Hi everyone!

   I am a sourdough virgin and I think I need some help… I have created a starter that is two weeks old, keeping it in a warm place and feeding it ½ four and ½ bottled water every day…  I did not add any yeast to this starter just salt sugar flour and water….  I think that is why my bread is flat and hard? I take 2 cups starter~  add sugar salt and oil and 3 cups of flour.  All is mixed in a mixer for 15 minutes then I let it set for 3-4 hours to double …I take it out and kneed it for about ½ hour then 1 hour in a convection / steamer proffer…. The bread does not rise from there……. The bread has a very good sourdough taste but it is flat and hard….. Can anyone tell me if I need to use yeast or do I need to kneed the dough more and let it rise longer?   There are no bubbles…. Just thick hard but sourdough taste…..

I've finally gotten a rise out of my stiff dough levain (from Leader's book titled "Local Breads").  The trick was to raise the room temperature from 76F to 80F.  I've switched now to 'refreshing' the starter and/or preparing for baking.  One point from the book isn't too clear to me.  Once I have refreshed the levain and let it ripened for 8-12 hours it says I can either use it right away or store it in the refrigerator for 1 week (before refreshing again).  My question is if I do refrigerate it, can I use it straight from the fridge to make bread or do I need to repeat the feeding and spend another 8-12 hours preparing the levain prior to using it?

Hi all,

I'm just starting out and I'm at the end of day 4 of trying to create a stiff dough levain from Leader's "Local Breads" book.  Leader describes a long list of properties that a good levain will have when it is ready and mine seems to exhibit a few, but not all.  Most importantly, I'm not convinced that it is growing but a sufficient volume after feeding.  My kitchen was a tad cool at the beginning (67F) but is now 72F.  Each day I'm adding 30 g of water, 50 g of all purpose organic and 5 g of organic (hard) whole wheat.  I'm getting the smell, there appear to be bubbles forming and the dough is certainly tasting tangy but it just isn't rising as much as I expect.  I have it in a metal mixing bowl so I am not actually measuring its volume, but I'm sure it isn't doubling in 24 hrs.  It certainly isn't crawling up the sides of the bowl.  Leader describes the formation of 'visible gluten strands' but I don't know what these look like.  Can anyone post photos showing the progression of their stiff levain?  Beyond following the daily routine, is there anything else I can try?

i need somee advice on the maggie glezer sourdough starter. i am at the part where i have firmeed up the starter and it is a round ball. she says after one day of fermentation like this it will not have risen at all but will be very gooey. she says to refresh and continue.....well the dough doesn't seem any different than a firm round ball like it was yesterday, not gooey at all. should i refresh or wait another day? the previous days seemed to look accoding to her comments, but once i got to the step where you throw away all but 30 grm and refresh such that it goes from a soft starter to a firm starter...that is where things don't look as they should. any advice would be appreciated! thanks! this is my first 'real starter....' i have the reinhart starter and la brea bakery starter going at the same time....in case one fails. oh i'll mention that the temp of my kitchen is about 75 deg in the morning and gets up to 79 in the afternoon (texas)

So, since the last post (which was quite some time ago), we moved back to Canada after three years of living in Africa.  I had a really good sourdough starter going in Zambia, it was reliable and very active, and I didn't want to just dump it.   I looked around and found some pages which described how to dry starter for transport, so that's what I did.  Here are the steps:

 1) I shmeared (thats a technical term,ha) a thin layer of starter all over a piece of baking paper, which I put on a cookie sheet.  In a couple of days it was pretty dried out and started lifting off the baking paper.  I let it dry out another day and then it was really dry and coming off the baking paper in big flakes.

 2) I took all the flakes, put them in a zip-lock bag and crunched them up into something that was close to powder.  it was a little a chunky, but still fine.

3)  I packed the zip-lock into our baggage and hoped for the best.  With all the airline paranoia I was a bit worried about explaining a bag full of white powder to the customs agent.  "Well, it is organic, and I use it...to..um....bake."  Sure, what will the sniffer dogs think? Luckily, nobody looked at our bags and the starter made it to Canada without any questions being asked. 

