Mountain Valley Spring Water
After reading an article describing the lifestyle of a rural artisanal baker...how he used local whole grain fresh groung flours.....fresh well water...etc....I brought home some "Mountain Valley Spring Water" to use for my starter and bread formulas. I thought I was making the best pizza in the world, but my crust has improved with the water.....My "Whole Wheat Pain au Levain" using the bottled water was my best sourdough effort to date. The Mountain Valley Spring Water even comes in glass bottles, but I'm just using it for bread, so it's affordable. I'm interested to see how feeding my starter with this water will result. It makes sense....water is such a big percentage of any bread formula......
I brought a loaf of my "Whole Wheat Pain au Levain" to some friends..........his comment was that his sister used to make some "heavy" sourdough bread....they were surprised with my efforts.....and even the kids said...this would be great for sandwiches.
That's impressive! I'm glad you found a way to tweak your bread so that it's even better than before.
I just use plain 'ol Louisville Tap in my bread, but I suppose it wouldn't be that much more expensive to use bottled water. I'm interested to know in what ways has your bread improved.
Eric
I love MVSP water and also have it delivered in the glass bottles for my bread and drinking . http://mountainvalleyspring.com. I discovered it's great taste years ago working in hotels. It comes from Arkansas. It's nearly perfectly ph balanced. I no longer drink bottled water in plastic containers..unless absolutely necessary and neither does my daughters family. I have always lived where the water is hard, flouride treated and chorinated. I have soft water 'has sodium' in home and purified water. You might like to look at the posts on 'you know your a bread baker when you'........pretty funny!
Sylvia
My pizza crust, which is just the way I like it....is crispy, bubbly, and tender. With the MVSW, it was a little more bubbly.....more oven spring pizza reaction. ...a little better flavor????
My Whole Wheat Pain au Levain rose during fermentation more that usual...good oven spring. I can't wait to see if the water makes a difference with my starter, which is pretty active anyway.
I also recently grabbed a big gallon of spring water (don't recall the brand) for a bulk-baking weekend and found much superior results than with my tap water (left to sit overnight to dechlorinate a bit).
Much better starter activity!
MommaT
I wonder what it is about MVSW that yields such superior results? From their website, it appears that it has a higher concentration of minerals that other bottled waters (and perhaps lower concentration of minerals than some hard tap?). I wonder what effects trace increases in calcium, potassium, and magnesium has on dough development? Perhaps it's the lack of chemicals that enhances its performance?
It's not so much what the water has...but what it doesn't have. If one is interested they need to check with their local municipality. Not all water contains chlorine like we generally accept. Some municipalities have authorized "chlorofim" (sorry if I misspelled, I'm not a scientist), but chlorofim doesn't evaporate so easily, if at all. Researchers are also discovering trace elements of pharmaceauticals in our tap water.....and not all of them are filtered through home filters. Starters, and doughs that rely on only three or four ingredients should be sensitive to such a high percentage ingredient such as water. Some of our local doctors have prescribed Mountain Valley Spring Water to some of their patients for certain conditions. ....after all, us humans can be as sensitive as our doughs and starters..... :-) I drink filetered water, and the water from my kitchen tap is double filtered because I have a large filter for the whole house.....but I can taste the difference, and I wish I could afford to drink MVSW all the time, so I will use it for my bread. When I'm in the Ukraine, one can go to the local park and fill up their jugs with artesian water for free in the park. It taste very similar to MVSW.
There are posts/bread books explaining ash content in flours..minerals are referred to as ash content in flours.