January 24, 2009 - 1:18am
Has Anybody Purchased Cultures From This Site?
Hi all,
I want to get into sourdough. Especially San Francisco style. Surfing around the other day, I came across this website:
http://www.sourdo.com/culture.htm.
I was wondering if anybody has used these folks and if so what their experience was with the cultures. What caught my eye is they are selling what they call the " original San Francisco culture".
I used to live in the Bay area some years ago and I loved the sourdough bread from places like Bordenaves in San Rafael. I think their starter is something like 70 years old.
It would be awesome to come semi-close to recreating some of that bread.
Thanks for any info,
Darren
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Save your money. SF sourdough is not about starter, if you look through the site you'll find numerous posts on how to achieve that particular taste. And on a personal note, I would not buy anything from Ed Wood.
Mike
Mike,
If you don't mind, what is the negative on Ed Wood? Do you also recommend against buying his book? I thought he was one of the true expertd on sourdough.
Dave
I have not seen his book, Classic Sourdoughs, but I understand it is actually quite good. My attitude towards him based on the fact that he reviewed a certain baking classic and pretty much trashed it. To me it looked either ignorant or disingenuous and neither is particularly becoming for a man who is (or would like to be) regarded as a sourdough guru.
Mike
I really like this site there are lots of choices! http://www.northwestsourdough.com/ I might add you are in the bay area!..how nice to make your own!
Sylvia
Of course, I mean opinion.
This notion flies around here and other blogs repeatedly. Some folks espouse that a starter is a starter is a starter. Until one knows otherwise, I suppose it is true. But I do know otherwise. I have two starters that I use every week. One is the Oregon Trail, the other I obtained from a reputable place in SF and it produced the exact flavor that one gets from bakeries in the Bay Area. That last sentence is in past tense because I was not thorough in keeping them separate. I allowed cross-contamination. So the SF starter is not what it used to be, although I can't tell a difference in the OT from its original. That said, the SF starter is absolutely not the OT starter even now, more than a year later. Even not caring too much any longer about preventing further cross-contamination the SF starter continues to act noticeably different from the OT.
As I said, when the SF starter was new and untainted it made the best SF tasting bread. The differences in rise times, handling characteristics, flavor, were dramatic compared to the OT. Actually, the SF was significantly more difficult to handle, making a starter and dough that were WAY stickier at every stage, using the exact same ingredients and weighed accurately to the gram. Someday I will replace the SF starter with a fresh one and be very careful to prevent cross-contamination. I will not allow any flour that made it out of the sack to go back in; I will bleach kneading surfaces between starter usages; I may even make batches using different starters on different days. I fully expect to be able to keep each starter pure.
As suave says, there are many postings on how to get SF style bread, but in my opinion you will never get that taste without using a starter from SF. I am sure now, after some years of baking sourdough bread each week, that there are 'good' starters and 'not so good' starters. By that I mean there are some that produce peculiar flavors that others do not; and that there are starters that don't produce any particularly dramatic flavor, but do make outstanding bread. I think there are also starters that struggle to make marginally decent bread.
So why do some bakers declare adamantly that there is not enough difference in starters to warrant using one over another? I am sure the answers span the gamut from no personal knowledge at all, relying entirely on hearsay, to personal experience with starters that don't produce noticeably different results on any level. But I can assure you that with my own hands, my own SF starter taken from the very hands of one of the most respected bakery experts in the business, using exactly the same ingredients and process, that both of my starters make exquisite bread and that the pure SF starter reproduced the unmatched bread flavor from the Bay Area while the OT starter did not.
