October 6, 2013 - 4:51pm
Baking Soda in SD bread?
Hi all,
Today I tried to do a sourdough English muffins for the first time. It turned out on the blah side, not bad just not good. While they cooked on the griddle they kinda exploded in size, looked more like the growing snake fireworks we had as kids. This got me thinking if a little bit of soda did that to the muffin, what would it do to SD bread? Am I crazy and wasting time or would a wee bit of soda give a loaf of SD a nice rise?
It's ok to be honest and speak your mind. :)
thanks
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puts 1/8th tsp in some of his SD breads to cut the sour not make the bread rise ....although it will act like a instant yeast booster so many folks put into their SD breads. But I mainly use YW booster for heavier SD whole grain breads if i don't want them sour and want them more open.
I had no idea of what YW booster was a minute ago. It led me to google, then your blog, then google then Yeast Water! That was fun ;) I will leave the soda alone for now as I really like the sour of SD. Maybe my time is still best spent practicing and reading, best to learn to do this the proper way first! I am tossing out less of my mistakes now, so that is a small step in the right direction.
Thanks dabrownman!
D
Avatar! Sunset with an armed, saguaro sentinal reminds me of our home in AZ! Now that is getting cool we are in for 6 months of pure heaven. I don't toss mistakes. I wet them down, turn them into crumbs and then they go into the next bake and maybe a couple more. The future breads are better with the altus every time!
YW is just another wasy to use natural captured and cultured yeast to bake bread without the sour Just as fun as SD too
Happy baking
I forgot to say that you have very nice looking bread on your blog pages, lots of interesting flavours in those pages!
I forgot to say that you have very nice looking bread on your blog pages, lots of interesting flavours in those pages!
That is an AZ sunset, I am in Avondale ;)
Have bake almost 200 different ones over the last 20 months. It's it nice to be in the 80's again?
Oh yes, the cooler the better for me. This is the only place I have lived where people get excited about the temps being in the 90's.
I use baking soda in all my sourdough breads because I don't like the sour taste. I make sourdough for the health benefits.
The "sour" in sourdough is acid. Baking soda is alkaline. They react to create bubbles chemically. But, the taste is remarkably unremarkable. If you want to boost your bread with chemical leavening, use double acting baking powder. It has its own acid and alkaline in it, so it doesn't take the flavor out of your sourdough. I found that if I use quality ingredients, I don't need anything but flour, water, salt, and starter to make very delicious bread that my whole family loves. It can be made artisan, with a crunchy crust and chewy crumb, or made into a soft sandwich loaf, which is what we do most at my house. It rises a-plenty, given the proper treatment, and tastes wonderful! Back when I was having trouble getting a good rise and a soft crumb texture, I tried lots of additives, but nothing worked. I finally switched from AP flour to bread flour, and everything has worked out right since! Lots of people have been successful baking bread from AP flour, and some recipes call for it specifically, but I guess my skill level isn't that high yet.
and that adds more flavor.