Can I bake bread with a mixture of sourdough starter and commercial baker's yeast
hello,
I'm a beginner in sourdough, with my first ever sourdough starter ready in these few days. I'm excited about the prospect of baking bread with the starter for the first time but am also worried that my bread may not rise properly (either due to the young age of my starter or due to my lack of experiences). So my question is can I add both sourdough starter and the commercial yeast to make my bread as an insurance? if so, what should be the right ratio between the starter, commercial yeast to, the flour and water? Do I still need to wait much longer for my bread to rise than if I only use sourdough starter?
And is it correct that the best time to do sourdough starter "float test" is not immediately after feeding, but a few hours after that? if so, how many hours is it? and Should I immediately incorporate the starter if the test result is good?
I'm making my bread with 15% protein whole wheat flour without kneading and am leaving the mixed dough in the refrigerator for between 20-24 hours to let the gluten to develop (I find the result to be pretty strong). And then for the second rise, I will take the dough out of the fridge and let it rise for half an hour or so on the counter, before baking. My question is: If I use both the starter and commercial yeast, do I have to lengthen the first and the second step?
Thank you for your great insight!
Cheers!
Liming
recipe on this website. That is an excellent starting point for your first loaf. If your starter is robust you don't need to add any extra yeast at all. David's recipe calls for a bulk fermentation in the refrigerator. If you follow the steps he outlines you will have a nice loaf of bread even though you have swapped out the rye flour that he (and I) use for whole wheat.
Agree with AlanG. You will want to know if your starter has the gumption to perform on its own. By adding in commercial yeast, you will not know, or you will obtain a result that may lead to false conclusions. I also agree that the SJSD formula is wonderful.
There are a number of formulae out there on TFL for a combo of the two (SD starter and commercial yeast) so if that is what you want, you can try it. Look up Gosselin baguettes tradition by dmsnyder for one. It's a 75% hydration final dough that asks for a double feeding of water in the final mix. So it is a little bit sophisticated, but an incredible bread. It calls for baguettes, but you can shape them otherwise.
In general, the answer is often "that depends". As far as length of time, commercial yeasts will cause dough to ferment faster than natural levain, "all things being equal". There is also the very important question of what the ambient temperature in your fermenting environment is. Cold rooms cause slower rise. As for proofing times, the finger dent test is your best indicator.
But why not see what your creation yields first. It is all about the learning of what your ingredients and skills yield that are important. Test the waters. And the breads! Oh yeah, it's also all about the flavor of the bread...
alan
Yes, you can use it in a sourdough loaf and live free of fear that the bread police will knock down your door. While I prefer to bake with just my sourdough starter, I have and probably will in the future use a small amount (1/8-1/4 tsp) of commercial yeast in some loaves, particularly when I have time concerns and the room temperature is on the cool side for my starter.
If you have access to J Hamelman's "Bread" book, you'll find that his much admired Norwich Sourdough uses a small amount of commercial yeast. Many of the recipes on the very interesting "Plotzblog" originate from European sources and Lutz, the blogger in question, isn't afraid to use small amounts of commercial yeast in these recipes.
By all means, continue to cultivate that starter until you feel you have bragging rights but there's no shame in using a little bit of IDY in your bread. You won't be the first and you certainly won't be the last.
There are a couple of ways to use sourdough -- as a leavening agent and as a dough acidifier. If you're using it for leavening, you probably shouldn't let the pre-dough sponge ripen for more than 6-8 hours. Also, a leavening sponge should contain at least 30% of the bread's total flour.
Acidifying sponges, which are used mainly in rye breads to inhibit enzyme-driven complex-carb (starch) degradation, generally ripen for a longer period -- as much as 12-16 hours. Breads using an acidifying sponge generally need an addition of 1-1.5% fresh yeast (0.4-0.6% instant) to develop an open crumb.
Stan Ginsberg
theryebaker.com
There are a couple of ways to use sourdough -- as a leavening agent and as a dough acidifier. If you're using it for leavening, you probably shouldn't let the pre-dough sponge ripen for more than 6-8 hours. Also, a leavening sponge should contain at least 30% of the bread's total flour.
Acidifying sponges, which are used mainly in rye breads to inhibit enzyme-driven complex-carb (starch) degradation, generally ripen for a longer period -- as much as 12-16 hours. Breads using an acidifying sponge generally need an addition of 1-1.5% fresh yeast (0.4-0.6% instant) to develop an open crumb.
Stan Ginsberg
theryebaker.com
This is not a recipe that is Hamelman's book. His classic sourdough is "Vermont Sourdough" and the recipe contains no yeast at all. It's the one that I've adapted along with some of the methods of David Snyder.
Actually all sourdough contain yeast, they just use wild yeast that is created in the starter.
If that's what you want to do. My everyday bread is this kind of hybrid - but I vary the amount of yeast according to how much time I have.
At the end of the day, it's what works best for you that matters :-) Oh, and getting a great loaf of bread...
Very well said, I think that of course that 12 hour proofing rise is great.....if you have a total of 24 hours to devote to the loaf, but as we all know we always do not have that type of time so adding a commercial yeast to a already great sourdough starter will save time and you still get the flavor. Is it a perfect loaf, well no, but will most of the people that taste it know.... I can assure you they will not.
