This YouTube video on medieval baking found it's way on to my feed and I found it very interesting. Was wondering what others here think about some of the techniques highlighted.
Tbh, I think some of what is claimed to have been lost in modern SD baking on the video is still alive and well on here
I agree, Rene, people on this site are doing most of this stuff. Personally, I doubt I'm ever going to keep a 20 lb hunk of starter in my tiny apartment. But a lower hydration starter might make some sense. And, next time I travel for a couple of months, I'll be tempted to try the salted starter method for long-term storage. Also, I have a friend who makes beer and I live near a brewery -- and grabbing some barm would be a fun experiment. Thanks for posting. -- Rob
"They kept it alive with no refrigeration"
"Instead they kept it in cold stone cottages where the temperature was very cold"
So refrigeration then!
...and so on.
Then there is the way how they lived. Most of us home bakers bake less regularly which will indeed mean keeping far less starter and either feeding more often or refrigerating (our homes are not cold stone cottages anymore). Very different to keeping a large mother dough and baking daily. So not that it is a forgotten art but different needs.
My grandfather grew up on a farm in the old country and told me once that his mother would bake 25 pounds of bread (on one day) to last the farm hands for a week. I know nothing more than that.
TomP
I used to just do it when I was riding my bike cross country for 2 months at a time . Now I regularly keep it so it’s like bread dough. It never has hooch or bad odors or mold . It also responds like crazy when fed.
My feeding is what’s left after I build for a bake. I make 40g extra and add it to my storage jar mixing thoroughly. I build for a bake with only 40g from the jar plus the flour/ water I need for the recipe I’m making. I don’t do successive feedings because it’s so potent .
Hope this along with other input helps anyone looking for tips.
I’m going to sift out some bran/ germ and feed my starter next bake.
The video claims that cooler temperatures favor lactic acid and warmer temperatures favor acetic acid. That sounds backward to me.
When I ferment cool I get acetic sourness. When I ferment warm I get lactic sourness.
Gary
Wondering if, because they are referring to es mixed wheat/rye starter, this might be true.
I have found that a wholemeal rye preferment tends to do the opposite of a wheat one. Also in terms of hydration. I have found that rye preferments that are low hydration get much more sour than ones that are high hydration. And it tastes more like acetic rather than lactic acid, but wouldn't be able to say for sure which it was.
That's how it works for LM maintenance for panettone making - warm (25-28c) for lactic growth and colder (18C) to encourage acetics.
Lance
Agree with the posts overall. The one part in the video that I thought might be worth considering is the avoiding of a monocultural starter. Neither entirely wheat or rye, but a mix of the two resulting in many more yeast and lab varieties in the starer than in monoculture starters.
In another video they have they explain how it was part of a diversification strategy by the farmers to plant both wheat and rye together as they were differently affected by diseases, parasites, and weather so if one crop failed there was usually the other one that compensated and staved off starvation. But the flour was always a mix of wheat and rye as a result, hence the mixed starter.
The same idea as YQ population wheat (no rye in this case).
"If one individual plant in a population fails due to disease or weather conditions, there are others that will still grow and thrive. This vast in-built genetic diversity equates to huge resilience so that the crops do not require any inputs such as pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, unlike monoculture crops which are greatly dependent on all of these high nitrogen fertilisers. Populations, just as our ancestors grew 10,000 years ago, thus prove that the fundamental key to sustainable and healthy food and farming systems, which work as part of nature, is diversity."
Extract from https://wakelyns.co.uk/yq/
Lance
I think they had trouble not growing rye with the wheat. I'm not saying the two weren't sowed together but even if not they probably got some of each. Rye, OTOH can grow well in climate and soils where wheat cannot do well.