August 3, 2017 - 5:53pm
Bread leavened with three and half day old starter
Just as an experiment I started making a new sourdough starter and after three and half days the starter was ready to bake and I am publishing the results here.
The procedure used was a standard one with exception that I was using freshly milled wheat which was only 10 days before harvested on a nearby field.
I made a video with some details about the starter and bread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hedy_-9ATHY&t=1s
Here is the crumb shot.
Happy baking, Joze
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That fresh flour and your skill is miraculous!
I will have to bite my tongue about giving the starter more time.... wish we had a smell button!
Well done!
Mini
No, you don't need to bite your tongue. It was a very good and normal advice which I would give to everybody with so young starter. But I was really curious what will be the result. At that time I was baking two loaves, one with this new starter and another one with my old starter. I prepared both levains at the same time and the new one was slightly faster than old one because the inoculation was way higher. So when the old one peeked the new one already started collapsing so I had to mix the dough.
Surprisingly the smell of both were identical, also the taste and that was a sign for me that the new one is in perfect shape. Here is the picture of both before I mixed the dough. The left one is new one (has still some bran in), the right is my old one.
Thanks for your advice and sharing your enormous knowledge. I really enjoyed reading Abe's post and your comments.
Happy baking Mini!
Joze
A three day old starter! That's a new challenge I accept :)
Going to take a look at your video now but that loaf looks amazing.
Been a fun week with our challenge and thank you both for all your input.
When you say 3 days did you bake this on the third day or on the fourth? I can only bake on a Sunday so should I do the initial mix on Wednesday or Thursday? Just clarifying the terms and conditions of the challenge.
To be very precise I took a teaspoon of whole grain wheat starter and fed it with white flour after three days and half and then fed again within about 5 to 6 hours and mixed the dough with this levain exactly 4 days after starting the new starter. I counted the time when I took away the amount used for inoculation of my white flour levain.
And please, I am not challenging you at all. I started creating a new starter from completely different reason and it is pure coincidence that this was at the same time when you ended your experiment. I was expecting quite different schedule - 5-7 days long, but surprise, surprise, it was so active already at day 3 that I decided to give a try. I was always discouraging people to use extremely young starters, mainly because they were beginners and so many things can go wrong using a mature starter. So there is even a bigger potential for troubles if you use a very young starter.
Mine was behaving like an old mature starter and this fact prevailed in decision whether to mix a bread or not.
I learned quite a lot from this experiment and this will help me to better diagnose and answer to questions related to starter creation.
Happy baking,
Joze
You used a starter to create a new one?
No, that teaspoon was taken from this new starter created 3.5 days ago which was from the very beginning fed with whole grain wheat flour freshly milled. On day three I converted this new starter to another one fed with white flour and the latter was used for leavening the bread. Now I am maintaining both.
It would be the same if I would start feeding starter with white flour on day 3. I just wanted to check how it behaves when fed by white flour so I could compare with my old starter.
Hope now it is clear.
Makes sense now. 3.5 days in you fed it with white flour and made the loaf.
Thank you Joze. I just like challenging myself :)
3.5 days is very quick indeed!
English language and sometimes when I write I just express myself as I would express in Slovenian and that could cause a misunderstanding.
I like challenges as well but 3.5 days is pure luck and I have done nothing what would be special and results of "better knowledge". I could be unlucky and would get starter after 2 weeks. Who would understand this fermentation.
Happy baking Abe!
Joze
From the field to your starter jar has got to be the quickest time and shortest route. And what a great starter you have made. I'm sure there's something in that.
Thank you Joze. I've got a bread on the go :)
and what fun to be able to grind freshly harvested grain straight in to the jar!
I might just need to get yet another starter going - but will check to see whether I can get my hands on some freshly harvested grains once we start harvesting here.
Thanks so much for the inspiration!