San Joaquin Sourdough
I haven't been taking pics lately but have been baking as usual. Wanted to thank David and also document how wonderful this formula is. I have a starter , thanks to Gaarp, that doubles in one hour. I take it out of the fridge 1x a week and feed it q 12h for a total of 2 times and it is fantastic. I also have a rye starter and a bowl of "discard". The San Joaquin is great. Here are pics. Perfect sour for us as we are not wild about lots of sour. I have found that my starter is very happy in the fridge. At least it works for me.
I will pass along one tip that we discovered along the way. We make a lot of breads from Il Fornaio, a great Italian Bread Book. I have stopped making preferment, biga, poolish....I only use my discard...it works wonders. Believe it or not. The bread rises and has the most wonderful complex sweetness. My discard is a blend of both of my starters...rye and white ( alto and sax) and they are both 100% hydration. Try it. Take out the required amount of your discard and sub it for your biga/preferment/poolish...what a treat.
discard as "biga"
Comments
I'm delighted you liked the San Joaquin Sourdough!
A starter that doubles in one hour?? Does the IOC know about this?
David
I haven't registered it yet as a "secret weapon" will do so asap ! It is pretty amazing. I add the water and flour and set it on the counter and when I come back by there it is ...full up ....need a time lapse I guess to show it off.
I was initially worried about the bread as it was not all that big after being in the fridge overnight and didn't really get all that big while it was rising...then the oven spring...wowser. So I will be more optimistic about how that starter leavens bread. Old dog learning new tricks....I am just so used to yeast.
My husband is the one who has been using the discard for his biga/poolish. It was his idea. The breads are wonderful. He goes ahead and uses yeast in the bread too so it is for flavor mostly but you can see that it leavens also. The flavor is nutty/sweet/a tiny bit sour. All good. Thanks you for having such a profound effect on my bread baking. c
That's an interesting idea to substitute discard for a preferment. I might give that a try someday. Your San Jaoquin SD loaves look very tasty and have a nice crumb.
--Pamela
Actually, this formula originated as a yeasted dough for baguettes. It had a long cold fermentation in bulk but no other pre-fermented flour. It was Janedo's idea to add sourdough starter - for flavor, not to raise the bread. So, it was meant to function as a pre-ferment.
Since then, I have made the SJ SD as a strictly sourdough bread (without the added yeast). It's very good. Of course, when made without yeast, I make sure my starter is fully activated. On the other hand, when I add yeast, I just spoon 100 gms of my refrigerated stock starter into the bowl and proceed.
David
Hello Trailrunner:
Your breads look wonderful. I am so...envious. Please tell us about the starter which doubles within one hour! It is amazing and I have no idea what it is like but love to try it.
Since my last post on my breads, I had been going down hill. I make another starter using the pineapple juice and now have three going, the "white mother", "the Rye mother" and the" whole wheat organic mother".
So, I started baking on Monday and Tuesday and both result in disappointment. I used David Pain_de_Campagne recipe and Susan "Norwich Sourdough" recipe. My starter was "bubling" when I started the bread procedure and I follow the instruction very closely but the result was disappointing. I don't have the "french style flour as David said so I use AP flour and Rye flour. Both breads were heavy without much holes and hardly rise at all. The scoring were all fill up and just nothing to "crow about"It has been more than four months since I start this bread baking and I am going nowhere!
Oh.... well. I will try again next week. This breads get to be expensive since I want to make it to sell at the Community market. I am ending up putting in the refrigerator for us, again.
I am using the regular machine making breads for my regular breads but I want to try to sale the "wonderful sourdough" too but can't quite get it.
Please, please share with us your wonderful starter "Trailrunner" so, perhaps, other people can enjoy the wonderful world of sourdough too.
Thank you.
mantana
The bread was perfect.I just use Gold Medal or Pillsbury bread flour. Nothing fancy. The rye is from our local health food store.
You won't be sorry if you add the discard to your yeast breads. Of course you have to "wing it" somewhat on how much to alter the water content then when making the bread. I am so used to making bread that it isn't a problem but others who need an exact formula might not like it.
mantana,,,my starter is just the one from the tutorial on this site. Nothing special. I store it in the fridge every week all week and only take it out the day before use and feed it 2x at 12 h intervals...then back in the fridge. I have never used pineapple juice so not familiar with it. It sounds as if you need to spend a lot of time making regular yeasted breads until you are really familiar with the bread making process and have many successful loaves of the same recipe under your belt. I have been making bread weekly for over 30 years and that is how I started. I made Challah - 3 loaves a week every week for years before I branched out. Start small and then go from there. Good Luck. c
Hello Trailrunner:
Good Morning and thank you for your comment. I will continue to make sourdough breads until I get a hang of it. I will try and try again. Now bread making is more exciting to me than my own Thai cooking!