The Fresh Loaf

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Recipe Advice

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

Recipe Advice

Hi, all!

A newbie here, although I have been reading the FL forum for year or so, backing the sourdoughs for several years.The main problems are unreliable results-the epic fails follow the great loaves. I decided to register and benefit from the community intelligent, and/or probably  add my five cents in the future.

I'm going to bake some bread on Sunday and the ingredients I have are listed below:

1. 400gr of 100% hydration starter, fed on Friday, sitting in a fridge now,

2. 900gr of flour mix: 600 AP + 100 spelt + 100 rye + 100 strong bread flour,

3. 11gr of instant yeast.

4. cold water ~4C

I think I will use the 300gr  of my starter (taken from the fridge 1 hour before mixing) as a leavening agent and preferment for the main dough. Stick to 68% hydration, by taking into account the flour and water from the starter (~30% BP require to do so, I guess). And here is the first bunch of questions:

1. I suppose that adding the 100gr of starter is not exactly the adding of 50gr of water and 50gr of flour. Was there a discussion on what is water and flour in starters? Is there a dependence on its maturity?

I think, I will spike the dough by adding the 9gr of instant yeast to the flour. I will mix all the ingredients excepting salt, not listed, to form a ball and wet the flour, and let the dough to autolyse for 30-40 min. Knead it for 10-15min, my doughs being stretchy never pass the strict window pan test, and left for bulk fermentation until it doubles in volume. Then shape two boules or batards proof until 1.5 volume and bake under the stainless steel bowl (preheated bowl, ceramic plate, 15 min at 250C covered, then 20-35 min with bowl removed).

I,m not sure about bulk fermentation and proofing process, so any advice or comment would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone for great contribution to bread baking!

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

the living pages!  Second... (and you know what's coming)  Tell more about that starter.  What fed, how much and how fermented was it when chilled?  The more details the better.   One needs to know how mature, how fermented the starter is before deciding to reduce it.  

When I read: "bulk ferment until double"  in a sourdough recipe, I have to wonder where the recipe came from. Sorry, can't help myself.  It reads more like a "Poolish recipe", where equal amounts of flour and water are added with a pinch of yeast to preferment than to read like a sourdough recipe.  Seems like a few important sourdough steps are left out of the bulking phase of the recipe.

and... Have you baked using the starter without added yeast?  What were the results?  

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

Dear Mini Oven,

thank you for your comments. First of all, I have baked the bread. The stainless steel bowl prevented it from expansion and shaped like a half of a sphere. I'll do some photos when it cools down. The loaf smells quite attractive. The crust being affected by the bowl did not develop completely showing unpleasant cuts on the side surface.

I bake pure sourdoughs although do not have repeatable results. The main problem is weak dough. If I wait until it ~doubles in size, shape it, and then proof until it doubles again the dough becomes very weak. It is not holding its shape during the scoring and loading. It may show great oven spring and then deflate, having the dense crumb.

That is why I decided to use instant yeasts to speed up the leavening process and add my starter to have, as I hope,

some flavour from bacterial fermentation.

I feed (doubling or quadrupling, 10% rye, 20% bread flour, 5% spelt, 65% AP) the starter (always 100% hydration) every second day on a baking week, keeping it at room temperature, it usually collapses on Thursday. I double it and put into fridge. On Sunday I take it out 1 hour before the mixing.

The present recipe is from the period of "wild baking" - experimenting without solid background. I think its time to bring some bread science to my kitchen. It will be great to hear about the missed out sourdough steps.

Thank you once again for your reply.

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

this out.

I feed (doubling or quadrupling, 10% rye, 20% bread flour, 5% spelt, 65% AP) the starter (always 100% hydration) every second day on a baking week, keeping it at room temperature, it usually collapses on Thursday. I double it and put into fridge. On Sunday I take it out 1 hour before the mixing.

 How much starter gets fed?  What is the room temp. exactly?  Try this test just to get some idea of the starter's time span...  

