Light work week has given me time to bake at home.  First batch was the 1,2,3 formula again and then I did a sour dough baguette batch for today.  Here are the results:

Tuesday:

And then today:

I love the exchange of ideas and formulas on this site.  I'm going to try the cocoa, cranberry walnut sour dough very soon.

Hi Bakers!

Im new to TFL and hope this is the right forum to post (otherwise im sorry) ;)

Im a 28yrs. old Danish (the country not the pastry ;)) MA student/mother, loving various branches of the cooking world, especially fondant cakes and a nice family meal.

I just started using sour dough (after many yrs baking with dry/wet yeast)and think there's room for som critique and pointers.

The sour doug is bubbly and smells like a nice beer. However I can't get the dough to rise as mutch as I'd thought it would.

Here's todays loaf (was slow fermented for 24hrs.) made with organic flour, sour dough, water, pinch of salt and a dash of hunny.

the top looks nice and had a cheewy/crunchy bite to it. The dough was actually wery wet and i had to apply more flor in order to knock the dough down after its first rise. It got stuck to the basket and I had to re-knead it before baking. (high temperature with water in the bottom of the oven for the first 10min)

the inside had a nice taste to it.

how do I prevent this split?

thank you for your help B)

Here is the recie from a well known Pro.Baker.

1/4 cup starter

1 cup whole wheat flour

5 1/2 cups white bread flour

2 1/2 cups of water

2 tsp salt.

Ingredients were measure with a scale.  Every thig was done per the recipe except I used a KA Pro for kneading.

The dough never did start to come together or leave the side of the bowl I let it rest 2 times for 30 minutes each and it still was sloppy.  I put it in a bowl over night temp about 68 degrees.  The dough doubled .  It acted  and looked more like a starter at 100% hydration .  Did not want to waste my time so I discarded it.  Have not had this problem in the past. Any ideas

Thanks for looking,

Mr.bob

Hi Out there I hope that all is well with everyone. I have a question. I have been makeing a SF sour dough I think it is out of the bread bible. I want to get more of a sour tast. will adding more starter to it help? It calls for one cup of starter now. for one loaf but it is not as sour as I would like. any Ideas?? Thanks for the help.

Have a great day

Bob

Hello All;

Wanted to stop in and introduce myself. I've been a craft brewer (home brewer) for several years now and tend to be on the teckie geekie side of things. I've brewed many styles of beer and like the hobby. Why am I telling you this? It all has to do with the history of sour dough yeast and where the San Francisco taste was born.

You see, a style of beer known as "Steam Beer" which is kept alive thru the diligent marketing of Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing uses a very unique beer yeast. This yeast is unlike any other in the brewing industry. It has a flavor profile that fits uniquely between the classic lager and ale yeasts of which there are literally dozens in commercial use world wide. But there is only ONE San Francisco brewing yeast! Now imagine yourself 150 years ago in S.F. and you are a commercial bakery and you use a lot of yeast to bake.... Where are you going to get yeast.... From the bakery supply store or the brewery down the street! I think you'll agree that back then, they didn't know what was going on with the yeast, they just know that it made the beer... ah hum... the bread taste great! And the brewery was glad to sell or give it away because believe me... when you brew beer, you produce a HUGE amount of yeast in the fermentor.

When German brewers came to America and migrated to the west coast during the gold rush, they naturally took their 'old world' skills with them. One of these skills was brewing beers. The problem was, they had no ice caves in which to "lager" (a german word for 'store cold') their beers. As a result they did the best they could with the yeast they had carried half way around the world. Over the decades this yeast evolved to produce the classic BOLD tastes that are associated with Anchor Steam Beer. I've used this yeast, fresh from the yeast banks and using the standard recipes for french bread have produced some very fine 'sour dough' breads. They taste way better than the "bakers yeast" you'd use in the recipe and produce that famous 'west coast' taste that everyone loves.

You can acquire this yeast, use yeast ranching techniques that are easy to find on the web, and keep the yeast culture for months or years and have San Francisco Sour Dough bread anytime  you want without having to keep a starter that will itself evolve and mutate into something else over time.

Go to Whitelabs.com and look for WL-810 San Francisco Lager Yeast or go to Wyeastlab.com and look for 2112 California Lager yeast. These are the same yeasts, and are "banked" for commercial purposes. You will be amazed at the taste if you follow the directions for the bread, but use these liquid yeasts (yes they ARE that fresh) to make the starter/sponge. And depending on where you live, you can order from almost any homebrewing supply house on the web. A couple I've used that have very fresh stocks are Midwestsupplies.com and morebeer.com

Enjoy and just remember.... Beer is known as 'liquid bread' for a very good reason.... ;-)

Try it.... You'll like it!

ClassicAles - Artisan Brewer and Baker