The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Feeding Rye Sour

byomtov's picture
byomtov

Feeding Rye Sour

I have prepared a rye sour according to the instructions in Ginsberg's Inside the Jewish Bakery: Rye and Other Breads.

 

He says that, once established it should be fed once or twice weekly, but does not specify the procedure. Is it just the same as the daily feeding that creates it over 10 days?

 

That would be:

 

AM:

Sour 85g (discard excess)

Flour: 70g

Water (90F) 55g

 

PM: Same as above except use 200g sour from AM feeding.

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

I would use a much higher ratio, i.e. more flour relative to starter. I maintain my rye starter by feeding it around 1:10:10 (e.g. around 5 g starter to 50 g flour and 50 g water) whenever I need to bake, using up most of it and placing whatever remained on the bottom in the fridge.

alcophile's picture
alcophile

I use the same feeding as Ilya does, 1:10:10. I also store in the fridge and feed about every two weeks. Earlier this year, I had six weeks between feedings and suffered no ill effects on the one-year-old sour.

In Ginsberg's The Rye Baker, he uses the 1:10:10 feeding for his starter, slightly different than that described in ItJB.

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

Sourdough starter, Rye sourdough starter, Rye sour.

While I don't have "Inside the Jewish Bakery" I do have "The Rye Baker" Where on page 35 he starts a 3 page description of "How to Build a Rye Sour Culture" as a sub-heading of "LEAVENING".

In my opinion, CLAS is a rye sour. What Reinhart is describing in his book is rye sourdough.

If you are leavening the dough with fermented rye, it is sourdough. If you use fermented rye to reduce the acidity of your dough, it is a rye sour.

The only reason I am making this distinction is to avoid confusion about feeding schedules.

Reinhart said in "The Rye Baker" rye sourdough should be fed a few times a week. He went on to say that sourdough fed daily performed better than dough fed a few times a week.

A rye sour, on the other hand, can be kept in the fridge for a week or two ( based on my experience) with no ill effects.

 

 

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

I always thought "rye sour" was a synonym for rye sourdough starter. Is it not? Do you change the name depending on the function, whether it's just used for the acidity, or also for leavening?..

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

I'm not entirely sure if the distinction is generally accepted (hence the qualifier "in my opinion.")

But it certainly makes sense to me that we wouldn't use the same language to describe two very different ingredients. One that is used to leaven (and provide acidity) and one that is used solely to acidify and add flavor the dough.

squattercity's picture
squattercity

Just to keep the confusion going: in many of his replies to comments on TheRyeBaker site, Stanley Ginsberg says that, in his recipes, 'rye sour' means rye sourdough starter.

Rob

alcophile's picture
alcophile

I believe we're splitting the hairs on the heads of the microorganisms, if they had any. It's a matter semantics; they're all sour cultures. Ginsberg discusses the four types of sour cultures on p. 50.

  • Type 0: Commercial yeast; yeasted poolish, biga, etc.
  • Type I: Sour culture; balanced LAB and yeast, medium acidity
  • Type II: Sour culture; mainly LAB, high acidity
  • Type III: Sour culture or LAB culture; used dried as acidifier

The recipes in TRB use type 1 rye sponges and some type 0 wheat sponges.

His Starter Sour instructions on p. 35 use daily feedings to create the initial sour. His Maintenance Refresh on p. 37 can be stored indefinitely in the fridge. He does say that he usually feeds his maintenance sour once or twice a week and he refreshes <36 h before using in a recipe sponge. But it can be stored for much longer periods between feedings (my own empirical evidence).

KMKZ (aka CLAS—Concentrated Lactic Acid Sourdough Starter) is probably a Type II rye sour culture and has no leavening power:

https://brotgost.blogspot.com/2017/08/iii.html

A flourless rye sourdough (aka sourwort, FLAS) has been discussed here:

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/70210/flourless-sourdough-starters

 

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

The heading to that passage (The Rye Baker:Ginsberg) is: Predoughs: Preferments-Yeast AND Sour Sponges. He made a point of differentiating between Yeast sponges and Sour Sponges. What he did not do, however, is identify which was which.

When Baking with rye, this distinction is important because the dough's acidity is critical to the successful production of rye bread.

As for splitting hairs, as I explained when I gave my opinion, I defined a term in order to make an important distinction when discussing refresh intervals.

No hairs were split. I simply defined a term to clarify a comment. IMO, when talking about rye bread, it is important to make a distinction between leavened starters and acidifiers. Since one requires regular maintenance and feeding and the other is pretty much made as needed.

I love rye bread, but don't make bread often enough to try and keep a pet (sourdough starter). Since it is not necessary to keep a pet to enjoy all the benefits of good soured rye bread.

alcophile's picture
alcophile

From p. 50 in TRB [emphasis mine]:

Microbiologists who study sourdough fermentation classify sour cultures into four types, shown below.

What follows was the table that I summarized above. Yeasted sponges are still sour, but they have relatively low total titratable acidity.

I'm confused. How do you acidify your rye breads if you dot no use a rye sour culture? The sour culture that Ginsberg maintains is the same as a 100% hydration Type I rye sour sponge. Hamelman instructs to remove a portion of the sponge to reserve for the next bake. But he had to have a rye sour culture to inoculate that first sponge.

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

I've lost count of all the mistakes I've found in his book. This one is obvious on its face. A commercial yeast fermented bread doesn't fall into anyone's definition of a sour culture.

