April 5, 2011 - 12:26pm
Hubby Doesn't Like Sourdough
I have an active thriving sourdough culture. I usually just make one loaf of sourdough bread, one loaf of rye bread, not sourdough, and one loaf of french bread. My hubby finally told me he doesn't care for sourdough. I have several recipes that I was going to try that contains sourdough culture. One is the pastrami rye loaf, and one is chocolate cherry loaf. How would I change that into yeasted instead of sourdough. I still plan on keeping my culture, but keeping less of it, and maybe use it for pancakes, waffles, etc. Hope someone can tell me what conversion I need to make. Thanks!
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Do you have a particularly sour culture and is that what he doesn't like? If that were the case, you could change your feeding schedule and formula, so that the sour flavor is toned down, and perhaps he would like it more. I often hesitate to call my bread sourdough even though its made with a sourdough starter because people think that means sour and my bread isn't sour at all.
Thanks for replying. I don't think the bread is all that sour at all. I think it's just his view.
My favorite sourdough recipe isn't what a lot of people might think of as a typical sourdough -- it's Maggie Glezer's "My Sourdough Challah" from her book, "A Blessing of Bread." It's enriched with eggs, oil and honey (and I make it with about 50% or more whole wheat) and is not a lean-and-crusty type bread. Not sour at all (which suits me), just rich-tasting.
Mary Clare
I suspect Txfarmer could easily convert her Pastrami Rye loaf to a non sourdough version.
I usually have no troubles converting recipes from yeasted to sourdough or vice versa, but do things so intuitively that I may have a hard time giving written directions. If nobody else dives in here, maybe I'll give the chocolate cherry loaf a shot, later.
If you have time, that would be great! I'm not going to let the culture die, but will cut back on the amount I do. It's a KA sourdough that I purchased, and when refreshing I use 1/2 cup water, and 1 cup of flour. I think I'll try doing less so I won't waste so much. I like the sourdough taste, and my culture is not sour at all, as far as I'm concerned. I think hubby just "thinks" he doesn't like it since I telll him it's sourdough. He said, I like your rye bread and the french bread better. I wonder if I tell him it's french if he'll believe it.
but does involve a bit of arithmetic.
When you use your sourdough it is a pre ferment. You could take the same weights of flour and water (do not add your seed culture) - add a small amount of commercial yeast (pinch) and allow this mature (overnight or so).
You could use this in place of the sourdough pre ferment as the total leavening of of your bread (it will rise slowly - more like the original sourdough recipe) or you can then add 1 - 2% (of the total weight of the flour) of fresh yeast or .3-.4% to .4-.8% of the weight of the flour of instant yeast to the final dough.
If you want to forego the pre ferment you can simply add back the weight of the flour and the weight of the flour that you have in your sourdough pre ferment back into the dough and then add the above percentages of weights of commercial yeast.
If you are working with volumes that makes this makes things harder, but a very rough estimate would be 1/8 tsp of yeast per cup of flour in the recipe (this is quite substantially lower than most recipes you will find on the back of yeast packets - I used to use a full 2.25tsp for 4 cups of flour "back in the day".)
There will be subtle changes as you add more or less commercial yeast - especially to rise and proof times and final taste and texture. You may find you have to make adjustments.
Hope this helps. A little baker's math goes a long way in making these conversions simple - it is the most eye opening things I have learned in baking in my long, long baking life...
Thanks so much. Will print this out. You have been very helpful. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this!
My wife likes every thing I bake. That's why I married her. :)
Jim
I really only got started making bread about a year ago. I like bread like in the good old days, not what's considered bread in the supermarkets, so I thought I would try and learn. Baker, I am NOT!, but I try, lol!
Hi KMIAA
Maybe my technique would suit your husband. I'm not a great fan of sourdough, but I do add some sourdough ferment to my (otherwise commercially yeasted)bread.
I detail the method here on my blog:
http://nobreadisanisland.blogspot.com/2010/04/basic-loaf-of-bread.html
There's also a delicious chocolate and beetroot loaf on the blog that might suit!
Adding a sourdough culture will work with any yeast-risen dough.
Cheers, Paul
Thanks for the reply. Will check out your link. I like the sourdough. It really isn't that sour.
My response doesn't answer the question you've asked. Others have done that very well but I thought I would share what has happened to me since I discovered baking with sourdough.
I used to only bake with commercial yeast. I didn't want to 'mess' with sourdough and thought it meant only one type of bread that were essentially lean dough with NO enrichments added at all. Then, about a year ago, I began baking using Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads and one thing led to another and my first sourdough starter was born....
My daughter was the first to balk because she was use to the yeasted bread flavor. My son was more tolerant and my husband piles so much pb on his bread that he didn't really notice the difference.
It has been awhile since I began using sourdough in my recipes. I have alternated between using commercial yeast and sourdough BUT I really like using sourdough for some reason and so my balancing act has been toppled in that direction....Last week I made one of my daughter's favorite recipes that uses only commercial yeast and her comment was 'this tastes bland mom.'
Moral of my experience....I kept on baking and it only took a bit of time before my daughter's taste buds adjusted and now she prefers the more complex flavor that sourdoughs add to breads.