Terminology
I know this may seem obvious but I've been baking and using sourdough for quite a while now however sometimes I feel as if I know what to do but I don't know what I'm doing. But every so often something clicks and I begin to understand why it is done this way. Terminology is to blame for a lot of this.
My starter is now called my mother culture.
My preferment is now called a Levain.
The levain becomes the starter when used in the recipe.
It's a subtle difference but actually makes more sense to me. Here's why...
The mother culture is just the 'petri dish' to keep the beasties alive and going indefinitely. It won't necessarily be built to the requirements of a recipe. It's a carrier if you will.
You build a preferment - the levain - using the mother culture pre-fermenting a portion of the recipe. The actual recipe has begun. The mother culture inoculates a portion of the recipe. The correct flours and hydration is used as required for the final dough.
The levain is now used as a starter to leaven the dough. We just add the rest of the ingredients to make the final dough.
It is confusing because it's flour and water each time. Each step is basically made up of the same ingredients at least for the mother culture and levain that is. And because a mother culture can be kept any way one wishes or even used as a starter in some cases it becomes more confusing. However if you understand it like I've come to see it then it's a lot clearer.
Keeping the mother culture one way, building a levain another and then using it in a dough enables one to build strength and manipulate flavour.
What really tripped me up was those who just keep a mother starter, feed it everyday and take some off to use straight in the dough. After all it is a bit of a six and 2 threes it all just being flour and water. A mother culture can be both but it all depends on how you use it.
Right now I'm taking a few steps back and rethinking of how I'm keeping my mother culture and how I'm going to do each stage to work to a final bread I want and not just stumble onto a good bake with a hit or miss attitude.
I label mine slightly differently. The culture I keep in the fridge is my starter and the bit I take from that and feed, I consider my levain just like you. However, it doesn't change names for me when I add it to my dough.
Levain probably comes from the French "lever" which means to rise. So the bit I feed and wait to double or rise in my mind is the levain. And it does the same thing with the dough. And the fridge culture starts the levain so therefore it is my starter.
It really doesn't matter what you call what as long as the terminology is meaningful to you and you are able to communicate your understanding of that terminology to others.
But I do kinda agree with you on certain points.
Mother culture stays the same.
Levain stays the same.
Starter I can see how it can apply to both. And another thing what is confusing is that both are preferments.
Whether my terminology is correct or not what I'm really doing is rethinking the stages. The what, why and how's. What are we doing and what is happening at each stage to how it affects the final dough.
Many of us just rely on it being sourdough to get flavour. The trick is how to manipulate it for a flavour you want. I don't wish to stumble on the final product but to manipulate it. There's a difference to biting into a piece of bread and going that's interesting to getting g exactly what you want. Sourdough is flavoursome but are the results what you want?
because it gives a common language and definition to "things". Coming from an IT background clear definitions were essential to communicate efficiently. Universal, like going to a fast food joint (for those that do) and you know what you'll get, regional differences aside.
So I'm all on board in this realm. However the body of bakers still cannot come to an agreed upon language, if even for a few remaining descriptions. Still evolving and the crossing of international lines has also hindered same.
One area where I differ from you is in "My preferment is now called a Levain.". In my imperfect book of nomenclature, a levain can be a preferment, but the reverse isn't true - for me. Bigas and poolishes are flavor enhancers and get the game rolling, but their level of leavening agent is too weak to carry the entire team. For me they must remain in a separate category.
Thanks for publishing your list. alan
I like that. A Levain is a preferment but so is a mother culture, a Poolish, a Biga etc. Thats why it's off the list now. A Levain is clear to me what it is. It is the first step to building the final dough.
My post is very much me thinking aloud and hoping you'd chime in to either confirm or correct. My terminology might be a bit off but its more about what's happening at each stage and why. Terminology does throw one and as Danni says... As long as it makes sense to you.
No more fumbling in the dark for me. Time to see what's happening under the microscope and what we're doing with that info.
Thanks for bringing this up...I feel like sometimes we all speak a slightly different language in this regard...a wiki could offer at least those at this site some form of reference.
Too many terms meaning the same thing.
My mother culture is my starter, I build a levain for each batch of SD bread. Poolishes and bigas (both preferments) I think of only in relation to yeasted breads. not sure about a wiki.....