Bottom line: while I love the SF bread, I'm not sure I would want to eat only that bread every week, as opposed to the more (I'm not ever sure how to describe the flavor of the other bread) symbiotic? bread that has a less dramatic flavor, which allows other flavors to harmonize better? am I making sense? But having two starters allows me to choose, as long as I am careful to keep them apart.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Lee
PS I would sooner buy a starter from Ed Wood, if I were going to purchase one, than just about anyone else.
your starter was bound to change and there is nothing you can do about it.
once taken from its home (like a child relocated) you changed its enviroment. No longer exposed to the natural yeast and flavors of the bakery that it called home it changed due to the flavors and yeasts in your home
all starters once transplanted will slowly develop their own flavor. it might take years but it had to happen. the the longer it lives in your home the more it will change and continue to change.
I purchased his African Whole Wheat and have been quite happy with the starter itself. I would recommend it from my experience.
I received his book as a gift and while it is interesting to read, I've had luck with only a couple of the recipes. There are much, much better books available.
I will relate that I emailed Ed with a several questions and while he did reply in a timely manner, I did not find his replies helpful and I was left with the impression they were terse and short. Everybody has their off days though, so take that with a grain of salt.
Early on (pre-TFL for me) I found the Northwest Sourdough site and bought 2 of her starters (NW & Desem) and have been happy with them as well. Initially, I was unable to get the desem starter up and going. After lengthy email conversations and several unsuccessful attempts at reviving, Teresa sent me a second desem starter via priority mail completely free of charge.
Teresa has also been one of the friendliest and most helpful people I have come across in bread baking. Knowing the time she took to answer many of my questions personally, I can't say enough about her. I spent $4.95 to purchase online access to her "Special Recipes" just out of appreciation for her personal attention. To date, my two favorite bread recipes reside there...Pane Pearl and Desem Malted Rye.
John
Thanks everybody for the info and feedback.
I received my SF culture in the mail last Thursday and activited it the same night using my custom proofing box.(Styrofoam cooler, heating pad, moist towel and a probe thermometer.)
I kept it at 90 degrees for 8 hours and 85 degrees for the following twelve. When I took it out, I had major froth and volume. That much initial activity really surprised me so I asked some questions regarding contamination issues on another thread.
Well, I continued to feed it as per the info I had gathered through this last Tuesday and I started another batch from one of my discards to keep in the fridge. Man can you go through some flour feeding those suckers!!
This culture has started to develop a nice yeasty smell and has continued to over flow my quart mason jar after every feeding despite keeping it half full or a little less. I have been keeping it in my pantry at about 73 degrees.
I have been baking a lot of commercial yeast based breads out of some of Hammelman' and Reinhart's books lately but Tuesday, I decided to give my culture a shot at some of their starter based breads.
Earlier, I started another thread and asked for opinions on what would be considered one of the best books on sourdough baking but I think I created more confusion than anything else with the question
So here are some pics of some of my first sourdough experiences.
This was my take on Hammelman's Pain au Levain. As my first sourdough project,I was pretty happy with it when it came out of the oven. As a matter of fact, I am eating a nice slice of it with some pot roast as I type this.
These were an attempt as a San Francisco SD french bread recipe in Reinhart's CC. Man was I disappointed in this! This recipe was a 3 day project and I think even though he says if the culture is very active during the initial bulk 4 hour fermentation time, allow it to rise the full 4 hours, my dough appeared overproofed and loose going into and coming out of the fridge. Not to mention coming out of the proofing baskets onto the peel.
But even though I didn't get the height on the loaves, I thought the crumb looked ok and the overall flavor gave me a hint of one of the things I am trying to acheive with this culture. That is to make a sourdough french bread loaf that tastes like the bread I used to eat when I lived in the SF Bay area. That is probably the main reason I bought this particular culture from Ed Wood's web site.
I think it was somewhere on TFL forum that someone wrote once you bake with wild cultures as opposed to commercial yeast, you will never go back. I can now kind of relate to that thought because the breads produced with SD cultures are on a completly different level.
Any help with Reinhart's SF SD recipe which I tried above or a heads up on another tried and tested SF sourdough recipe would be greatly appreciated.
