Hi --

I've been dutifully feeding my Hamelman Liquid Levain Culture every 12 hours for the past week, dumping half of it down the drain each time.

That just seems wrong.

So, now I'm saving the discards in the fridge. I made some pancakes yesterday. While not especially sourdough-y yet, they weren't bad.

I'm discussing what to do with leftover sourdough on Flour Girl today and am wondering what you guys do with the discarded portion before feeding?

Thanks ... Happy baking!

Flour Girl

Anyone here have experience using Alton Brown's "Proto-Dough"?

I have a container of it percolating in the fridge right now. It's been there for about two weeks, actually, unused while I've worked on some other baking projects. Earlier tonight, I mixed in the quarter-inch or so of hooch sitting on top, and it smells fine, I guess, so maybe I'll use it in a simple recipe like Beranbaum's Basic Hearth Bread.

Seems an odd middle ground between a true sourdough starter and the "artisan bread in five minutes a day" approach. Is this something worth pursuing?

Hello,

I recently purchased a Sourdough Jack cookbook from a local library book sale. The copyright info suggests that it was printed in 1966...and there is a package of dried sourdough starter still attached to the book.  Does anyone know if it would still be safe to use?

The package said it was 65 years old (so if that was 1966, that makes it 108 years old now) and i'm very intrigued about using it.  Also, I haven't been able to find much about Sourdough Jack Mabee, other than book listings and references to his recipes.  Does anyone know more about him? I'm assuming he has gone to that great Sourdough sponge in the sky by now...his picture in the book looked old then and that was 43 years ago.

Thanks!

Tangybread

Hi everyone!!

I was posting on here pretty regularly last April when I was trying to get my starter up and running.  I've been doing great with it, but want to see if anyone can give me advice on how (or if I need) to tweak her a bit.  I've been baking with her about once a month.  Can someone refresh my memory about what I should be seeing when I feed her?  I'll admit that I've been a bit lax on feeding regularly, she only gets fed about 2x a month.  I've been having pretty good results when baking, but I've changed my recipe so many times, I don't really have a benchmark to know if my starter is doing all she can do, or if she could be stronger.

I started with the model in the BBA and advice here - I have one whole wheat starter and one white starter going now.  I feed them before I start a new loaf - I generally don't discard but feed to the ratio of 1 part starter : 1 part water (filtered NYC tap) : 1 part WW or KA bread flour

I fed the starters about 3 hours ago and left them out.  Both have air bubbles, but are not growing. They are on the counter at about 80 degrees.  I'm going to put them in the fridge now, but would love any advice as to wether I should leave them out when I feed, put them directly in the fridge, should try to get them at 55 degrees, etc.

I plan on feeding again tomorrow or Thursday in anticipation of baking on Thursday/Friday or Friday/Saturday.

Thanks all!!

The sourdough starter I'm trying to make (from The Village Baker) is quite a firm little ball and has such a thick crust on it that I don't see how it can possibly grow or form bubbles. It's day 3, and it should be showing signs of life.  The recipe said to cover it with a damp cloth, but nothing about keeping it damp, so I let it dry out. Mistake?   I could play with any of these factors at this point - an airtight lid instead of cloth, warmer or cooler temp, higher hydration of dough. I'd like to know how others have managed with this recipe. 

Thanks, Doh!

First time at posting here - couldn't tell if there was an existing topic to add on to...

I've been baking sourdoughs for a couple of years now and wanted to try working on a rye bread.  I began a starter on Sunday using Daniel Leader's recipie from Local Breads.  I'm using Bob's Red Mill organic rye flour and bottle spring water.  The starter appears to be behaving properly - bubles forming within a poridge like mixture with some rising begining by day three.  My question is about smell.  Leader says that the mixture should have a sour smell and taste, almost like the aroma of apples left out in the fall.  I think mine smells more like smoked oysters.  Should I take this as a sign that some non-desirable bacteria worked their way in (container not fully sterile?) and start over?  Or do I just need to adjust to this smell and keep working on it for a couple of days?  I've never smelled a rye sourdough starter, so I don't really have a reference point.