Good to have you back Abe :)
Leslie
A mother culture is the Starter in the Levain
The Levain is the starter in the final dough
Both are preferments.
What is also confusing is if your mother culture is your starter then recipe which specifies a starter build wouldn't make sense. A starter build begins with take some starter etc. They then use the starter (our Levain) in the recipe.
The whole purpose of this was i'm actually thinking about how I'm going to create more tang in my bread which got me thinking about how I am going to keep the mother culture and how I'm going to do the Levain build etc. The terminology was a tangent that I've gotten onto.
It could be because each step has many names in different languages with some meanings a bit too fluid.
My mother culture is now a 50% hydration dough with 80% bread flour and 20% whole rye. The lower hydration and % of whole rye should encourage more lab.
Thank you Leslie. Nice to be back.
Or at least the same thinking of what's a starter a poolish or a levain. And that's because of your help in my post about slow fermentation. You just opened my mind and helped me to understand things in another way. It was very helpful. I feel like I can handle things better now. Indeed is a bit confusing so much names for the same thing. Thanks for this thoughts.
vk
But even after doing this for quite a while sometimes things just click into place as to why and how each stage is done. And what can be done at each stage for your wanted outcome.
So I'm onto the second stage - Levain build - for the final recipe be it called a levain and/or starter when it goes into the final dough.
It's fun experimenting like this and seeing what happens when we adjust the maintenance of the mother culture to the proportion of wholegrain in the Levain etc.
This is what I'm following hoping for a more complex bread full of flavour.
http://brodandtaylor.com/make-sourdough-more-sour/
http://brodandtaylor.com/make-sourdough-more-or-less-sour-part-2/
Time to see what's actually going on when making bread.
As you apparently is a frequent at weekendbakery I believe you know their tips also:
https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/handy-sourdough-tips/
Mother Culture has been transformed. Levain build went nicely and smelled tangy too. Promising results so far. Just up to the dough stage now. Started a bit late so after the bulk ferment it'll be retarded in the final proofing stage overnight. In the meantime I'll revisit My Weekend Bakery to see what they say.
If someone only keeps a mother culture, feeds it, takes from it and uses it straight into the dough then that mother culture is everything. The seed, starter, levain.
So perhaps the terminology changes depending on how we use it and how many stages we build upto for the final dough.
Right... Time for a stretch and fold.
languages. Pain au Levain in French means sourdough bread. Pain is bread and leavin means sourdough So the mother and bread is levain as is your levain you make from the mother or starter.
I'm with you on mother being a starter and building a bit of mother or starter into a levian to leaven a loaf of bread, The Brits would usually call this levain a natural sponge where a commercial yeast one would just be sponge.
For me, once the levain hits the dough it makes a sourdough. So starter, levain and sourdough is the terminology I use from beginning to end before being baked. Once baked it becomes a sourdough bread or Pain au Levain.
The French also take their sourdough starter, they call it levain, and build it up to a larger amount they call a chef which is really weird for us since chef means a fancy do cook. No matter how you slice the terminology, once you combine English and French it becomes something.....else:-)
What we need is starter, 'a new word in English for levain' and then sourdough. So I say we start a challenge for this new word in English that means a built up larger starter but not yet a sourdough.
For those that go from stored starter to sourdough and don't do a build in between this word isn't necessary - they go from starter to sourdough to sourdough bread - no worries.
I like the way how you explain it Dabrownman. It boils down to how you use it and how many stages you like to build upto the final dough.
"Two bakers, three opinions" don't help either. As long as I'm understanding you then all is good.
Gosh, sourdough is so interesting! I think this is why I love it so much.
Another thing I've stumbled upon is your no muss no fuss starter. I came to the conclusion of how to keep my starter from here on only to find its almost identical as your no muss no fuss starter. Went off in a journey to discover how to get more flavour out of my starter only to find you've done it already. I've bookmarked your page and will be referring to it.
Right, my last stretch and fold...
