March 13, 2013 - 2:02pm
Sourdough tastes like rye bread
I tried to search to see if this has happened, but i cannot seem to find an answer. I just baked my first sourdough loaf from a fairly new starter (1 month) and instead of tasting like sourdough it tasted like rye. I started with rye/whole wheat mix with pineapple juice, but later feedings have been using white/water. Do i need to have more white feedings before i get a white/sour taste? I like rye, but when your mouth is expecting sourdough, rye was a bummer!
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Yes, keep feeding with only white flour + water daily, and the taste should transform quickly. I don't know how you feed, but if you save 2 tbsp of starter and feed 100g of white flour and 100g of water 2x per day, within 5 days or so it should taste like a white starter.
That said, maybe something is lost in translation here from your description...what do you perceive as the taste of rye? What is sourdough supposed to taste like? Search TFL for tips on making your starter taste more sour, if that's what you're after, there's lots of them here. Hard to answer, so much depends on context.
Good luck and keep us posted!
Yes, I was pretty general, as I am very new to baking bread. But the rye "taste" is the flavor of rye bread from the bakery. I think I used to much rye "getting ready" the starter. I will white flour feed the next week and try again. The round turned out great, with a very nice tang, but to much rye tones for typical white sourdough. Thanks so much for your help!
Hmmm...it sounds to me as if you've got 'hooked' on white San Francisco sourdough bread. Is that sort-of correct?
I like that bread, a lot, but I have no ambition or desire to try to replicate that in my kitchen. EVERY loaf I bake, nowadays, is made with a 100% hydration / 100% rye-fed sourdough starter, so even the occasional "white breads" look a little bit 'grey' in the crumb.
I converted one of my starters (a couple of years ago) to all-white flour feeding, just to make some sourdough English crumpets. It took about a week to get there, with feedings a couple of times per day, where the starter would rise in a predictable time-frame. (I never attempted to make a a loaf of bread with that starter, but it may have been a good experiment.) I ditched the idea after a month and 6 successful crumpet episodes...I then went back to 100% rye feeding. It's just much easier for me to keep a starter happy with rye feeding.
About a week at 2 feeds of white flour per day got me there—"Day One" was: 35g rye starter; 40g white flour; 40g water. After that, it was S1:F1:W1. Worked OK for me, within about 6-7 days...Good luck and happy baking!
Adam