4) After we got home, I simply mixed the dried out started with some water and some flour in a covered container and let it sit.  At first, nothing happened, but after a few days a few bubbles appeared,  I then fed the starter some more and let it sit, and it became more active.  A couple more feed and refresh cylcles and it was going good as new.

 So, now we have Zambian starter in Canada.  I've used it a couple of times and it works great, so I'm pretty happy.  I'm no yeast scientist, I wonder if there are that many different strains of yeast that something that started in Africa would be very different than a starter started in Canada, from the "kind of yeast" point of view.  Anyone care to venture a guess?

Here is my crack at terminology that is commonly used in bread baking. It's a start, with a hope that with some comments these will be corrected and added on to.

Poolish - A French term. Uses commercial yeast. An aged mixture that is made up of equal amounts of water and flour, by weight, and a small (tiny) amount of yeast. (1)

Biga - An Italian term. Uses commercial yeast. An aged mixture that is made up of water and flour, which may but do not have to be of equal amount. A tiny amount of yeast is also added to this mixture.A Poolish is really just a form of Biga. A Sponge is the English term for Biga. (1)

Starter - An English/American term. An aged mixture that is usually maintained in a very small amount, that is used to start or seed a larger mixture that is then called a preferment. A starter made from commercial yeast is called a straight dough starter and a starter made of wild yeast is called a sourdough starter.

Pate Fermente - A French term. A small piece of dough reserved from the previous batch of bread. This is the only preferment that may contain salt in it.

Preferment -  An English/American term. An aged mixture whose primary purpose is to impart a maximum amount of flavor to the resulting bread. This mixture is allowed to fully ferment before (pre-) being added to the final dough mix. Examples are: Sponge, Poolish and Biga.

Autolyse - A French term. A technique where gluten containing flour and water are mixed and aged for a desired amount of time to arrive at desired gluten development level and flavor characteristics. There are no other ingredients present except flour and water. And flour has to contain gluten.

Soaker -  An English/American term. An aged mixture whose primary purpose is to hydrate the dry ingredients that are to be used in the final dough. The dry ingredients are gluten free.

High Extraction Flour - An English/American term. It is a flour that is between White and 100% Whole Wheat. It has a certain percentage of Bran and Germ removed.

Patent Flour - An English/American term. White Flour which was extracted from the central most part of the endosperm. Is considered to have the highest quality of gluten. (1)

Clear Flour -  An English/American term. White Flour which was extracted from the outer parts of the endosperm. Around the part where the Patent Flour was extracted from. (1)

Notes:

Difference between Starter, Sponge, Biga and Poolish. Well Poolish has equal amounts of water and flour. Biga and Sponge are the same to the best of my knowledge. A Starter is more clearly defined in a professional bakery environment where a small amount of left over preferment is reserved to be used in the next preferment. The amount of preferment mixed contains a small excess that is fully fermented. Then the small excess is extracted to be used in the following preferment, and the current preferment is added to the dough for the current batch of bread.

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(1) Source J. Hamelman "Bread"

Edit 09/14/2008

Today I saw a FAQ page so I thought I'd link to it from here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/faqs

Hello All,

This is my first post and my first natural yeast starter. I spent a good few hours reading all the posts to make sure I had a good understanding of what to do before I began. I was excited about the idea of making my own natural yeast starter, but unfortunately, it has not turned out as I had hoped. It has been a full week now since I began, and I have yet to get a rise out of my starter. Below I will explain in detail the process that I used.

Thursday- The beginning

I decided to begin my starter with canned pineapple juice in an attempt to prevent bacteria formation that causes false starts for many people. I thought I was playing it safe, but perhaps I should have stuck with plain old water. I also used Arrowhead Mills stone milled organic wheat flour. I used 1/4 cup pineapple juice and slightly less than 1/2 cup flour. I eyeballed the flour measurement, but I did spoon the flour into the cup rather than use the dipping-into-the-bag method.