Almost exactly a year ago, our dearly departed buddy dobie was corn-fused about terms, so I constructed the following reply for him. Perhaps this can be part of a start.
another take on a few terms
What I'm saying is not necessary aligned with anybody/everybody else, but I'll take a shot at it too - what the heck...
starter - the basic foundational goop, be it low or high hydration, for making an eventual sourdough bread.
refresh - the action of feeding a starter to provide it with new food, regardless of how frequent one does this. A refresh typically has one discarding a portion of the existing starter and performing the refresh to the remaining portion, sometimes quite a small amount, perhaps no more than a few grams of starter. My 60% hydration starter hasn't been refreshed in maybe 4 months now, my 75% hydration starter, which is the one I mostly use is refreshed when I feel like it, usually around the time I've done a few bakes. They both live in the deep dark recesses of my refrigerator, along with my 100% hydration rye starter, also not refreshed in the past 6-8 weeks. The refresh can also be done in builds. My 60% starter is done in 3 builds.
build - the first step to creating the levain for the eventual sourdough bread (or refresh). Builds are frequently done in 1,2 or 3 separate steps, building on the output from the prior build step.
levain - the final output from the builds performed to the starter, regardless of how you arrived there. This is what will be added to the remainder of the final mix ingredients to create the dough. In my personal nomenclature this differs from a levain or sourdough bread, which is bread made with levain.
preferment - the creating of a flour/water mixture with some addition of yeast, be it natural (levain itself is a preferment) or commercial yeast, such as Instant Dried Yeast. If one adds no yeast to a "preferment" then it isn't one, it is an autolyse.
autolyse - is a way to begin the hydration process of the flour and to start breaking down the starches in the flour so that the eventual addition of yeast can have some immediate food to feast on. The autolyse, as described by Msr. Calvel many decades ago consists of nothing more than water and flour. To adhere to his definition means adherence to nothing more than those two ingredients. However, there are a lot of formulae that call for the yeast or occasional other additives to be "autolysed" at that initial stage. Regardless of how you - dobie - define autolyse, the singular ingredient that is "never" added at this stage is salt.
The hydration level of the preferment varies as does the %age of yeast added to it, as does the fermentation time to get to an eventual mature preferment and its readiness to be added to the final mixture. Some familiar preferments are poolish and biga, each with its own relatively standard hydration level.
The %age of preferment to be added to the final mixture can vary as there is no standard. It is up to the creator of a recipe (or formula) to determine through learned experience, what an appropriate %age of preferment should be. Just as the same is true for what hydration and %age of levain should be added.
Preferments do not have to be used. Another in the myriad methods of creating a final product. When they are not used the general term is straight dough or direct dough.
Autolyse is typically timed out at between ~20 minutes to 1 hour, with a school of thought that any greater than 1 hour has negligible returns.
So - in summary, am I right? Some will agree with much of what I state some will disagree with much of what I state, and I am certainly not one to school Mr. Hamelman nor Mr. Reinhart on terminology. But these definitions are what I hold as my standards - for me. For you? What works for you will eventually become your standard. But once you get there, try not to vary it too much or you'll be all over the board trying to keep it straight for yourself or when defining it to others. Get one story and stick with it.
As for me and creating formulae? I'm a copycat. I find something that seems interesting to me, try to reproduce it and then change a thing or three around.
alan
Well I've just got my dough into the fridge. Everything went smoothly but my shaping could be better. Went a bit mad with my shaping and tightened it too much. You can't correct at that stage as it needs to relax. Oddly enough there's a point where higher hydration dough is easier to shape but not too high. This was a 70% hydration dough where one time I would have thought it was too wet but now I prefer higher. It was an exercise in taste and not hydration so I proceeded. I did a pre-shape then I did a fold. Bottom into the middle, left over right, right over left, top down then bottom over the top. Flip over and tighten. Well after overdoing the pre-shape this really overdid it. So instead of digging myself deeper I chucked it into the fridge before I ruined everything. I'm hoping time will sort it out. It was an odd shaped boule.
You should definitely make a blog on what you've just written. A baking terminology primer. I recently found out why proving is called so. It's because the bread has proved itself capable of rising. Nice one! Obvious really.
Alan I missed your post to Dobie first time around but like it very much, perhaps we should call it Dobie's Fermentation Terminology courtesy of Alfonso or even Dobie's TFL Fermentation Terminology.
From Romeo and Juliet she says to Romeo
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
In the end its just a matter of everyone being able to sing from the same hymen book.
Kind regards Derek
From a 'hymn' book :-D
Damned that autocorrect
That is a big oopsie
Could be a runaway best seller rather than a collection of Hymns
I know I did an article once before where we had a guest speaker whose name was Libby and auto correct changed her name to Labia I did notice it then though. it would seem autocorrect has a one track mind
And this thread is all about correct terminology too!
