October 14, 2015 - 2:51am
Not sour sourdough?
Hi guys, can someone advise please as to why my sourdough starter does not smell 'tangy' hence my loaves turn out "not very sour"?
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Hi guys, can someone advise please as to why my sourdough starter does not smell 'tangy' hence my loaves turn out "not very sour"?
On your Starter and how you use it in your baking will help.
What flour/s is your Starter made from?
What hydration is your Starter?
How often do you feed it?
How much do you use in a recipe?
Thanks for getting back to me. I use strong white bread flour, mixed 50/50 with water, I feed everyday. I usually wait around 4 days before using, when the starter has risen to the top of the kilner jar. The recipe I use is:
500g Strong flour
300g Starter
10g Brown sugar
10g salt
250ml water
The sourdough paradox...
Less starter = more tang
more starter = more mellow
Reason being... flavour comes from the fermentation and if you use less starter then it'll need longer for fermentation therefore bringing out more flavour.
You can also encourage a more flavoursome starter (although doesn't necessarily will mean a more flavoursome bread as you also need to take into account HOW it is used in the dough like we said before) by feeding it a higher ratio of food to starter.
If you feed 10g of starter with 10g flour + 10g water then that is a ratio of 1:1:1 (I feed atleast this or more)
If you feed 10g of starter with 5g flour + 5g water then that is a ratio of 1:0.5:0.5 (I wouldn't feed less than this)
If you feed 10g of starter with 20g flour + 20g water then that is a ratio of 1:2:2
...and of course they are all 100% hydration.
To encourage a healthy and tangy starter then feed 1:2:2.
You could also build a wetter levain to encourage tanginess. i.e. making it 125% hydration (you might wish to take a little off to build with as a preferment and keep your starter at 100% hydration). This will also encourage tanginess. Although if you do this take into account it'll change the hydration of the final dough in your usual recipe.
Your starter ratio in your recipe is 60% taking the flour as 100%. This is quite high and won't encourage sourness.
Your final dough is 1070g and it's 62% hydration. So how about we rearrange the recipe to keep these ratios but drop the amount of Starter?
600g Strong Bread Flour
350g Water
120g Starter
12g Salt
You may add in sugar if you wish but you want it tangy.
This comes to 1082g without the sugar. It has 20% starter ratio to flour. And it's 62% hydration.
Do everything as you usually do but since there is less starter it'll take longer. So for bulk fermentation wait till it's doubled then knock back, shape and final proof till almost doubled.
Are you feeding the starter and letting it rise in the refrigerator? If not, it should only take a couple of hours to rise. If you're leaving it out on the counter, after four days, it's well past its prime. Typically, you feed the starter, leave it at room temperature, and then mix it into the dough when it's nice and active about six hours later.
to mean after its nice and bubbly it is refrigerated and used within 4 days which would be fine (often I use straight from the fridge a starter which matured sometime previously as long as it was refrigerated in time). However if left out on the countertop for 4 days then you're right!!
I am at best a novice when it comes to sourdough, however here are a few things I've learned on this forum to control the degree of sour that my experience bears out.
Somewhere on this forum there is a graph that charts the temperature/activity rates of both the yeast and lactobacillius in your starter. Simplistically, yeast leavens, lactobacillius sours.
There's a sweet spot between 70 and 75F (or so) where both are growing at approximatly the same rate. Starter or dough brought active at these temps will be more balanced between the two and generally result in a 'less' sour bread.
When you get to about 85F, the growth of the yeast starts to fall off dramatically. However, the lactobacillius continues to do just fine, peaking somewhere around 90 to 93F before it also falls off dramatically.
I believe the same dynamic occurs at lower temperatures as well, creating more 'sour' with long, cold retards.
I have also read that a higher hydration starter will be more sour than a lower hydration one.
I'm sure someone with more expertise will chime in and correct me if I'm wrong and perhaps add more insight, but that is my understanding to date.
dobie
AbeNW11
The sourdough paradox..., Less starter = more tang, more starter = more mellow.
I had no idea. I always thought (for no good reason) that it would be quite the opposite.
Another wrench in my toolbox.
Thank you very much.
dobie
Every bake unique.
When I first started my venture into sourdough I started off using very small amounts of starter. Never mind tangy... it was so sour almost couldn't eat it. Then when I learned about this "paradox", with some trial and error, I eventually started producing some lovely loaves. Generally I stick to a range of 10-30% depending if I wish for more or less tang. Never go less now but sometimes experiment with more. But everyone will have their own ways of doing things. All correct. I think my main problem was not following a recipe straight away which actually slowed my progress down. I took a backstep and started to follow recipes to get to "know" sourdough and how it works etc. Now I formulate my own recipes no problem. At the beginning it was all so confusing and thought i'd never pick it up or understand it properly as one of the problems was information overload and not realising that no one way is correct. One can learn from everyone.
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of sour and each is produced differently under the right circumstances by the LAB in the SD culture. The sour taste is lactic acid and the 'tang' is acetic acid. LAB have little problem making lactic acid and why they are named after it . They have a more difficult time making the tangy acetic acid.
The 2nd phase of the Detmolder levain build process is one way to get the LAB making acetic acid per this link
http://germanfood.about.com/od/germanfoodglossary/a/Detmolder-Three-Phase-Sourdough-Method.htm
Generally speaking low temperatures for very long times - weeks for a starter retard or high temperatures for short times promote LAB reproduction rates over yeast meaning more LBb and less yeast which leads to longer times for ferment and proof where the more LAB can really spike the mix with aci per this chart
Hydration of starter, levain and dough
Levain build time
Levain build temperature
Bulk fermentation time
Bulk fermentation temperature
Proof time
Proof temperature
Longer times with higher and lower temperatures are also important for making acid. But I think the most important part is the buffering capacity of the flour - its ash content. Low ash means low acid and high ash means high acid. doc.dough's experiments with his acid meter and my many baking experiments to bring out the acid it bread all point to fact that there is somethlng in the bran extracted part that is the fertilizer the LAB needs to make acid more acid. It the bran is soaked in boiling water like a scald even more acid is produced, his is true for starter, levain and dough.builds,
Another factor for fertilizing acid production is the addition of 1-2% fructose. LAB use the fructose as a free electron receptor allowing them to make more acid as well.
Now you know why i like whole grains, scald the bran and feed it to the levain, do 3 stage levain builds of various hydration and temperatures to bring out the acid potential of the LAB, retard a whole rye starter for 12- 20 weeks or more, scald the 80% extraction dough flour before the autolyse, retard the built levain for 24-48 hours, do gluten development and any other counter work for the starter and levain at 88- 92 F, retard either bulk or shaped dough for 21-24 hours etc. These are all methods I have experimented with to see how the acid amount and type was affected by the various processes..
I you want non sour, sourdough bread like Tartine or Forkish then make white bread, do everything at 80% hydration at normal room temperatures and don't retard anything, build and use an immature and young white starter. Simple enough- well not really but nothing ever is:-) It has been a really fun adventure for sure but I'm pretty sure I can manipulate the LAB and yeast to do pretty much anything I want to do.
Remember the LAB and yeast combination in your starter will also determine to a great degree what your outcome will be. There are some SD yeast that produce twice the co2 as others and there are LAB that produce twice as much acid as others and there are even some that produce as much co2 anmd ethanol as the yeast do especially when they run out of fructose.
Hope this helps and happy SD baking