I suspect he should have said leavening agents.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/sourdough

alcophile's picture
alcophile

I don't believe this one is a mistake. Ginsberg's table appears to be verbatim from his footnote 59. One of the authors (Ganzle) is often mentioned here on TFL in relation to sourdough. Here is another reference (https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9071355) to type 0:

At the same time, some researchers also considered another type of sourdough as type 0, referring to pre-doughs or sponge doughs, with addition of baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) [5]

A straight dough will have a different flavor than a bread made with a type 0 sourdough, or pre-dough. That doesn't mean the final bread will be sour. Even breads made with type I sourdoughs can be made more or less sour by tweaking the inoculation amount, time, and temperature used for the pre-dough.

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

I’m sure you didn’t mean to reference a source to validate itself? The link you provided seemed to be under the false impression that the bacteria in sourdough magically appeared from the environment. while environmental bacteria can be a factor it is not the primary source. https://asm.org/Articles/2020/June/The-Sourdough-Microbiome

 

mwilson's picture
mwilson

Seems like there is some contention here! Clearly not a mistake though, I agree!

Sour is the undeniable and inevitable end of any flour fermentation! Even if seeded with baker's yeast, which is simply a more refined and more industrialised way of using brewer's yeast / barm.

LAB are stimulated by the presence of any yeast ferment and have been shown to grow to a microbial population that matches a typical SD starter within 24 hours.

But as said earlier, the TTA will likely be much lower compared to a cultured (SD) starer.

The term ‘sourdough’ ultimately gets it moniker from when dough likely seeded with an exterior culture, such as brewing beer was seeded to make a leavened dough, for which a piece reserved would then ‘sour’ and be used to seed another batch of leavened dough.

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

alchophile:

I do, in fact use fermented rye. Similar to CLAS. I start it the night before and in the morning I have a rye sour (non-levaning) for my rye.

byomtov's picture
byomtov

Thanks for the comments. I'm now back at it after an interruption, and still find the whole business confusing.

 

Looking at Greenstein's book a coupler of things are unclear:

He builds a starter, and then specifies three stages to get the sour, after which it is ready to use in baking. He says to save half to use as the next starter, but why can't it just be saved for immediate use in baking? In general, the distinction between starter and sour is sometimes lost.

He specifies minced onion as an ingredient in his starter. Is that fresh onion, or the stuff you can buy in a spice jar?

He also says to stir down the starter every three or four days, and refresh it by mixing in "equal amounts of flour and water" every 10 days. Equal to what, that is, how much flour and water?

Seems as if I have to go through the whole two day process - assuming I have a starter, every tine I want to bake. Is that right?

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

It's fresh onion, and sure you could use the remaining half for another loaf of bread, but it makes creating the next sour easier if you roll them over than to start over from scratch each time. In my mind, the difference between sour and starter is that a starter can be used to levan a bread and a sour is just there for the acid to slow amylase activity, among other things. As far as the equal amounts comment, he is just saying to keep your hydration at 100%, you can decide how much you want to add based on how much you need.

Yep, I'd plan my bread a day or so in advance of when I wanted to bake it.

byomtov's picture
byomtov

Thanks for the information.

 

My question was unclear. It was not so much about  baking right away with rest of the sour as it was asking why I have to go through the whole three stage procedure when what i have is already a sour. Why can't I just save it in the refrigerator and bake with it next week?

 

IOW,

 

1. Create starter

2. Go through steps to create sour.

3. Use half or so for baking, saving the rest.

 

Now he suggests that the portion saved is just to be used as starter the next time I bake, so I have to create the sour again. But it's already a sour. Why ca't I just use it next week or whenever?

 

One more thing. He says to prepare the starter "48 hours in advance." In advance of baking, or in advance of stage one of building the sour?

 

I know. I'm fussy and literal-minded. I appreciate the tolerance and help.

Abe's picture
Abe

AKA Rye Sour

Without knowing too much about the procedure being explained to you it seems like he uses the rye starter to make a levain. Building more levain needed for the recipe so the excess is starter for next time. Every time you build a levain it's a refreshment. 

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

just realized I repeated myself.

Mini gives excellent advice if you are working with a three stage ferment.

 

Abe's picture
Abe

Is a term often used when talking about rye starter. It's probably got something to do with translation. Like sourdough (sour dough) should probably be called naturally leavened bread or wild yeast bread. Since rye bread had its roots in central and Eastern Europe a sour is terminology used in these countries. 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

(built with specific ratios that change with each feeding) will give a different tasting bread than if a one step sour is made. Once the three step sour extra stands for a period of time (after removing what is used in the recipe) the yeast and bacteria numbers will change and ballance each other out more like a single step starter. Then to repeat the same bread flavour, a new three step process sour must be made for the next loaf.  

Yes, it is possible to reduce the amount made in the three step process so that less is left over and less waste.

byomtov's picture
byomtov

Thank you, mini.

 

That makes sense.

byomtov's picture
byomtov

Thanks to all for the replies.

 

I worked my way, more or less, through Greenstein's recipe and just tasted the bread. Pretty good. Needs more caraway than I used, and I baked it in a dutch oven at 475 rather than on a sheet at 375, as the latter has given me poor results in the past. 

byomtov's picture
byomtov

Is this what the sour (before the 3-step process) is supposed to look like after 12+ hours?

No expansion, some separation of liquid, some bubbles, etc.

Thanks

After 12+ hours

louiscohen's picture
louiscohen

In "The Rye Baker" Ginsburg recommends a once or twice weekly feeding of rye starters at 1:10:10, and not more than 36 hrs before using in a sour/sourdough/levain.

The book says 7g starter + 70g rye flour + 70g water at 109 F.  Leave at room temp until doubled (he says tripled but that doesn't work for me unless I put it in the proofer at 85 F).  

I first thought this was a typo, but no, that's what it is and it seems to work OK with a whole rye flour, but you may need a warmish room temp for an 8 hr doubling.  

I typically refresh early in the morning, mix the levain/sour in the evening, the next stage or final dough the next morning, and so on.