Take 10g of starter and add 70g water and 100g of the above flour mixture.   Place into a straight sided glass or jar with about 5x headspace.  Level out and cover.  Mark the level of the jar and let the starter rise marking every hour after it starts to rise until it peaks.  The top looses it's domed shape and levels out, often with a dimple in the middle before it starts to fall.  The first 6 hours, not much will happen.  It should pick up speed as it rises.  

Mini

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

We, my wife will assist me with measurements while I'm working in the lab, will definitely  give it a try. I'll use my today's unfed leftover. Will share the results as soon as I get them.

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

the taste is straight without striking notes. Soft, chewy crumb. A lot of work has to be done to approach the real things.

At the moment do not know what to do to develop more complex flavour and taste.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

than I had expected.  Crust looks even colour all around.  So the baking is even.  How much starter did you end up using?  400g or the 300?   

The loaf shot looks great!   Still a rather bland mixture with so much AP, might want to switch out more AP for spelt and up the bread flour.  Bread flour will help the dough last longer in the dough state.  Wild yeast and bacteria are rather aggressive to the gluten matrix, so if you think the dough is weak, giving it stronger flours will help that.  I'm just wondering if you could use a little less proofing.  Sourdough starter is already proofed so the more there is in the dough recipe, the shorter the proofing times.  If your sourdough starter has trouble lifting this amount of flour (400g to 900g flour) then the yeast concentration of the starter is suspect.  Might be something to work on.  Let me know how the test comes out.  :)

 But you should look into some of the sourdough recipes more.  Notice what goes on during the bulk phases.  This naturally is influenced by the dough hydration, folds and  building dough strength during the rise.  Pay attention to the feel of the dough and the texture of it and less to doubling.  Notice also that the only time doubling is mentioned is for a final proof and even then, it is better not to let the dough reach that far into fermentation.  It's a tricky trying to get enough ferment for flavour but not so much as to overproof the loaf and wear out the dough.

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

Mini! I'm not sure whether my main flour AP or not. I guess so, I call it so (it has 10% protein), but not for sure. I think its time to ask the manufacturer. Finally, I used 400g of my starter. I thought I would arrange the following routine with my sourdoughs:

1. In the evening mix, autolyse, knead, put into fridge,

2. Next day in the morning shape, proof, bake.

Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Will pay more attention to my starter.

Could you please be so kind as to recommend me a sourdough recipe worth to try.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

interesting read.  It is an old thread discussing folding during the bulk rise, how to tell when the dough is bulked when folding and degassing.   Sourdoughs need more strength than yeasted doughs as they soften considerably as fermentation progresses.  Many find that folding during the bulk rise is the way to deal with sourdough.  

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/12825/folded-dough-how-check-whether-it039s-doubled

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

is in the dough?

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

there are 2% of salt in the dough. In grams, 0.02 * (200g + 900g) = 22g

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

Sourdough + Starter 

But I've noticed you didn't add in mature, or active, starter. So it's basically a yeasted bread with unfed starter. I think the added yeast will be doing all, or most of the work, just making the starter added like "spent grain".

Or am I missing something?  

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Basically mature starter used as a flavouring.  Eleven grams of Yeast raising the dough.  I would like to see how the 1 to 10 feeding test goes.   The yeast was added as safety catch.  I think the starter needs some pepping up and to be used as it peaks in activity to raise the dough on its own.

Mini

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

on Tuesday morning I'll take the unfed starter out of the fridge and mix it with other ingredients from Mini's advice (see above). Four hours later (This gap is unavoidable, and I hope nothing interesting happens at early stages) my wife start to record the dough activity by observing its height in a straight container. I will publish the results here.

In my previous dough I used the one week starter peaked two days prior to mixing. I supposed that adding the mature starter provides better flavour and taste. And yes, the instant yeasts made the job.

Thank you for having time for commenting my posts.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I tend to have two strategies for my starter.  