Friday-

Morning. No activity in the starter. I scooped out 3/4 of the starter and repeated the same process as the day before (1/4 cup pineapple juice and a scant 1/2 cup of wheat flour). I mixed the juice in first, stirred vigorously, added the flour, and stirred vigorously

Mid afternoon vigorous stir.

Evening. Same steps as morning (keep 1/4 of previous starter, 1/4 cup pineapple juice and a scant 1/2 cup of wheat flour)

Saturday-

Morning. I saw a few tiny bubbles, but not enough to declare life yet. I had exhausted my supply of pineapple juice, so I switched to water. Everything else remained the same (1/4 cup water and a scant 1/2 cup of wheat flour)

Mid afternoon vigorous stir.

Evening. I saw more bubbles, so I switched to feeding it with white flour (1/4 cup of water and a scant 1/2 cup of white flour). I stirred the starter before bed.

Sunday-

Morning. I saw the same amount of bubbles as the night before. I did everything as before (keep 1/4 starter, add 1/4 cup water and a scant 1/2 cup white flower).

Mid afternoon vigorous stir.

Evening. It still had the same amount of bubbles as Saturday evening, so I thought something must be slowing its progress. I thought it could be the temperature (which is 70-75 degrees at my place), so I placed the starter near the vent of my computer for gentle heating. I have an electric oven that has no light inside, so using the oven as a way to warm it was out. I kept the rest of the process the same. I also stirred the starter before bed.

Monday-

Morning. I was pleased to notice that the bubbles were a little bit larger, but unfortunately there was no rise. I repeated the usual process (keep 1/4 starter, add 1/4 cup water and a scant 1/2 cup white flower), but this time I placed it on a heating pad that I use for my muscles after a long run. It was on the low setting (90 degrees) and auto-shuts off after 45 minutes.

At the mid-afternoon vigorous stir I noticed a tiny amount of hooch. There were a few bubbles on the top about the size of small peas, but otherwise no rise.

Evening. There were a few small bubbles, but otherwise less activity than at the mid-afternoon stir. I repeated the usual process (keep 1/4 starter, add 1/4 cup water and a scant 1/2 cup white flower) and placed it back on the heating pad on the low setting. When I went to bed, I turned the heating pad back on and stirred.

Tuesday-

Morning. Small pea sized bubbles and a tiny amount of hooch. I repeated the usual process (keep 1/4 starter, add 1/4 cup water and a scant 1/2 cup white flower) and placed it back on the heating pad on the low setting.

Mid-afternoon stir. Same pea sized bubbles with a tiny amount of hooch but still no rise at all.

Evening. I decided that perhaps I wasn’t feeding it enough or maybe I wasn’t specific enough on the measurements, so I got out my kitchen scale. I kept 2 tablespoons of the starter and added 3 oz of water and 3 oz of white flour. I placed the starter back on the heating pad and stirred before I went to bed.

Wednesday- Today

Morning. Still the same old pea sized bubbles but no hooch. I repeated the process that I did the night before with adding 3 oz of water and 3 oz of white flour to 2 tablespoons of starter.

So this is where I am today. I still have not gotten a rise out of the starter that I began a week ago. The batter smells lightly sour and yeasty, but it is a pretty light smell. Then I thought today, perhaps it is the water? I checked out the chloramine levels in the District of Columbia (where I live) and the water authority says that they vary between 3-3.7 milligrams per liter of water. I will try bottled water today and see if that helps. Can anyone think of anything else that I might be doing wrong? I’m hoping that I won’t have to give up on this starter.

Thanks for all your advice guys!

-Danny

Well, I went a little crazy with kitchen equipment over the past couple of weeks. I finally found myself a pizza stone (two actually), as well as proofing baskets, and a mixer! Yes i went crazy! And you have no idea how hard some of it was to find... I ended up getting the pizza stones while I was in Amsterdam on business! At an amazing kitchen store called Duikelman, if you ever visit Amsterdam and want to see a *really* nice kitchen goods store its worth the visit. Right alongside the museums and art galleries and other tourist attractions. ;-) But then I had to lug them on the train back to Germany! I really wasn't able to find a single store in my home town that sold them. Same went with the baskets actually, so i got myself a nice one for proofing boules at Duikelman but then of course once I got it I found a *really* cheap place to buy them close to home. After searching all kinds of place I finally found them in Metro (a wholesaler) of all places. With a bit of linen cloth I MacGyver'ed myself a couple of nice little proofing baskets.

