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Submitted by Freestylin on February 13, 2010 - 2:15pm I need Help!!!!!!!So i really hope that someone out there can help me?????? For the past two weeks i have been growing a sourdough starter which i refresh daliy with 70g organic white flour, 30g organic rye flour and 100g spring water (disgarding most of the starter before feeding). I'm very pleased to say that my starter is ready to use, doubled in size over 24 hours, lots of bubbles and a thick layer of froth on top - only problem is i have no idea where to go from here!!! I have been reserching the net but dont seem to be getting anywhere so thought i would give this a shot!!! My starter reaches its peak at about 7pm and by the morning it has subsided sightly....what im really looking for is a great recipe for a large white crusty loaf and the same in granary or brown. I am wondering if i should use it when its at its peak, and if so can i leave the dough to prove overnight so i can bake in the morning??? I have spoken to people who suggest that you can use yeast along side your starter as this gives good effects....have anyone used this method? does it work well and how would i go about doing this (working out how much to use of each). Also i plan to bake at least every other day so do i need to put my starter in the fridge or is it ok to leave it out, refreshing it everytime i use it..up until now i have left my starter out in the kitchen. Wow so many questions!!! im really keen to get going, and i would love to get some help from people who have been there and done it! Thanks in advance!
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Here's one I use
Here's a recipe that I use. It used the starter that you think needs to be fed. I hope this may tide you over until you find more recipes. This is REALLY good! (IMHO)
250 grams bread flour
( could substitute some for whole wheat) so far I haven't used much more than about 30-40 grams)
238 grams water
1 tsp yeast
6 g salt
70 g discard starter
Mix all together EXCEPT the salt.
let autolyse for min 10 minutes then add the salt - DON'T FORGET THE SALT!
Mix with KA until dough pulls off the sides and bottom. Start with paddle and if need-be - switch to the dough hook if ti climbs over the paddle and up too high.
Dump dough into olived-oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap or plastic cover
Allow to triple in volume. It (for some reason) really needs to triple.
Preheat oven to highest temp. mine is 500-550
Dump dough on to floured parchment. Shape and let rise while oven is preheating. I sprinkle a little flour on the top. My oven takes almost 30 minutes to get the baking stone hot. Handle dough as little as possible. I kinda scoop mine together with a dough scraper. Minimum handling. Some people flip theirs over. Not me.
Mist around the edges of the bread dough (on the parchment) with a fine mist from a sprayer bottle. If you get a little water on the dough edges that's OK.
Slide dough - parchment and all - onto hot stone. Optional: reduce oven temp to 450-475 once bread is in the oven.
Bake for approx 16 minutes or until risen and golden brown.
Allow to cool so that moisture from the inside will soften the outside.
****notes: I usually don't sub more than 30-50 grams of whole wheat. more experimenting to come...........
I really do prefer the sub of some olive oil for some of the water. Great flavor! I usually use about 30g of olive oil as a sub.
If for some reason you run out of time in the rising phase - refrigerate the dough and when you have time - resume the process. I've done this numerous times and so far have had good luck.
wonderful white
Hi,
This is one I shared with Eric and Shiao-Ping not long back. Why not check out this link? http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15974/sour-dough-leaven-refreshment-and-ash-content#comment-102650
There are some photos to be found here too; http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15778/g%C3%A9rard-rubaud-miche#comment-102321
Best wishes
Andy
Thank You
Andy,
Andy,
Just wanted to say thank you for replying to my post so quickly!
I have read though the link you sent me and unfortunately im finding it difficult to understand....i have only just got into bread making therefore i struggle with some of the phases used to describe the method. I feel slightly out of my depth!!!
Its a big ask, but i dont suppose you could explain it to me in simple terms? I reliase this may not be something you want to do, and i completey understand if you dont have the time. I really do want to learn more and get into making some exciting breads, just need a bit of advice at the start.
Thanks for your time.
Ruth
Help for Ruth
Let's see if we can get a recipe for you that helps you to get to grips with the formula in a way that means you are confident that you have a recipe and method which will work for you.
If we start with the actual ingredients [I call them materials] in the dough recipe, which you asked for: a crusty white loaf. This makes it nice and easy, as they are as follows: White Flour, Salt, Water, and some yeast type to raise the bread. Notes about each below:
Flour: I like to use a strong white bread flour for this. Others on this site swear by All-Purpose flour for naturally-leavened bread, but my experience is rather different being based in the UK. We don't have All-Purpose flour, we have "Plain Flour", and it is poor for making bread with. For a further discussion on flour, I suggest you read the following blog entry of mine: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15974/sour-dough-leaven-refreshment-and-ash-content
Salt: The amount you add, ultimately is up to you. But you need to be accurate, as a small error in weighing salt will have catastrophic results. If you notice in my formula sdalt is generally expressed at 1.8%. Please don't be put off by these; you have probably looked at some of the complex fermentation ones, so are feeling bamboozled. Let's work through this final dough and see if you can get the hang of it? Basically, in the formula, the flour is expressed as 100 and all the other ingredients as a percentage of the flour. So, if salt is 1.8%, that means for every 100g of flour there is 1.8g of salt; for every kilo of flour there is 18g salt. This seems to be unfamiliar territory to a few people on here, as the accepted weighing system in the US remains as pounds and ounces I believe. The metric system works in multiples of 10, 100, 1000 etc, so it is very easy to work with if you are able to assume flour is 100. Basic recommendation here: Buy some accurate , decent quality digital scale, which weigh in single gram denominations. Learn to use them with care, and you will never look back. If you already are doing this, you are over quite a few of the first stumbling blocks.