1)  I maintain a healthy rye starter that sleeps in the refrigerator, this is my starter seed, or mother or maintained starter.  I am rather conservative with it.  When it gets low or too fermented it gets refreshed, often with several peaking feeds, then chilled when about 1/3 actively rising.  That ensures plenty of food to keep the starter active for the next 1-3 weeks in the refrigerator.  It is roughly between 50g to 100g and I will start removing parts of it after 4 days.

2) The starter I use for baking comes from taking small amounts of this seed starter and building the size for use in bread baking.  If I want flavour, I play with the starter started from that seed starter and not my maintained chilled starter.  That way I don't endanger my seed starter and keep the yeast numbers up.  (I'm always forgetting the correct terminology)  

I can see problems in keeping a peaked starter for days on end in the fridge before using it.  If it is your only starter culture, a good amount of yeast are dying off instead of replicating themselves.  Using the starter in this exhausted state does not take advantage of the starter's peak activity to raise the bread.  It's the fermenting and bacterial by-products that flavour the bread,  Raising the bread "starter-only" will increase flavour in more  directions than using back up instant yeast.  The starter yeast is replicating slowly, I think we are all thinking along these lines.  It gets fed and allowed to peak slowly and reduce in activity.  Nothing wrong there except one has to add yeast to raise the bread within a certain time frame.  If that is the desired outcome, then it works just fine.  

I get the impression that the starter is working too slowly, continues to slow with the passing of time and that more flavour is desired as the yeast numbers are declining and bacteria numbers are rising.  The starter has adapted to the way it is being fed with long pauses between feedings.  

I wonder what the the starter tastes like this Tuesday morning?  And what is the temperature of the experiment as it rises?

Mini 

 

 

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

Dear Mini,

thank you very much for those minutes I spent reading your text. The main outcome for me is to be very careful with my mother starter. My starter strategy partially replicates yours but with less attention to bacteria/yeasts balance. They compete, as I believe, for food and benefit from slightly various conditions (temperature, acidity, etc). My strategy or lack of it promotes bacteria and resultes to weak slow rising dough. Thanks once again, I found some gemstones in your post.

We performed the test just as planned and the results are given below.

Ingredients:

1. starter*  - 70g,

2. flour** - 70g,

3.water*** - 100g

*starter - last fed on Friday Jan. 30, from the fridge,

**flour - a mix of 60% AP, 30% spelt and 10% rye. I run out of my bread flour and used spelt instead,

***water - boiled, cooled down and used at room temperature.

I took unfed starter from the fridge. It looked rather like very wet dough than deconstructed soup, stretchable so I was able to keep the spoon 30cm above the container and have a string of starter. I did not taste it, the flavor was very weak similar to good yogurt, but very weak (too cold maybe). I added it to water and mixed thoroughly, incorporating air into the mix. Then flour followed into the container. I mixed it once again. That is all with preparation, now observation results (I will provide some images with my next post). I hope the table below will speak for itself.

time -  volume [a.u.] - temperature [C]  - note

07:22 - 200 - N/A - start

11:30 - 230 - 18.3 - none,

12:30 - 250 - 19.7 - none,

13:30 - 270 - 19.9 - several bubbles appeared on surface

14:30 - 290 - 19.9 - a lot of small bubbles

15:30 - 290 - 19.9 - number of bubbles grows, they are getting larger

16:30 - 290 - 21.0 - bubbles start to form foam

17:30 - 295 - 20.7 - foam grows in volume

18:30 - 300 - 20.5 - changed color, got lighter?

19:30 - 300 - 20.8 - color changes confirmed, nice gentle flavor

20:30 - 300 - 21.1 - nice yogurt like flavor

22:00 - 300 - 20.6 - appears notes of alcohol, flavor is getting stronger. the end of observation

I'm afraid that there are no yeasts at all in my starter.

drogon's picture
drogon

If you think there are no yeasts, what do you think is making the bubbles and the alcohol smell..

 

-Gordon

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

Of course, there is some amount of yeasts in the mix. However, as far as I know, bacterial fermentation is also accompanied by carbon dioxide release, and sometimes, according to Reinhart, may be quite active and originate from malicious bacteria.

