January 19, 2009 - 12:38pm
question about your techniques of making SD bread?
I am curious - what kinds of breads do you make with your sourdough starter?
And something else... when you make your breads with sourdough starter, do you use commercial yeast? or do you go without the commercial yeast? If you go without the comm. yeast, does your bread rise successfully? And how long does it take for it to rise?
This is something I am working on and would love to hear what you all are doing.
Newbie - beckyohh40
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becky, I never use commercial yeast with my sourdough. My basic sourdough bread employs a 3-4 hour ferment and 2-3 hour proof. And it rises great. If you have an active natural yeast starter, there is no need to use commercial yeast.
Hi Becky, you crazy knitter,
I'm with gaarp. If your SD starter is active, i.e full of wild yeast, they will be up to the job of raising your bread. That's the good news. The really good news is that without adding commercial yeast your dough can ferment for longer before needing to be baked, and since the enzymatic processes that break sugar out of starch take time, this is all crucial to developing flavor. The bacteria in the SD take their own sour time as well. ;-) Commercial yeast push the fermentation, which is why a lot of bakers who use commercial yeast like to use as little as possible to raise their bread. As a bread baker, Time is on your side.
So what's that mean in the real world? Everybody's different, but I typically bulk ferment my SD for 5 hours, at room temperature, and then proof for an hour or 2.
No, there's no bad news here, if you were wondering!
David