how it may affect it etc. etc. but if you have the time to be on MSN or skype or something to talk about bread, please tell me so I can talk to people about bread!

Thanks in advance!

Well, it's day 6 of my first sourdough starter and this morning it smelled a bit like paint thinner. Actually is smelled like what they put in denatured alcohol to keep stupid kids and alcoholics from getting waisted on it; rather strongly in fact.

Should it do that?

i started a sourdough starter months ago (6?) and had wonderful results. after Thanksgiving when i finally got it just right, of course, it got dumped over in fridge. sooo. i had just made some sourdough pancakes, so i took that plus the little i saved in the container...ok, so i probably shouldn't have mixed in the pancake stuff...eggs, little milk etc. , but... so, i did. now, i'm wondering... i used it once for a cracked idea on a pumkin bread thingy. didn't add enough flour i guess..but i digress...it had a clearish liquid on the starter and i poured it off. i fed it and let it sit out.

the problem is that it now smells a bit..off. not OMG but hmm. its a little off. how do you know when its too bad to continue? what does it mean to use it if its 'bad'?

it made me sad. i'd Just figured the whole thing::pout:::

thanks

newbie crazy lady for sourdough things now!

Rebecca

Hi, newbie here :)

I started my first ever starter three days ago. I've been keeping it in my room and its been bubbling away since. I've been feeding it once a day. It looks fine, doesn't seem to have any mold and quite wet. I was wondering about the smell though. Yesterday it was a pleasant sort of bready smell but today it smells more like cheese or spoiled milk. It's kind of a sickening sort of smell. I was wondering if it was normal for it to be unpleasant at this stage. I tossed about half of it today and fed it as the instructions I'm following say to do.

What should I expect from now on?

I have never had good luck with sourdough starters. When I lived in "Nearly Canada, North Dakota" my starters never developed any sour taste. I think it was just too cold in our home, even when I placed on our hot water heater. Then again, I only tried them in the winter.

Now I live in "Nearly Mexico, Arizona". Our home is a constant 74 degrees. This time I'm trying a rye and water starter with the 3 step method of 2 oz rye/2 oz spring water for 48 hours, 2 oz rye 4 oz spring water 18 hours, 4 ounces wheat flour, 4 ounces spring water.

I just started stage two. At the end of stage one, I've got great bubbling, but little volume growth (was supposed to double, I gained about 25% volume). The smell is very tangy, but very unpleasant tasting. Not to be gross, it tastes like barf. It is not the definite musty taste. No sign of mold. Is this the normal taste for rye starter?

Thanks, and 17 1/2 hours to go until stage three!

I know this is a rather common question around these parts, but I'm very new to sourdough, and my seed culture that I've been working on just doesn't seem to be turning into a healthy starter.  I started off from the BBA formula to grow a seed culture, but by day 3, when the culture was supposed to have doubled in bulk, it had not, and but had grown by about half instead.  As instructed, I discarded half and mixed with the prescribed flour and water and fermented for 24 hours.  It again failed to double in bulk, at which point it says to leave it out for another 12 to 24.  I