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

A balance between one type of yeast and one type of bacteria working in harmony. A warm fermentation will favour the yeast. Colder, the bacteria. 

Change your feeding habits and there's always other yeasts and bacteria waiting to take over. Again, working together. 

I think this is how it works. 

Your starter can't only be bacterial. 

 

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

I'm not sure it will be easy to maintain the conditions for symbiotic harmony in any starter, excepting SF one. I do not have solid background here, these knowledge was obtained from sourdough resources.

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

there is no such thing as a special starter. Flour + water. Will always be symbiotic.

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

I thought that there are strong (automatic) symbiotic relationships in that starter only. Other wheat starters require.much careful treatment to favor simultaneously both yeast and bacteria. I wish to know microbiology better to discuss the topic.

I think, you are right to some extent. It will be great to have here a microbiologist's resume.

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

All starters need feeding and "treatment" to keep them alive. The uniqueness of a San Francisco starter/bread is more of a myth. The "special" yeasts that have been named for San Francisco starters have been found in starters all over the world.

Your starter will have both yeasts + bacteria and 1 type of each will dominate depending on your feedings, temperature, flour etc. i.e. it can change overtime if your treatment of your starter changes but it will always be symbiotic. In fact the bacteria in your starter eat up the dead "used up" yeasts.

I think you need to stop thinking too technically about your starter. The basics will serve you well.

A warm fermentation will be a yeast one.

A cold fermentation will be bacterial.

Your starter will even take on different characteristics if fed often and kept at room temperature or less often and kept in the fridge.

Very basic I know but you don't really have to understand the microbiology of it.

I think if you wish to help the yeasts along start doing 2 or 3 builds at room temperature before using as a levain in your recipe. Then through bulk fermentation and final proofing don't retard in the fridge. Using a larger amount of starter and a shorter fermentation time at warmer temperatures will help too.

 

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

I thought you meant a San Francisco starter but trying to say there's no such thing really. Rather... a starter in San Francisco. Still only flour + water. The yeasts come from the flour itself. Yes, climate can effect the starter but in reality everyone's starter is unique.

drogon's picture
drogon

My own experience and reading things like e.g.

http://hans.fugal.net/blog/2006/07/03/sourdough-critter-growth-rates/

suggests that the warmer a fermentation/starter is kept, the more sour is gets which suggests more lactic acid bacteria which make the sourness.

My mothers are kept in the fridge.

-Gordon

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

yep you're correct.

 

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)
drogon's picture
drogon

but what, I don't know. Sticking to my own experiences for now!

-Gordon

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

And just because you have done one and produced a less sour bread it might mean the other variables were at work.

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

2 to 3 hours level out.  Pretty good holding power for 143% hydration unless you mistyped the water and flour amounts.  (I was hoping for 70g water and 100g flour or 70% hydration,  a wet dough.)  Might be the spelt holding it up.  The rise from 200 to 300ml would also seem in line with high hydration starter and a one to one feeding.  A thicker mixture (less water) might rise higher.  Did you notice any foam or bubbles popping on the surface?  

A seven hour lag time from mix to appearance of small bubbles also seems to be in line with the temperatures if the inoculation would have been 10g.  However, the starter weight was equal to the flour weight.  So what does this tell me?  That if you mix up a dough with equal weights of starter and flour, you will be waiting at least 7 hrs before seeing any rise in the dough.  If the hydration is correct at 143%, a bread dough of say 70% hydration would take longer.  (Wetter doughs ferment faster.)  It also tells me that if these temperatures are room temps, and you want to work with them,  then you might want to try a different method for making your dough using this starter.  Like starting sooner to build for the dough or keeping a wet starter and using more of it in a recipe.  You can also work at getting more yeast in the starter culture.  Warming the water would also help even though it cools downs within an hour.

