The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Barm vs sponge

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

Barm vs sponge

Is there any difference between a sponge and a barm?  Are the two terms synonymous?

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

skimmed off in the top floating foam of the beer making process, if it is a top feeding yeast like an ale.  A sponge is the English term for a preferment using commercial yeast - it is usually a pretty big one.

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

I'm trying to decide if Reinhart's barm is worth the trouble.  But obviously there are differences

.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

he is probably calling a sponge  - barm.  Very common.

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

If you are referring to the "barm" used in Bread Bakers Apprentice, Reinhart subsequently admitted he misused the term. What he actually used in BBA was a semi-firm sourdough starter. If you want to make the breads in BBA, it is easy enough to use your own starter and convert it through a couple of feedings to the hydration Reinhart calls for.

If you don't have a starter already, the method Reinhart advised using to grow one is good. 

The definition of "barm" that dbm gave is historically correct.  Until about a hundred years ago, English housewives would visit one of their local breweries, bucket in hand, to collect some barm or, as was common until the early 19th century, use barm from their home brewing. This was rich in yeast, of course, and was the traditional leavening for cottage-made breads. However, this was not used without fairly extensive processing to remove the typical bitterness of barm newly skimmed off brewing ale.

Anyone who wants to know more about the use of barm in English bread baking cannot do better than to read Elizabeth David's classic, English Bread and Yeast Cookery.

David

disneymagic's picture
disneymagic

I know this is 4 years old, but I'm hoping to get clarification.  I am reading through BBA and want to try the Basic Sourdough Bread.  Unbelievably (to me), I got a starter to grow and it's ready to be used.  In the Basic Sourdough Bread recipe, he calls for a Firm Starter that includes a barm.  That term links to another spot in the book (I'm using the Kindle version) that uses a sourdough starter to make 6 cups of barm.  I don't need 6 cups of barm.  I'm confused why I wouldn't  simply use my starter in the Firm Starter portion.  I feel like, the more I learn, the less I know.

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

Barm is the froth from the brewing beer which contains live yeasts. It's skimmed and used to make a preferment called a sponge. It's then used to leaven the bread.  

Sourdough is different. A sourdough starter is cultivated by mixing flour and water (no added yeast) and left to ferment naturally. Over a period of a week or two it matures, with feeding, and is used as a preferment or for a preferment called a levain. Also a type of sponge.  

What I'm doing is making a mock beer barm sponge using beer, flour and a little starter. 

Is this along the same lines as your recipe?

disneymagic's picture
disneymagic

No beer in my mix.  :-). Because I'm such a neophyte, I'm trying to stick strictly with the rules until I have the confidence to venture into unknown territories.  

WatertownNewbie's picture
WatertownNewbie

You can ignore Reinhart's terminology if you wish,  Just focus on the ingredients.  On page 241 of BBA he gives the three ingredients for his "Barm (Mother Starter)" and refers to the "seed culture (page 240", which is in fact nothing more than your regular old mature starter.  Combine 255 g of bread flour, 255 g of water, and 198 g of your starter and you will have Reinhart's barm for the Basic Sourdough Bread on page 245.

Because you need only 113 g of the barm for his recipe, you can of course scale down the proportions to end up with a little more than that amount (some always sticks to the container) and be perfectly fine.

I made this bread using a stand mixer (KitchenAid), and the dough was a pleasure to work with (smooth surface, nice gluten development, easy to shape).

Happy Baking.

disneymagic's picture
disneymagic

Thank you so much!  My thoughts were I could just add my starter to that initial water and flour mix.  I'll be trying that tomorrow.  So exciting!  :-)

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

Thank you all for clearing that up. 

What got me started is that I want to make a white San Francisco-like SD here on the Canadian prairies. (We take our summer however we  can get it even if it's only a loaf of SFSD in December).  So far my experiments have been fairly bland.  I would like a more tangy/complex/sour flavor somehow squeezed out of that white dough.  Obviously Reinhart's "barm" won't be the answer to my prayers. 

I just started reducing some 100% hydration to 67% hydration.  I want to feed it a couple of more times and then try again.  But this time I'll leave my loaf retarding in a fridge for 8-12 hours - something I haven't done yet with white flour only.

 

 

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

bread, or any bread for that matter, temperature is one place to start and a little hole grain is the other.  :LAB that make sour reproduce 13 times faster than yeast at 93 F and yeast reproduce at the same rate at 93 F as they do.at 50 F.  The more LAB you have the more sour the bread and the less yeast you have the longer it takes to raise the bread and more aid the LAB can produce. 

LAB also outproduce yeast by by a factor of 3 at 36 F.  So if the countertop work is done at 93 F and the starter, levain and dough retarded at 36 F when not on the counter - a much more sour bread will result given that there is enough food for the yeast and LAB.   When doing cold work it is more important to do it a very long, long time  like 6 weeks for the starter because length of time is more important at 36 F than the temperature itself .

Even a little whole rye or wheat in the dough, starter and levain. can make a big difference in the sour flavor too.  i always go for as much sour as i can get and the rye sour starter in my fridge has been there 8 weeks now - getting more sour every week.  I also like to build whole grain levain in 3 stages and retard them for 24-48 hours too and then retard the bread dough as well. 

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

Thx.  I think I get it. I will continue but with more attention to the cold proof and time and resulting degree of sour.

I also begin to realize that my scribbled notes could be valuable.  I think I better start making them legible so I can read what I did last time next time.  

Its easy to see why everyone's experience can be so different.  I sincerely doubt that I will be working at at 93F temps. We just don't get that on the Canadian prairies. And if we come close it's usually matched by the same percentage of humidity.