All told this bread thing has set me back some nice dough (heh) in terms of proper equipment, but its fun, and my kitchen is the better off for it. The mixer is actually one of these multipurpose jobos that will come in useful in all sorts of ways. I cant count the number of times Ive skipped a recipe because making it without proper tools would just be too time consuming. Anyway, thats the way I'm justifying the purchase to myself when I start feeling guilty. :-)

The mixer is a big deal for me. Having used it only once, to make Norwich Sourdough, its already pretty clear that it will totally change making bread for me, making it easier to do right with much less mess. The pizza stone seems to have had some effect, but im not sure how much, possibly I havent heated it up long enough first, I want to test more.

Anyway, about Norwich Sourdough.. The Norwich Sourdough I did as my inaugeral attempt with the mixer was easily the nicest sourdough ive managed to do so far. Perfect shape and rise, beautiful crumb and crust, and very easy to follow directions. One of these days Ill get myself set up to post pictures :-)

I would heartily recommend my fellow novice bakers to try the Norwich Sourdough recipe. It worked out great for me! So good im going to try it again after I finish this post. :-) One thing she doesnt include is a formula but instead only the recipe. Of course thats pretty easy to calculate from here recipe. Here it is:

%75 : 900 flour
%10 : 120 rye
%50 : 600 water
%30 : 360 starter 1:1
%1.92 : 23g NaCl

Flour = 900 + 120 + (360/2) = 1200
Water = 600 + (360/2) = 780

Hydration = 780/1200 = %65
Total = Flour + Water + NaCL = 2003g

Do look at the original page tho. The author has some important instructions there that you should read, and frankly the blog is worthy of a bookmark for any baker's browser. The author has lots of nice recipes and good style and touch for explaining a recipe. I think her site is great.

The other interesting thing Ive learned recently regarded diastatic malt. I fed a bit to my starter to give a it a bit of a kick last night when I was doubling it for todays Norwich Sourdough recipe. It went crazy! Instead of just doubling it trippled or more. Just insane. Maybe i used too much. But obviously the sourdough *really* liked it. :-) I think if you think your sourdough is sluggish a little dose of diastatic malt might be the thing to perk it up. So to speak :-)

Actually, since my last blog my starter situation has changed somewhat, and I guess I could stabilized. I got annoyed at maintaining two starters and mixed them together. The result is quite nice, no issues there, and since I dont need to keep two cultures separate anymore I have a free jar, so ive started a process of swapping.

Each day I feed it in its current jar, and then afterwards pour it into the new jar and put the old jar in the dishwasher for cleaning. That way no splatters or mess gets on the side of the new jar. I then use a piece of tape on the jar to mark how full the jar was post mixing, and then observe over the next 24 hours what happens, marking the highpoint (as shown by streaks on the glass or direct observation) also. Doing this over a few weeks Ive come to know the behaviour of my starter pretty well. It definitely has the capability of doubling or more in under 24 hours (more like 12) and it often appears to more than double. This says to me my starter is alive and well. Yay!

I have searched the site and am trying to find basics for making a freshly ground whole wheat starter. What measurements do I use for the water and flour (preferably in cups)? How often do I feed it? When do I refrigerate it? How do I replenish it? Like I said absolute basics =)

Thanks.

Hi!

I have a successful starter that has been in a preserve bottle (with a loose fitting lid) in the fridge for a while. When I opened it today I found that it had made a "skin" on top of the starter and it has a smell that reminds me of acetone (nail polish remover). (I haven't opened it for about 3 weeks.) I have scooped out the skin, given it a stir and it seems as if the acetone smell is dissipating. Is this normal? Or have I lost this one? I have left it out of the fridge to see what it looks like in the morning.

Regards,

Deon