If you are still up or if it is now morning,  mix (see below) all the test starter (about 220g) into a loaf of bread except 20g of it.  Feed that 20g, 60g flour and enough water to make a soft paste.  Let the starter sit and rise until it peaks,  and hour later, reduce to 20g and repeat with 3 times the amount of flour.  Use a warm spot at least 23°C to 26°C to accomplish this.  The hours will be out of schedule for a while but hopefully the yeast will increase and the time it takes to peak will shorten.  By then you will me know more about how you like to use the starter.  What fits your schedule.  "If I had the perfect starter... it would behave like this..."  

The dough; let's see; you already have the amounts of flour and water for a total of 220g  My mind is not working for the math at the moment, but first break down the water amounts and the flour amounts and add enough water and flour to double it at 100% hydration (equal weights of flour and water.)   You should come out needing more than 110g of flour and less than 100g of water.  The starter can sit out overnight (or all day) to ferment and in 12 -14 hrs, more flour and less water can be added to make your optimal dough consistency,  figure the salt using the total flour amount and go from there adding seeds and spices.  That takes care of that, don't use any added yeast,  add some folds (after some lag time) and while the dough is rising.  You can warm up the dough or use warm water during the builds to help speed up the rises.  

If you see your dough trying to fall apart over this long extended preparation, then by all means, add some softened instant yeast and knead in a little flour to get it into the oven within an hour.  Use at least 2% of the flour amount for a fast rise. 

Oh, a word about spelt.  Very stretchy stuff, if you have about 1/3 of it in your dough, proof a little bit less before baking as the dough tends to over-extend itself.  Otherwise you may end up with a loaf you can't cut, so fuffy it tears apart once through the crust.  I just love spelt.  

If you want to look into wet starters, that might be a solution once the yeast numbers are up.  Keep it in a large container at room temperature and then use only starter as the liquid in the dough.  Replace what is removed.  No messing with the refrigerator as long as the kitchen or pantry is cool.

Mini

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

I made an error. I checked your advice once again. You offered to simulate the 70% dough, and I simulated nothing. I will redo the test.

Anyway, thanks for thorough explanation of the wrong experiment. I will comment it later.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

You just have to slow down to tune in with the starter.   Very nice table by the way.  :)

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

I just wanted to favor them for zero charge. It worked well in summer and stopped in winter. I will follow your advices and try to enlarge and make stronger my yeast community.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

and more than likely can predict the outcome of a new test.  No need to do it unless you are curious, then start the test in the evening as nothing will happen overnight.   Probably take 24hrs at least to peak if not more.  I just wanted to know if the starter/water/flour amounts involved a typo.  If any, my answer would be different.  No biggie.  :)  

A starter working well in the summer temps and then dropping off in winter is very common. (Check the time of year starters have the most trouble in the site archives.)   As soon as temps drop, or the starter shows signs of weakening, it is better to increase the amount of starter fed or reduce the amount of flour.  Another is to look for a warm spot in the house to boost the starter after feeding, like the utility room, under the kitchen sink, in a hot water closet, near the TV.  All kinds of creative ways to find warm spots.  Think cat.  

When spring arrives, the opposite is true, the starter will warm up during the day and cool off at night throwing many a starter keeper off guard fermenting too fast only half the day.   Then it's time to give more flour food or reduce the size of the starter.  You have to be flexible and take into consideration temperature drops and rises. Let the starter peak, level out a bit and when it starts to fall, reduce to keep it a manageable size and then feed it.  This will insure there is enough bacteria to protect the starter from invading bacteria (we hope.)   Once it falls or goes flat, separates or goes stringy, you smell the alcohol or beery notes, it is long overdue to be fed.  (it can actually rise a second time after the first fall.) 

If it falls and you don't smell yeast or ferment but unpleasant notes, then the bad bacteria have taken over the starter.  What is nice is that you have a good table to compare to even though it is a one to one feeding.  The aromas will be the same although developing faster or slower under various conditions.

new apprentice's picture
new apprentice

who took part in the discussion. Finally, I added some amount of AP flour + wholemeal rye to my experimental mix and

baked pretty nice buns for the breakfast. The temperature was the major factor, as I think now.