Kind regards
Derek
Can be more of a hindrance then a help. But very funny sometimes.
spell checker software to see if it is set for Oz English or defaults to Male Chauvinist Pig English. A common error.
alan
Hi Alan, I think in this case it was operator error, the fact that the wrong word was chosen but spelt correctly didn't trigger a correction and went un noticed.
You mention the starter/levain, etc as a preferment. Just to get your mind thinking, I would like to mention something I do with every formula. That is to write the formula as a straight dough (without preferment), and then play around with the % pre-ferment flour, hydration of the pre-ferment, and how much commercial yeast is in the pre-ferment (none in the case of the natural yeast we are discussing). This is how I look at every formula no matter how it originally looks (as long as it is weights).
For Example:
Weight
Edit: I am pretty sure I got this general worksheet from Dan DiMuzio. Keep in mind, that there can also be more than one pre-ferment, or multiple flours, plus other ingredients as well.
:)
I think you are looking at it wrong. The left column would be the total flour and water without pre-ferment. But the right column is the adjusted weights based on the amount of pre-ferment/starter/levain (the middle column is the amount of flour and water in the pre-ferment/starter). So it is 125g of starter, 250g of water, 375g of flour ... So, 1-2-3. Of course, if the straight dough column (on the left) were to be used, then yeast would need to be added. It is easier to see in an excel spreadsheet compared to how it is seen here I guess.
:) thanks for that Reminds me of the engineer's expression: "If it ain't broke, it hasn't got enough features yet."
Haha. Yep. For me it does three things: 1) lets me see the total hydration 2) allows me to convert commercial yeast breads to sourdough and vice versa 3) allows me to convert stiff sourdough starter formulas to liquid (or however I am keeping my starter at the time).
What's funny is that below all this on the spreadsheet there are more features such as calculating how much flour and water I need for the starter so that I have enough left over for feeding (based on my current feeding ratio); plus dough temperature calculations. I am always looking to add more features even though I am not an engineer.
Edit: BTW, 2.5/3.5=71.4% so that makes sense.
Here's another point of view, based on what I've seen/ heard:
Item
Terms, Natural Yeast
Terms, Commercial Yeast
The stuff we keep feeding between bakes but never (please, God!) actually bake
Culture, starter, levito madre, mother, seed, inoculant, levain, sauerteig, chef,
n/a
The stuff we put into our bread dough to leaven it and enhance flavor
Levain, builds, biga naturale, sponge, starter,
Sponge, biga, poolish (all of these fall under the pre-ferment heading), pate fermentee / old dough,
Don't take any of the above as authoritative, particularly since you can see that there are overlaps in the terminology. And note that I didn't close off any of the lists since I'm sure that there are other terms in use. I'd love to see some standardization; maybe that's a task the BBGA can take up. My own practice is to refer to the maintained-but-not-baked part as "starter" and the mixed-into-the-dough part as "levain", but that's just me.
Paul
I am not sure that your effort, however valiant, will put much of a dent into the local custom of calling anything anything.
because, suave, you have the most correct response!
We, however many 'we' are, can agree in blood to abide by our own arcane terminology, while the other 99.99% of the baking world happily ignores us.
Too many people with too many choices, I'm afraid. Note that I deliberately left "barm" off the list. ;-)
Paul
Why not barm?
not a sourdough. One can certainly use barm to leaven breads, as has been done for centuries or longer.
Paul
oops, you know I've lost track of the thread and who's answering whom about what. I just thought what have you got against barm haha!
nt
I was just looking at a formula, and the poolish was called a "starter" rather than a poolish or a pre-ferment. I guess that is still correct, but normally if someone says "starter" I assume sourdough.
so we could have and English for the first term, Italian for the 2nd (despite what they did to farro) and French for the 3rd or some combination . But then the Greeks, who taught them all to bake bread, would really be upset and rightfully so. Better not to talk to each other:-)
standing. I guess if the recipe is Italian, we should be using Italian terminology, Spanish bread Spanish, German bread Sours and Gärkorbs, French, well, we use quite a few words already in French... What is the English word for Baguette? the French Stick. Where am I going with this?