Thanks,

Phil

I had a successful firm starter from Baking with Julia/David Ortiz/Pain a L'Ancienne.  The loaves were tasty and the bubbles were getting bigger with each successive loaf.  I converted the starter to a wet one to see how it would go and my last sourdough loaves were the worst ever!  No rise and leaden as anvils.  My dog didn't even jump up on the counter to try and eat them (a first for her).

Now the starter itself does not percolate with feeding, only a few random bubbles form on top.  It still smells as yucky as it did when it was working, but tastes now floury and bitter.  Is there a test to see if it's working other than wasting more flour?  The texture is goopy, in between batter-y and firm.

I have almost 1200g of starter that's ready to go into bread in my fridge. I need ideas.

I know about the waffles, but I don't have a huge waffle maker. Pancakes? Blueberry muffins? Chocolate cake?

I know that at least part of it is going into pizza dough.  I'm taking 300g out and mixing that with 300g of water and 500g of flour, 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, 2-3 teaspoons of dry Italian seasoning, and 15g salt.  May add parmesan, too, but not sure.

Another thing on the list of breads to make is a stuffed sandwich for the superbowl. Long, french-style dough, probably containing spices and herbs, to go well with turkey, broccoli, roasted red peppers, and provalone cheese.

I'm also going to try my hand at converting Floyd's baked potato bread to sourdough, but I don't know if that's something that I can do this week or not.

I'll discard some if I have to, but ideas that are *freezable* would be best. HELP!

I'm wanting to start working with whole grains more.  I'm going to be working up to the lovely 5 grain that gaaarp posted.

The bread I baked today was thrown together out of need for a sandwich bread for the week that would go well with ham, our choice of lunch meat.  It needed to be relatively soft with a soft crust, as that's my boyfriend's preference, and needed to be slightly sweet to complement the salty ham.  The other thing I wanted was some sort of higher fiber whole grain flour thrown in.

Last night I had to feed my hungry beasties at around 10:30.  I pulled out my discard, fed my 100% starter as normal, and added 1/8 cup water and a little under 1/2 cup flour to the starter.  This produced a very nice, very firm starter, which measured about 166 grams.  I let that sit overnight.  I also measured out 125 grams of my 7 grain flour blend and mixed it with 100 grams of water in the bowl that I was going to make the bread in the next day. I covered that and let it sit overnight as well.

The next morning I was greeted by the sight of a very active firm starter (it had almost grown out of the bowl) and a very nice soaker.  I had set the stages for a very good bread.

We eat a lot of sandwiches so I needed a larger amount of bread.  I added to the starter and the soaker 265g of milk, 355g of flour, 2 tablespoons of butter, and 2 tablespoons of honey.  This made a total of slightly over 1000g total dough.  I kneaded it all together and let it sit for about 45 minutes, at which point I realized I forgot the salt and kneaded in about 2 1/4 teaspoons.  Then I stretched and folded once an hour for...3 hours or so?  The dough was pretty wet and sticky.

I proofed for an hour before putting it in the oven in a makeshift brotform: a wicker basket lined with a floured tea towel.  I put it on my stone in a slightly warm (but not fully preheated) oven for 45-50 minutes.  400 for the first 30, then down to 375 for about 10 minutes.  I left it in the oven after turning it off for about 10 minutes as well.

I pulled this out.

I'm very happy with how things went.  I'm really getting some good results with my sourdough.

Thanks again, gaaarp!

So I have 100 grams of starter, 100 grams of water, and 100 grams of flour on the top of my stove to ferment with every intention of baking some loaves tomorrow.  I want to make sure I'm clear on things, though, before I do anything.

I'm going with the 1-2-3 bread method.  My starter is 100% hydration.  It doubles in 12 hours.  If I make a loaf out of the preferment that I have going on with 100 grams more water and 200 grams more flour, will it work?  Should I instead think of it as a starter and add 600 grams of water and 900 grams of flour?