November 16, 2016 - 3:18am
Historical starters
Everywhere I looked for help on making my first starter I'd find anecdotes of starters that were hundreds of years old, or which where smuggled out of Nazi Germany. There's also the mythology of San Francisco starter. But I was wondering. If the woman next door to me has starter handed down to her by her 19th century ancestors in Romania, and assuming that we shop at the same grocery store and buy the same flour... After a couple of years, how different will our starters be? At some point, does it become impossible to tell the difference, and is the difference simply her more interesting background story?
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Starters a never older than the yeasts that live inside them. The lifespan of yeast is just a few hours. It replicates then dies. The flour and water is just the carrier. Make a starter in one country with one type of flour and water then taking it to a different country and feed it with another type of flour and water and your starter will change.
I know that it will change. I want to know if the "individuality" of a particular starter remains for any appreciable time. Is my neighbor's starter any different from mine? That is, is there a difference that anyone could possibly taste in a bread?
I think the very nature of starters is that no two are ever the same. Even keeping the same location and flour your starter will change with temperature. Does this mean that you'll always be able to get a discernible difference in taste? Well it depends if it's a subtle difference or not and the palate of the person tasting it I suppose.
of both tested to see how closely they are related. If I was betting on this I would think that both cultures are close cousins.
Gerhard
there would be a difference. I just didn't know if it would be detectable by the human tongue.
The other day, I was having a few beers with a friend, telling him about my new bread making hobby. I got around to the starter anecdotes, and he asked why anyone would go to the trouble of preserving a specific starter so diligently when you could just make another one and it'd be ready to make good bread in a week and great bread in a month.
Why go to the trouble of making a new starter each time when you could just keep one going? That's the whole purpose of starters.
And preserving a starter is zero trouble if maintained well. It doesn't have to be fed everyday nor does there need to be any discard.
Young starters are temperamental and not as strong as well established ones. Making a new one doesn't mean it'll take hold. And a loaf of bread will take two weeks.
No, neither of us was suggesting you make a new starter for every loaf of bread. But there is a story of people fleeing Nazi Germany, leaving their prized possessions behind, but taking their starter. Given a situation like that, was it *really* worth that kind of effort?
In a more modern context, I understand that you can purchase authentic San Francisco starter to be shipped to you (I'm on the east coast). Unless you desperately need to make a quality sourdough loaf in a couple of days, why not just make your own from scratch, since it's going to be essentially the same after not too much time.
Is that you make the yeast from the very ingredients the bread is made from. So yes, I agree with you... you're only a week or two away from cultivating your own.
If fleeing I don't think taking starter is top priority. Keeping one going just saves time and makes more sense. However there are some rye bread recipes which you make over a few days just by mixing a bit more flour and water everyday and when it starts to bubble you turn it into a dough etc. So they are made from scratch. A starter is what you keep behind for the next bake to save you time. But many people just make it the traditional way and start afresh if they have time, for these rye breads (I'm sure there are others).
Another type of bread is "salt rising bread" which was born out of necessity and people made do with what they had and found a way of making bread from scratch over a couple of days. Not quite a sourdough though but you get the gist of it.
When people saw that taking the dregs from beer making (which has yeast in it) also works they used that as it saved time and Barm Bread was born. Which is the forerunner of today's bakers yeast.
Throughout history people have do with what was available and always looked for more efficient ways. Keeping a starter was one way.
People become attached to starters because they've had it for so long and nurtured it.
I can understand that. Another anecdote is that starter has been given as a wedding gift. My friend and I had a few yucks over that one. "Oh thanks, mom. I really didn't need that washer/dryer. I'll be thinking about this wonderful starter while I'm sitting all afternoon at the laundromat." But seriously, I can see it could have some major sentimental value, especially if mother-daughter (or son) bread making was a long time tradition. (As long as the starter present was in addition to the washer/dryer.)
But this starter is probably part of the family by now. Oh it won't mean much to the young couple now but after many years they'll be giving some to their children. I too think it'd be nice but as long as it isn't the "real" present :)
and don't forget this young couple are starting a new home and bread is the staff of life etc. Probably more apt in years gone by when it meant a lot more.
People may have fled nazi Germany with them as bread was probably the only source of simple sustenance they could count on in uncertain times so became a lot more important. Assuming they could get flour as well of course.
If they could get flour, they could make new starter. Perhaps my vision of "fleeing Nazi Germany" is a little extreme. I think of the end of Sound of Music. It might have been simply getting on the train to go to the apartment that is waiting for you in a different country a few hours away.
Rob Dunn, a biologist at NC State University is looking in to sourdough colonies. I heard a story on NPR. He's soliciting participation.