Darren
Darren,
Those look pretty nice especially for a first attempt. To me I would say it looks like the French SD loaf might be under developed, which is easy to do with that loaf. If you don't get the gluten developed enough, the shape tends to be a little on the flat side. Also I suggest you try 1# boules until you get the hang of shaping SD.
You have to be patient with yourself with a new culture. I know you are anxious, as I was, and want that perfect SD Wharf Bread taste. As your new culture ages the population of LAB's will grow and become stable resulting in a more sour flavor. I know Ed Woods says to keep the culture in the refrigerator after it has been activated but, if you want a sour flavor, my advice is to maintain your culture at room temperature. There are so many variables involved that affect sourdough tang and raising properties, it's impossible to know exactly what will make your taste buds happy. It's new. Feed it daily at room temp and there is no need to keep a large quantity in a large jar. Keep in mind that Woods is selling a product that he needs you to be happy with or at least see visual proof that it activated. OK that's done. Now it's on to figuring out what will build the Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis population in your culture. With any luck there are some live ones in there already. All you need to do is provide an environment that is conducive to their needs and feed them like a house pet. That would be roughly room temp.
For what it's worth, my starter container is a 4 Cup glad food container with a small slit in the cover to let the gas escape. Every day after dinner I mix up the batch for tomorrows bake with 1 large Tablespoon of starter and discard all but 50 grams of my now hungry starter and add 75 grams of water, stir, and add 75 grams of flour. This feeding schedule costs me 1/3 cup of flour daily or about 8 Cents. If I need to double or triple the next days bake, I have more than enough starter for 6 loaves in my small container. Hope this helps.
Eric
Eric,
I am keeping one culture at room temp and one in the fridge as a back up but I sure like the description of your routine.
My best guestimate is that I am currently going through 2 cups of KA AP flour every 24 hours as I am following Wood's instructions in his brochure i.e. 1 cup of flour and 3/4 cup of water about every 12 hours discarding enough culture to maintain my quart mason jar 50% full at every feeding.
I know I am new to this, but his method seems extremely wasteful. Even if I were to bake 6-2lb loaves every night, I wouldn't go through what I am discarding at every feeding. Based on a lot of the recipes I have been studying, the average culture requirement per recipe is about 2 tablespoons for 2 large loaves.
I would like to try your maintenance method. I like the concept of keeping a small amount of culture always active/available in order to avoid going through the longer proofing process in making one right out of the fridge viable.
Do you mind telling me what your average room temp is where you keep your culture?
Thanks for the help,
Darren
So, this is me, not everyone else. I don't mean to step on toes, it's just my opinion and worth every penny.
I never throw any starter away anymore. I keep about 130 grams of 50% hydration starter in the fridge and bake each weekend. I let the newly refreshed starter grow at room temp for several hours depending on the season, before putting it in the cold until next week. I find that going directly into the cold without time to grow makes it slimy.
I use 100 grams of last week's starter to make 400 grams of starter to bake with. That takes about 8 hours, then I begin my dough. The dough ferments overnight; in the fridge in the summer or out in the kitchen in the winter when I have turned off the furnace for the night. When it has risen to about 3 times original, I shape and let it rise until it's ready to bake, which I almost always do on a stone. The bread is sour without being bitter. Everyone loves it who is lucky to be on the list that week.
My recipe:
600 g bread flour
450 g water
400 g starter
1 slightly rounded tablespoon of kosher salt.
This makes two loaves at ~735g wet weight.
Others bake with an entirely different recipe philosophy, which I am happy with. I have used the minimal starter method and it's okay but I like this flavor best. I think it's cleaner, if that makes sense. To me the minimal starter method produces an interesting but not as desirable back-taste. Just my opinion, since you asked...
I do experiment and try other methods and recipes, but this is MY recipe and I make it each week no matter what else I try because it's that good. Today I am going to make Reinhart's 100% whole wheat sandwich loaf because I am out of white flour.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Lee