My first success... and a few questions.
I used organic grapes in my starter and it got going a little too quickly. After 4 days of feeding once daily it had developed far too much acid. The dough was fascinating, I've never seen such a sticky mess. Anyway, after a little deduction thanks in no small part to this website, I dumped about half of it and put it in the fridge.
Things have been looking amazing the last two attempts. I'm using a 12 hour refresh with a 2:1:1 (starter, flour, water) followed by a 65% hydration dough. 22.7% starter in the final product.
Today I gave it a long first rise and didn't knock out all the air and then a shorter second rise for a nice open crumb. Very ciabatta like. I'm thrilled.
My oven is horrible for breads so the crust isn't as pretty as it should be.
I've done it with and without a brotform and I'm still noticing a sort of "pillow" shape to the loaf. Is that typical?
I'm thinking of using litmus paper to monitor the acid in my starter, has anyone tried that?
Thanks!
And congratulations on your nice bread.
Perhaps Debra Wink's article on lactic acid may be of interest to you. Also check out her writings on pineapple juice.
Not sure what you mean about your oven being "horrible" for breads - are you using an oven thermometer?
That was very informative and I just finished a course on organic chemistry so a lot of it actually made sense. Seems a combination of factors caused the excess acetic acid; the ambient temperature, the hyrdation and probably a higher level of oxygen than necessary.
As far as the oven, I've baked in Europe on proper stone ovens with steam injection and the standard north american electric element one I'm using now just pales in comparison. I'll use a thermometer and see if I can get a more stable temperature with some baking stones. The real work is going to be figuring out which steam tool will work best. I've seen a lot of suggestions on this site. Should keep me busy for a few weeks.