The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

using dough residue instead of starters

sallam's picture
sallam

using dough residue instead of starters

In Egypt, farmers' wives traditionally don't use yeast in their dough. They just leave the dough residue without washing up the bowl, to dry in the air, then a day before next bake, they wash it with warm water and mix it with the new dough ingredients. No yeast or starter involved. They only use a starter the first time, or borrow a piece of dough from a neighbor, then keep recycling the dried dough residue for years.

I tried this for my weekly pizza dough, and it worked nicely. No need to maintain a starter in the fridge, or a fridge for that matter! or feed one regularly. Also handy if traveling with no fridge around. It's dead easy.. even easier than pate fermentee method that I was using before. Now all I do after baking is that I leave my dough bowl without washing the residue (about 2% of the total dough weight) When it dries in the air the next day or two, I cover it with a towel. When making a new dough ( a week later) I dissolve the dried residue in some water, add the rest of the water, flour, autolyse for 1 hr, then add salt and the rest of the flour, knead and leave to ferment for 24 hrs.

The dried dough is not very easy to dissolve in water. It falls off the bowl without any efforts, but its very brittle to dissolve easily. But if I grind it. It becomes easier to dissolve the powder in water.

futureproof's picture
futureproof

Assalaam Alaikam Sallam

I love these stories and am compiling them for a book. Do you mind if I use yours? Do you have a pizza place or is it just for you? Are you in Egypt?

I was just jumping on to ask about using the Sourdough dough as a starter as I haven't grown enough starter for tomorrow's bake... I was worried about the salt content slowing things down but I think your Egyptian wives tale answered my question. Shukran!  

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

Is the starter! A starter is a piece of dough that's always kept behind to start another batch. Whether one keeps separately and adds some into the dough or keeps a bit of dough from a previous batch for the next batch it's just a variation of the same process. 

sallam's picture
sallam

 Wa alaikum assalam Futurepro.

No pizza place. I only bake weekly at home for family and friends. And yes, I live in Egypt.

Hanzosbm's picture
Hanzosbm

Like Lachem said, that is the starter.  Think about yeast like an infection or infestation.  Once you introduce them into dough, they spread and multiply until the entire batch of dough is filled with the little guys (or gals, or whatever, they're asexual anyway).  Once the entire batch has been infected, even if they haven't had time to multiply yet, the entire batch is now the starter.  It's basically like giving your starter a REALLY big feeding.  You bake most of it, but retain a small amount for the next one.  This method is fairly common and is the reason that so many bread recipes will show things like "mix the starter with ingredients, remove 50g".  It's not that the recipe purposely had 50g too much, that is your starter for the next batch.

However, a lot of bakers don't do it like this for one simple reason; what if they forget?  I forget who, but one of the contributors here told a story of one time forgetting to hold back some of his starter and baked the whole thing.  Whoops, no more starter.  If your family relies on that bread, or worse yet, your entire business is based around it and now you can't produce any for a week while you build a new starter, that could be devastating.

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

I've heard the same thing. Someone here by mistake added all their starter into a dough. So instead of keeping some dough from the previous batch to use in the next they actually kept a separate starter but used all of it. I think it was Mini to the rescue who came up with the idea that if they haven't washed the starter jar out yet just add in some water and flour then mix into a paste and wait till it bubbles. A little bit of starter (or dough from a previous batch) will inoculate the next dough or starter build.

Moral of the story is - don't be in a hurry to wash the dishes :) 

sallam's picture
sallam

I totally agree. That's why I keep a batch in the freezer, just in case. I will also keep another batch in a dry powder form too.

sallam's picture
sallam

By the way, I did another dough and baked it today. I found it more convenient to keep a dried powder of my dough residue. This time I used 28g of powder, which equals 1% of the dough weight. This extended the bulk fermentation time to 30 hrs (i purposely let it over ferment a bit to give me a bit of a tangy delicious taste, at the expense of bottom browning of course). No balling or proofing, the dough was directly divided and opened in trays and baked. Gave me better oven rise and more light crust.

chickentender's picture
chickentender

That's really interesting and makes total sense - sound very much like traditional french cheese making in wooden vats. The vats are never washed and all of the cultures for the cheese are contained within wood grains and essentially impregnate each new batch of cheese. 

I may have to try this, and in any case I've been meaning for months to dry and store (freeze) some of my starters just in case. Really need to get around to this. :)

sallam's picture
sallam

Yes, I encourage you to try it. And if you allow the residue to dry then grid, it would be even more convenient. To keep a maintenance-free dry preferment is an amazing idea.

I found that drying the residue by smearing it on the insides of a plastic container makes it way much easier to take out after it has been dried. I tried stainless steel containers and it was so brittle like cement, I had to fight to scrub it out, but in plastic tubs, when it completely dry out, it literally falls down by itself.

Currently, I keep the powder in a jar on the counter, and it serves me good for a week. No need for fridges or freezers. I think that since it's in a dry form it would allow a wider window of usability, though I need to make more tests to prove it.