Water: correct hydration of the flour is absolutely critical. I would argue it is the single most important reason why you will see so many examples of fantastic looking breads made by the great bakers on this site; although, obviously there is a lot more to it all than adding the right amount of water. So, please weigh the water when you come to make your breads. The base of the metric system is that 1g of water = 1ml of water. However, a ml when measured is simply a line on a jug; as Dan Lepard says, "a gram, is a gram, is a gram". For a good strong flour in the UK for simple bread, hydration should be around 63%. Folks go a lot higher on here, and I would encourage you to try to do this yourself, when you have the confidence. I know North American flours absorb more water generally, as they are very strong. However, my recipes are based on using the best commercial specification flour in UK, and it is milled from only Strong Canadian wheat. Less than 60% and your bread will likely be too dry. Over 65% at this stage, you may not enjoy working with the dough. But stick to the amount specified. Ignore any instruction to "knead on a floured surface". My formulae have taken a lot of working out to achieve correct water levels, so throwing flour around haphazardly on the bench in an effort to work with the dough negates all that hard work, if you see what I mean.
Means to raise the bread. Note that all of my recipes which use commercial yeast, call for the fresh stuff. That is because it is available to me, and I prefer it. I know the most common form in the US is instant dried yeast, and it will work fine in all my recipes. BUT you only need a third of the quantity specified for the fresh yeast. Yes, you can combine an element of your leaven with using the above. However, don't make the mistake of adding the instant yeast to your leaven. Instant yeast is single-strain Saacharomyces Cerevisiae and it is used to generate as much CO2 gas as possible in the shortest amount of time. However, it will not thrive in your leaven, as it does not like the acid conditions of your sourdough. Your sourdough fermentation is a lot more complex, and relies on wild yeasts and bacterial fermentation.
Anyway; so far, here is my basic formula:
Strong White Flour 100, Salt 1.8, Water 63 [Instant Yeast; if using 1]
Now we have to get a bit more complicated, to work out how we can incorporate the leaven into the formula just shown .
The way I do this is to decide just how much flour I want to have been pre-fermented; ie used as the portion which makes up the leaven element of the dough. This is where you have to experiment to find out what works for you. However there has to be sufficient pre-fermented flour to guarantee a viable yeast count to raise the bread...unless you want to just rely on instant yeast. I would suggest you take 10% of the flour as being the absolute minimum to be used in the leaven portion. From here, what is the maximum amount of flour to use in the leaven? Well, it really does depend on what sort of bread you like to make. If you like very sour bread, the proportion of flour in the pre-ferment would increase. The leaven performs many complex functions in the dough, be of no doubt. If a high amount of acid dough is added then the dough structure will break down more quickly, and the enzymatic reactions will be well-advanced. The flavour is more discernible, but the dough requires more skilful handling. On the other hand, dough with only a small amount of leaven may well need considerable extra fermentation in order to ripen the dough. I am laying out some principles for you to think about here, but there is no other way to really appreciate this than by getting stuck in an d making bread. So what if you make mistakes early on; that means you then get to know and understand what works, and what doesn't...and, why it doesn't too!
The other element in your leaven is the water amount, and different people like to use differing amounts of water to hydrate their pre-ferments. Yours is based on 100 flour and 100 water. My wheat leaven is 100 flour, 60 water, and my rye is 100 flour, 157 water. All we need to do here is make sure the water in the final dough is adjusted to give the correct overall hydration called for in the formula.
See if you get the illustration below
Let's say you have 4kg of leaven ready to use, and you want to use 33% pre-fermented flour. Here is the way to calculate your recipe:
Material
Formula [% of flour]
Recipe [grams]
Strong White Bread Flour
33.33
2000
Water
33.33
2000
TOTAL
66.7
4000
Leaven [from above]
66.7
4000
Strong White Bread Flour
66.7
4000
Salt
1.8
108
Water
30
1780
TOTAL
165.2
9888
A couple of other notes: always allow for an element of leaven needing to be kept back for your next refreshment.
I have assumed you will not be adding instant yeast, but if you did it would go into 2. Final Dough @ 60g, which is 1% of the 6kg of flour.
The above formula is great, because you can now make any given quantity, by dividing the amount required by the final % figure given above [165.2] This gives you a factor. Multiply each ingredient by that factor and you have just calculated your recipe. The factor above is 9888 ÷ 165.2 = 59.85. You have to round this up slightly to avoid being a few grams short, obviously.
Does this help to get you started?
Thanks, and all good wishes
Andy
I need help
I do use some yeast with my sour dough. I feel like I'm cheating but I have baked many bricks in the past ergo the yeast. It works for me. I have made the rosemary olive oil bread and of course I never follow recipes and it was realla great loaf. I will make it again with different herbs, last nite Wheat Challah again with a bit of yeast and again..nice oven rise and no brick.
Happy Baking
Commercial yeast
Hi
I don't get the idea of trying to make sour dough chollah. No way can a delicate natural leaven deal with the amount of enriching ingredients called for in this dough. Working with natural leavens is my absolute passion when it comes down to it; but you have to do it with the right type of products. Otherwise you set yourself up to fail; a really bad place for anyone to be.
Best wishes
Andy