Eric Kayser dried sourdough starter
I have been reading Eric Kayser’s Larousse Book of bread. In his sourdough recipes he will have something like “120 g liquid sourdough starter (or 25 g dry sourdough starter.) I store my sourdough starters in dried form from time to time and whenever I have revived one from the dried form it takes at least a day or two for the culture to become active. I don’t understand what he means by dried sourdough starter. There is no further explanation in the book. It’s hard for me to imagine that 25 g of dried starter would generate enough activity when added to the dough. Has anyone tried this? Is there some French form of dried sourdough I don’t know about? Or is it the quantity that helps out? I’m guessing 25 g of dried start it would be about a little bit less than a quarter of a cup. Any information or thoughts about this would be greatly appreciated. I’m hesitant to try it as I will probably just end up with a brick.
That is very intriguing idea: Raising bread with dried starter. I wonder if the original French was calling for active dry yeast (e.g., SAF or Fleischmanns) and that became SD in the English translation. If not, I would be very curious to know Mr Kayser's method. My dried starter takes a few day's incubation to wake up when I've gone back to one. Like you, I can't imagine baking bread from it. But he calls for mixing it with liquid starter. Sort of a second round maybe? It wakes up when the liquid starter's "spent"? But biologically that doesn't make sense either because if there's still 'food' left for starter bugs, the liquid would be just as hungry for it as the slowly waking dried.
Fun to think about. Would be great for traveling. Touch down, add water, flour and salt and off you go!
Tom
PS/Edit: I found this posting of Kayser's method from that book. Indeed, he calls for liquid starter, dried starter and commercial yeast. I can't imagine the dried sd would stand a chance with liquid and CY to compete with. Mysterious method indeed. And forget my "Lost in Translation" suggestion: The amount of dried starter he calls for would be way too much CY.
Yes it is possible to raise bread with dried starter - with several conditions.
However, the amount called for in the recipe under discussion is probably added for flavor rather than leven.
Charles
Now you have me intrigued. What conditions would you need to raise bread with dried starter AND what kind of flavor does dried starter give to bread like this, where it’s not used to raise the bread but to flavor it?
And it did indeed say 120g of liquid sourdough starter or 25g dry sourdough starter. But the recipe also contains yeast. So it looks like both are used for flavour. Now I think the issue would be more with the differing hydraion in the final dough if you choose one or the other. Unless he gives instructions to alter the hydration when using one or the other.