Extra sourdough can almost always be added to any commercial yeast recipe to add flavor or acidity. It also works well with things like pancakes leavened with soda.
Still you should also give your starter a chance to do its job and make a loaf rise.
Feeding is likely to to degas your starter so it probably won't float right afterwards and it does not make sense to feed it right before making your final dough as mixing the dough is just giving it a big meal anyway. My standard is to feed at breakfast and mix at lunch if I don't forget until dinner rolls around.
I can tell you from experience that I sometimes use commerical quick rise yeast in my sourdough. Being that sourdough takes so long to rise sometimes you need a loaf fast. So I add my starter and about a 1/2 tsp of regular ole Fleishmans to my dough. I get a quick rise which I then punch down after an hour, 2nd rise punch down again, then I do a third proof rise in a cool area so that it will rise much less quickly.
Do I lose some of that slow rise texture YES, but I still get that tangy sourdough flavor. 90% of people will not know the difference, my foodie friend of course will.
In these times I am using starter only to preserve my dried yeast supply. I use half starter half DY to counteract the full on sour taste that my family are not always too keen on. Part of the reason why this happens is that rise it a lot quicker so fermentation is lesser.
Im experimenting more with raisin water but local water board has gone nuts on the chlorine which is killing my yeast.
You should be able to fill a jug, leave it out on the counter overnight with a coffee filter over it to keep out the dust, and by morning the chlorine will have dissipated out of the water. Use this water for your yeast water ferment but also use it in your bread dough. This will help your bread made with IDY and sourdough perform better, since chlorine also harms those yeasts.
tldr: If you mix natural sourdough starter with commercial yeast, you will end up with a deflated and off tasting bread with bitter ammonia aftertaste.
Longer version: I have a good starter that passes the float test, more than doubles regularly, and smells nice and lactic-ish, like proper sourdough. So I thought I'd do an experiment...I took a recipe that has worked for me...the whole wheat bread recipe in the Bread Baker's Apprentice (by Peter Reinhart), and I added a tablespoon of my starter to the poolish, in addition to the 1/4 teaspoon of commercial yeast in the recipe. I thought it might give the bread a nice sour test. It seemed to go okay, and my dough passed the windowpane test after kneading, so I let it rise for the first proof-ing. It started to rise, but some time before doubling, it stopped rising. I shaped it into two loaves and let it rise. It didn't rise... much. Maybe it rose 20%. I pulled a little piece off and fried it until it was well cooked. Then I tasted it...it tasted horrible and bitter, with a vague ammonia aftertaste. And so I did some more reading in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice":
Commercial yeast and wild yeast are actually different species...commercial yeast is S. cerevisiae, while wild yeast is S. exiguus. If commercial yeast is exposed to acid conditions, like those produced when the bacteria from sourdough starters go to work, then it dies, leaving the bread with "an ammonialike aftertaste and a weakened gluten structure". Wild yeast on the other hand is more hardy, able to withstand acidic conditions in the pH 3.5 to 4.0 range.
So, I've wasted enough dough to make two one pound loaves. I hate wasting food. Don't do what I did. Don't mix commercial yeasts with sourdough starters. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but don't do it!
Hamelman's "Sourdough Baguettes" (176-177) includes commercial yeast. You build the levain normally and the commercial yeast (.5%) goes in right before the bulk fermentation. He comments that you can omit the yeast and "the bread will be denser and have a more pronounced flavor." It's certainly possible! I could imagine other ways, though as noted above probably not in the levain, which is likely acidic enough to kill commercial yeast.
All that said, if you're just learning sourdough, I'd start with a simple sourdough recipe and repeat until I learned it. That's because (assuming you're comfortable with commercial-yeast-leavened bread) the main thing you're learning when you start sourdough is the care and feeding of starter, levain, and dough, the timing and effects of temperature and all the subtle joys of handling two different microorganism cultures. Adding commercial yeast, even at a late stage, will throw that off.
You absolutely can, a lot of bakeries do so in order to improve the final product shelf life and flavor but still get a very predictable schedule.
I recently decided to experiment with adding a pinch of organic yeast to my everyday sourdough recipe, with very positive results. I've baked two identical loaves, over the last two days, with the same results. I was looking for a method that would help improve the crumb for a recipe that uses a good portion of bolted whole wheat flour (Golden Buffalo from Heartland Mills).
There is absolutely no ammonia taste as one of the other posts stated. The flavor of the bread was not altered in any way and is just as delicious as always. The crumb was very nice...definitely a little lighter and springier than my usual loaves that have higher concentrations of whole wheat. Shaping is interesting in that the dough has a bit more spring to it. The bulk fermentation was similar but I did notice more rise after the final proof, even with a cold proof of about 4 hours. Oven spring was very nice.
If you do a search on this subject, you can find some pretty intense opinions, which I find interesting. Some people suggest this is 'cheating' somehow if you are making a sourdough loaf. I, for one, will continue to experiment with a pinch of yeast in future bakes, guilt free.
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Whatever you do to make a good dough isn't cheating, it's what I call smart. Added yeast definitely has it's advantages, as you noted. Many a time I've added yeast when my schedule called for a shortened bake cycle, and the bread was great. Important thing is - make bread WE like to eat - however it comes about.
Thanks for weighing in...the comments are appreciated! And, I agree so much...if it works for you and you like the results, no judgement necessary ;-)