Salt Rising Bread - how does it work?
A friend on the other side of the planet said he was making "Salt Risen Bread" and was wondering if I could help figure out why his didn't have enough oven spring.
Well, first I had to point out I was unfamiliar with "salt risen" (or salt rising, as it seems to be referred to more in Google), the few recipes I checked first all seemed to be ancient : "use sweet milk", "mix in a quart of flour" and "add a lump of lard", the sort of thing you'd find in old farmer's recipes with estimated amounts and vague temp ranges.
Anyway, I did locate one or two more modernized recipes and it seems to be a "starter" made from ether potato or cornmeal, with some baking soda and salt. Salt, in fact, seems to be rather minor in the whole process so I have no clue why it's called that. Much of the process needs to be done at rather warm temps, like 100º or so, and the mash/starter takes a day or two to get active.
My friend says it's supposed to be like starter "in that you're 'catching' bacteria to do the rise"...
Anyone here familiar with it and know how it works? Or have a good, detailed recipe?
And his original question was how long to let it rise before putting it in the oven as his rose very unevenly (oven spring) and barely at all after 4 hours in the proofing stage.
Thanks to anyone who can shed light on this.