I don't know the pre-history of my starter (Monk Kineston). I just know I stopped at the library on my way to pick him up by bicycle from a fellow baker in town and got three books on sourdough bread baking. I spent the next two weekends reading about bread. Monk + books + this community + trial and error = a weekly loaf that fits into my life.Success!
In about 2006, I revived a dried Sourdough Jack San Fran starter from a packet sold to a tourist in the 1960's that was never used. It was insanely vigorous but needed multiple feedings to get rid of the rancid flour taste. I have maintained (and neglected) that starter for 10 yrs now. I would say that he has changed in taste and behavior a little bit but not much. Right from the start this starter had a very consistent behavior and flavor when building in prep for baking that is different fro my other starters (2) that I built from scratch. Those 2 started out tasting/behaving differently from each other, probably because one was started from grapes, but became indistinguishable shortly after both became flour/water starters.
So I believe my Sourdough Jack maintains some symbiotic stability over time that is different from my 2 scratch starters despite all of them being fed the same flour and water over the last 10 yrs. It has slightly different taste, aroma and behaviors. I use a national brand of AP flour for feeding (unbleached Gold Medal,unbleached Pillsbury or Dakota Maid) and bottled spring water.
My observation.
because the SFLAB only lived there and that the starter was inoculated by wee beasties floating in the air. Now we know this is total nonsense and SLAB is found all over the world and the wee beasities your starter ends up with comes from where the grain was grown since they hitch a ride on the grain berries. But you still might not have SFLAB in the your culture. There are a couple of dozen different LAB that could be in your culture and a couple of dozen yeast varieties as well ......and combinations of several of each in a mature starter.
Once a starter is mature it is hard for another kind of LAB / yeast to take it over since the old guard is so well entrenched and has a huge lead in numbers. Eventually there will be changes depending on the flour you use to feed the culture and the strongest and fittest wee beasties will be selected in the survival of the fittest.
It is fun to make new starters and almost impossible for them to fail when starting. A rye, wheat, spelt, emmer, kamut or barley starter can all be quite different depending on what wee beasties were on the grain and where it was grown. I am always amazed how different they can be. The fastest to a loaf of bread is rye with wheat a day later if done right .... 4-5 days. I use PR's whole rye method and Joe Ortiz's wheat one. Both work every time without fail. The whole wheat one makes the most sour bread - I don't know why.
After making all of the starters in Clayton'e Complete book of bread and every other method I have run across over the years, I am amazed that none of them were the same. The66% hydration whole rye NMNF starter, that I mainly use today was originally made in 1973 in SF using WW and milk if I remember right ( it might have been water) and fed white wheat flour after 3 days. It was very liquid 125% hydration or more. Today, it isn't anything like it was then. Totally different in every way - different hydration, flour and resulting flavor and tang. It has just about every starter I have ever made folded into it over the years too. So it has a trace of just about every flour and liquid imaginable in it.
I tell people if they don't like their starter, just make another one using a different method and flour from a different part of the world until you get the one you like or can live with. I currently have a Joe Ortiz wheat flour starter besides my NMNF one but will soon mix them together and see which one survives in a month or so:-) Just like World of Warcraft at the wee beastie scale!
With starters so easy to make, nearly fail proof today, I don't know why people try to save them in time of war when so many other things are so much more important. Seems very odd to me but heck, as a bread libertarian, I say go for what ever floats your boat and don't give a hoot about what ever I or anyone thinks! A couldn't care less what you think attitude is fine way to lead your life..... if you really want it to be your life - just don't hurt anyone else - including and especially the wee beasties!
I do like to torture them a bit though:-)
would be in order.. :)
all they seem to want is prison food of a strict flour and water diet. No haute cuisine required. Maybe we could learn something..... Not even Lucy could get them to think outside the basic bread box - but we won't give up. Lucy has volunteered as a therapy dog for them in a safe zone in a larger sized bowl. Sadly, all she wants to do is eat them...... which is better than torture I suspect:-)
... a bit of counseling is in order! .. no perhaps about it.. really, get some help.. leave the wee yeast alone.. :)
As far as I know it's the lactic acid bacteria that provide most of the flavour, not the yeasts. But I could be wrong. I think it depends more on how hydrated the starter is, what temperature you keep it at, how often you feed it and what kind of flour (not brand, I mean different grains) that affect the taste. So if you get an 'ancient' starter from someone, or order one from San Francisco, your starter over time will reflect how you treat it more than where it started. Your neighbour and you would probably end up with different combinations of yeasts and bacteria even if you started with the same culture.
I like to keep my starter going because it's always ready to use that way. Getting the right kind of beasties populating a starter can take anywhere from five days to five weeks; a little inconvenient if you bake a lot! And I did take some of my starter with me on a recent trip to the UK, mostly because I didn't want to start all over again with strange flour and unknown conditions once I got there. And I left it with my daughter, who is now baking her own bread! :)