Detmolder Method on White Sourdough
I've used the Detmolder method, as described by Hamelman, the past week for a couple of sourdough rye breads.
I especially like how sour the Detmolder gets the second stage of this process. It makes the rye loaves taste wonderful.
I got to thinking: if this Detmolder makes rye bread taste so good, what would it do for a loaf of white sourdough?
So, I decided to try this method using some of my white bread flour sourdough starter--a starter that I've kept for 4 years now in the fridge. Well, it works perfectly! The dough smells so sour now after 16 hours on stage 2 (going to go for 24 hours total). This is going to be an excellent way to get some really sour loaves of white sourdough. (I could even try incoroporating a higher percentage of the Detmolder into the final dough to make it even more sour!) I'm already thinking about a large detmolder sourdough bin in the fridge where I pull from it for loaves throughout the week.
Sounds great!
Please share some pictures and your formula and method when you get a chance.
Always looking for new ideas myself to try.
Thanks,
Ian
Hi, Loafgeek.
I'll be very interested in hearing how this works for you.
I tried this a few months ago, following Hamelman's protocol in Bread. I found that the water absorbtion of white wheat flour is so different from that of medium rye or whole rye that the effective hydration of the various builds was much wetter. This would also impact acid production. The end result was not bad but not as good as the various San Francisco-style sourdoughs or pains au levain I was baking. I ended up concluding that, while the Detmolder 3-stage method makes fabulous rye breads, it was optimized for them and not particularly wonderful for wheat flour breads.
I look forward to reading about your results and impressions.
David
Thanks for the replies; I'll keep you both posted--along with a spreadsheet I wrote (if you want it) that calculates all the stages of a Detmolder, scaled to your liking.
At the moment, I just started stage three of this white flour detmolder. It ripened for 22 hours and when I took the saran wrap off the top of the bowl, there was major acid in the air--it really smelled good, a strong sour.
Regarding hydration, the detmolder for 80% rye in Hamelman's book was at 94.7% in the final stage. I am using this same hydration percentage for my white detmolder.
Btw do you have a posting on the forum that describes your san francisco method? I'd like to try it. I've always used single stage starter in my boules and they weren't particularly sour unless I left the dough in the fridge for like 3 days.
Last Winter, I made a concerted effort to develop a procedure for making a San Francisco-style sourdough to my own taste. If you are interested in the various iterations, you can read my TFL blog entries. Search for "My San Francisco Sourdough Quest." If you are just interested in my best effort, here is a direct link: My San Francisco Sourdough Quest, Take 4. Note that temperature control is key to flavor profile, but you already know that if you are into the Detmolder method.
Happy baking!
David
Ok so I looked at your Sourdough Quest and I'm impressed! :) I notice you use a 50% hydration levain which is significantly more stiff than the 81.5% hydration of Detmolder stage 2. (This makes sense, because like you say, rye absorbs more water than wheat.) So this should produce a lot more sourness over that 16 hours (at room temperature) vs. detmolder stage 2. Can't wait to try it!
Just mixed up the final dough for this white sourdough boule using the white flour detmolder I made. It has a nice sour smell, but also sweet smelling for some reason. This is the first time I smelled a dough so sweet smelling.. I don't know if it because I used the KAF all purpose flour this time--first time I've used KAF flour-- instead of the Gold Medal flour I typically use. It smells really nice though.. fragrant sour & sweet floral smell.
Okay here's the sourdough boule I made using the Detmolder Method for White Flour--which I probably won't do again opting instead for 50% hydration San Francisco method. (I'll cut into it tomorrow and taste it and post a pic of the crumb.) :
good night, sleep tight, breads await with the sunrise!
:)
Loafgeek, I attended Hamelman's rye sourdough class last weekend and it occurred to me to try the Detmolder method on wheat flour. I googled it and there you were! Were the results disappointing? I'd love to learn from your experience and avoid reinventing the wheel.
My tentative plan is to use the same temperatures and times as for the rye Detmolder but change the hydration. Is that what you did? I'm very aware of the San Francisco sourdough experiments that David Snyder has done in search of that elusive very sour old time bread (which Hamelman, if I heard him right, thinks may have been boosted with a sprinkle of acetic acid) and still searching for the perfect sour.
Thanks in advance, Otis
Though I did notice distinct differences in the looks, performance and especially taste of two otherwise identical rye test breads, one made with a 1-step starter, the other with a 3-step starter (Pöt's method), I cannot say the same for the wheat breads I made. Therefore I don't bother with making them in 3 stages.
David's San Joaquin Sourdough ist fabulous.
Karin
Hi Karin, just studied Poet's book and looked into his forum. They are talking about a one step method (I believe the author was Marla)
Well, Marlas 1-Step-Method is acutally a standard 1-Step-Method where you mix about 5%* to 10% of "mother starter"*, 100% of flour and 100% of water. To get a richer flavour and to take in account the different types of microorganisms in the sourdough you emulate the 3-Step methods by falling temperature.
As by this method over the time the yeast might become slow, you refresh the sourdough "mother starter"* with a 50% Starter + 100% flour + 100% water formula over just the time it needs to rise. (Maybe with several iterations)
In my opinion this is a method written for germans as we traditionally use all our mother starter to make new sourdough for the bread and just keep a part of the new sourdough as new mother starter.
A lot of people here already use a similar method as they have a seperate batch of mother starter which they refresh regularly. It is really good though that Marla did test the temperatures and wrote everything down in a way anyone can reproduce it.
Viele Grüße
Adrian
* As English is not my native language:
My percentages are by weight with flour counting as 1 (or 100%); With "mother starter" I refer to the sourdough I store in the fridge. (¿Is this the correct term?)