September 28, 2014 - 3:01pm
A tree falls in the forest
If you double the levain from 20% to 40% in the Tartine basic country formula, is it still considered Tartine?
Feeling philosophical,
Mary
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A tree falls in the forest
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I would say probably. I wonder what effect that would have on the bread. Obviously it would decrease fermentation time. Would it change flavor at all? Or the overall rise?
I believe that the necessary decrease in fermentation time would alter the flavor. Whether the change is for the better or worse would be up to the person eating the bread.
No, it would be considered Tartine on Steroids :*)
Sorry Mary, I am feeling silly….too late here to delve into philosophy and I already had a long philosophical chat with my son this evening so I my brain is taking a rest before it shuts down completely for the night.
Take Care,
Janet
You may be feeling silly, but "on steroids" does seems like an accurate description. :)
Hi, Mary
If you baked it off with cold retardation, then it would be slightly tangy (lactic acid build up), and will defy the whole idea behind Tartine breads (mellow -custardy flavors). If the formed loaves were baked off on the same day, then I'd imagine the bread having more lactic acid flavors (yogurt like). I haven't tried that ,though, and I'm interested in the idea.
Try it and tell us what you think :)
Khalid
I agree that double the levain goes against the idea of the sweeter, mellow country bread that Chad describes in this bread book. I haven't done the side-by-side experiment of 20% vs 40%, but I have made other breads with 40-50% levain that have similar hydration and salt as the Tartine formula and the resulting breads seem nothing like the Tartine basic country bread.
I
Haven't we all doubled the levain by accident when first baking out of that book? I know I did! Making 400 grams to use 200 didn't even register with me when I baked my first loaves. Just added all of the levain and got mixing!
about the rye sour I use for my Greenstein-based Jewish Rye. My recipe for the bread has gone through several gradual adaptations over time, but I still basically follow his three-stage build formula for each bake. Thing is, he is quite specific about how to create the starter from scratch and how to build the sour from there, but he's a little vague about how much of the reserved sour to use as a seed in subsequent batches. I fell into the habit of starting the build from a pretty big dollop - unusually big, I think in retrospect - and I've stayed with it, on the principle that it ain't broke and I haven't seen any reason to fix it. Once I started using tiny bits of the same sour as a starter seed for other types of bread, though, I really started wondering if 75g wasn't kind of excessive for a batch that produces one 2-lb loaf. It cancels itself out in terms of overall starter quantity, because at the end of the build I reserve about the same amount to perpetuate the culture. So this isn't really the same issue, I guess, but it's sort of an analogous one.
On the one hand, I'm getting results that I really love - a sour-but-not-at-all-too-sour rye bread with great structure and a complex and nostalgic flavor - but on the other I'm tantalized by the unexplored alternative.
Dang, now I'm going to have to try doing the next bake from a smaller seed, aren't I, just so I can get an empirical take on the difference.
You can certainly "innoculate" with 18 grams of starter rather than 75.
I find it amazing that I can take two week old starter out of the fridge and turn it into lovely bread with just the one feeding before adding it to the hydrated dough.
Nothing wrong with great results and no need to change them. Then again, no harm in changing things up and seeing if it makes the bread better or the process easier. Sometimes you may find it makes the baking schedule easier to use more, or less, of the starter.
I'm really happy with the bread, and there's no special reason NOT to use 75g of sour as a base - but what if using a smaller seed would make the next loaf even better?
Obviously, I have to know.
I haven't really thought about whether this change would affect the build schedule; that three-stage thing is pretty much the tradition for this bread, and I think the first test will have to stay with roughly the same timetable, if only on the general principle of only varying one element per experiment. Hmmmmm. Seems to me that in theory it should really only affect the first stage. The culture is so rambunctious and exuberant that I suspect a couple of molecules of it could fuel just about anything - probably my oversized seed is just sort of gilding the lily.
I just baked this bread yesterday - first time I've eliminated the final-stage commercial yeast boost altogether, and I'm pretty excited about the results of that change - so I've got a few days to think about it before the next bake.
recently, by 50%. Instead of the 400g called for in the Tartine country loaf (double batch) I mistakenly built only 200g. Going ahead anyway, the dough room-fermented as normal and tasted the same. Following Chad's advice, the levain was young, and probably plenty hungry.
Double Tartine in Half the Time. The sour should remain the same since the time will be about half the usual required to ferment and proof. The chance for over fermenting and over proofing goes up to twice as likely though :-)