April 27, 2010 - 11:42am
Bread books versus natural yeast.
Noticing in my bread books that all the recipes have a commercial yeast starter. Can I make the breads in the books with natural yeast and if so is there a conversion factor or something I should use?
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Can you define commercial yeast starter? Are you talking about instant yeast, active dry yeast?
If I remember correctly, the ratio of fresh yeast to active dry yeast to instant yeast is 1:2:3.
So if you have a recipe that requires 10 grams of fresh yeast, you can use 5 grams of active dry yeast or 3 grams of instant yeast.
--Chausiubao
Instant to active dry to fresh is 1:2:3
ohh thats a big mistake. yeah I think you're right
That's kind of what I'm looking for there.
Most of my bread cookbooks call for commercial yeast, but I have made these recipes using sourdough starter instead. There probably is some sort of formula, but I simply go by the look and feel of the dough, starting off with the starter and adding the rest of the recipe ingredients, being careful with the liquids.
which percent of prefermented dough you wish to add to the recipe in relationship to the total flour. That would take into consideration the types of flour used and whether there are soakers or other prefermented ingredients.
The food for experimentation!
Try something and see what you get.
Roughly speaking the bigger the prefermented amount of flour to the overall recipe, the shorter the fermenting (proofing) times in the final dough. If 30% of the flour is used as a preferment (be it sourdough, poolish or biga) it will take longer to do a bulk rise than say a dough with a 70% preferment. Depending on how long you want your dough to be rising for each ferment, adjust the amount of flour to use with your sourdough starter.
Oops was that too much info? Can you follow?
Take some of the flour from the recipe and water from the recipe (subtract from the recipe when mixing the final dough) and use that to refresh your starter. A lot depends on the recipe.
When first starting out, I recommend a sourdough recipe that describes your starter hydration until you understand the method, then adapt later as you get bolder. (Hydration of the starter is water weight divided by flour weight.)
Mini
when you say
It would also be helpful if you could tell us what bread books you typically use and give us an idea of the kinds of breads that you prefer to make.
Can you be more detailed about your needs?
At 64% hydration. Basically the recipe from the bread bakers book. Books I'm wondering about are
The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book
The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread
Thanks for everyone's help so far.
At this point, I really don't know what to say, since, as far as I can tell, you've failed to pinpoint your concerns.
Your original question suggested you wanted a way to convert a recipe made with commercial yeast to one made with sourdough starter.
Now you say that you have been using sourdough starter ("to date, I've been making a very simple sourdough")
You then cite 2 books, both of which are primarily focused on breads made with commercial yeast.
I can only guess that your concerns have little to do with your original question.
If you're seeking general guidelines, both books you cite are good and you will find many posts on TFL that refer to them. Use the search box.
If you have a more specific question that I've not been able to figure out, please post again.
Thank you for asking this question. I have trid to find an answer to the following. If a recipe calls for a certain amount of instant dry yeast and I would like to make it with sourdough,. how much sourdough of whatever hydratation is pertiinent should I use. Is there a conversion available?
It woulod seem that with all the very accomplished bakers that appear on the TFL that someone would have a rule of thumb for it. There are plenty of commercial yeast recipes that I would like make as sourdough breads.
Thanks again
If the recipe is just a straight dough, I wouldn't know what to suggest. I use sourdough but in different proportions depending on recipe, so there is not necessarily a set X amount of sourdough for Y amount of bread dough.
However, if the recipe uses a preferment with commercial yeast you may find it easier. For example, if a recipe calls for a poolish (equal amounts by weight of flour and water plus a small amount of yeast)and your sourdough starter is 100% hydration, I would think you could substitute your starter for the poolish, leave out any commercial yeast called for and get a dough with the right proportions.
Similarly, if a recipe uses a biga, if your starter is firm, you could substitute it for the biga, or, if you're comfortable with baker's math, make the appropriate adjustments while still keeping within the percentages for the original recipe.
I'd avoid a recipe that used milk as the liquid (not sure how sourdough and milk would get along together), but that's just me.
I think the question is very interesting. It would seem that there should be a rule of thumb, but I'm not aware of it if it exists.
Type the recipe name and then add sourdough, maybe a sourdough version exists from one of our members or at least you may get direction for that particular recipe for converting. :)
Mini
I'll do that. I will get it figured out. I have an oven plan coming from Ovencrafters so I'll have too and want too. The books I have seem more geared toward home oven use and a loaf or two. To date I've been cooking the sourdough recipe I have in a brick oven and doing five to six nice size loaves at a time.
These links might be helpful:
http://sourdoughhome.com/convert.html
http://sourdoughhome.com/convert2.html