Some questions
I'm very new to making sourdough bread but my last 2 bake days have been really great. I have a couple of questions.
If I refrigerate my firm starter and leave it a week or 2 or more without using it or refresing it, will it become more sour the longer it is left?
Is it better to make a bigger starter, remove a bit for each bake day and refeed /refresh once you have only a small amount left or should I just keep a small starter and feed/refresh each time I bake?
I have a multigrain mix I make up for a yeasted loaf. This has rolled oats, kibbled wheat or rye, buckwheat, quinoa, flax seed, chia seed, and sesame seeds and I usually do a hot water overnight soak. Will this work ok in SD environment? Should I toast the sesame? and that leads on to is it a flavour thing or a nutrition reason that seeds are toasted? To date I haven't toasted the sesame or sunflower seed if I used it.
If you leave your firm starter , or any starter for 2 weeks without feeding and smell it, it almost hurts your nose with the * sharp smell *
It will be so hungry that you need to feed it about 2 times before baking , so the leavin unfed in the fridge won't help with the Sour taste.
I feed my 100% wheat starter and my 133% rye starter only once a day when they are not in the fridge but live on the counter, I get a more sour bread , if I feed it 2 x a day the flavour is milder.
When my starters live in the fridge I feed them 1 x a week if I do not bake and then , for baking, pull them out, feed them 2 times to give them strength.
My sourdough starter also lives in my refrigerator. Have not found it tasted more sour if I leave it longer than a fortnight without feeding. Surely, the subsequent feeding would take any overly sourness out.
From what I have read on this forum, your grain mix would work very well in an SD environment, but you will have to adjust the hydration.
I always feel that toasted sesame seeds are tastier.
and that is how many different ideas of keeping/feeding a starter you'll have. I understand that less feedings = more sour taste. But then you'll also have to take into account the actual recipe and how much starter you put into the final dough. So a few factors to take into account. I'll tell you my feeding schedule that I do at the moment (it has morphed many times) and hopefully you'll be able to take some ideas from it.
I used to feed my starter once a week and bake once a week. Keeping my starter in the fridge in-between.
Now I create a larger quantity of starter and keep it in the fridge. When I wish to bake i'll take off a little which i'll build into a -pre-ferment (either with one stage feeding or two).
When the Starter in the fridge runs low i'll top it up again.
I understand the sourness of the starter itself is increasing with more intense flavours. But as I said above it's not the only factor as to how your final bread turns out.
But note that because i'm feeding less often I prefer to build the pre-ferment in two stages as this makes the levain stronger.
... get 13 replies :-)
My starters live in the fridge. I bake with them 6, 3 and 3 days a week (wheat/spelt/rye)
I keep about 500g of each in the fridge.
Sometimes I use it directly from the fridge (max. about 320g) but more often now as I'm making more bread, I bulk it up by taking some out in the afternoon, adding flour+water and leaving it to get on with itself until the evenings knead. Not forgetting to immediately top-up the mother(s) and put them back in the fridge.
On holiday they will stay in the fridge for a week or so - I give them a sniff/taste and if they taste a bit too sour then I'll give them a bit of a refresh. It's usually the Rye one that gets a bit carried away with itself.
There one pre-mix seeded/malted flour mix I use (Shipton Mill 3-malts and sunflower - sounds similar to your without the weird seeds) If using a pre-mix, be aware that there is less flour in it due to the added weight of seeds, etc. so using what you might think is a 70% hydration recipe will result is really wet and sticky dough! (so use a bit less water) I make loaves with this the same as most - mix/knead in the evening, overnight ferment, turn out/scale/shape/prove and into the oven. The overnight ferment on this flour really softens the grains - it's a very different loaf to using the same flour with conventional yeast and a 1-2 hour ferment/prove time.
-Gordon
well I guess I will try and see which one works best for me. It is very interesting to hear how different people maintain their starters, I am blown away by the dept of knowledge here and how everyone is willing to share, even when newbies like me come along. I still have a lot to learn!
So far I have only made up my own seed mixes and the composition has changed as I find out more. My aim is to make bread that is not full of additives (like store bought breads) and is full of flavour.
Your replies lead to more questions - does a higher percentage of levain in the final dough mean a more sour loaf- does it proof faster with more levain?
Although higher hydration bread scares me a little, I have noticed that the crumb is much more open as you increase hydration. The type of flour I have available to use also impacts on the bread. I am currently using what is here in NZ called High Grade Flour with protein of 11 - 11.5 so I usually add a little gluten and it seems to work.
Thank you for your feedback, I will try some of your ideas and see how I go.
I'm just that little bit further down the road from you but still no expert. With sourdough there's always more to learn. It's very enjoyable. Here's how I understand it.
1. Smaller amount of starter equals longer fermentation time therefore more sour.
2. Ergo larger amount of starter will quicken the process and therefore less fermentation time and you'll get a less sour sourdough.
3. Results can be manipulated by increasing or decreasing the temperature so 1 and 2 ain't necessarily so.
4. Different flours will produce different results and will need different fermentation and proofing times.
My advice will be to start simple and take each step as it comes.
Enjoy!
Does a higher percentage of levain in the final dough mean a more sour loaf? Not necessarily
Does it proof faster with more levain? Most definitely! -unless you find a way to slow the yeast down
It seems you've got plenty of feedback on your starter, but less on your multigrain questions.
Yes, using your usual soaked mixture should work well in a sourdough loaf as well. I don't know what your usual formula for either your current multigrain loaf or your sourdough is, but be aware that your multigrain sourdough loaf may come out differently than either of your others, and you might want to make some adjustments later. But you may not, if the results are to your liking.
Also, I am not aware of any nutritional benefits to toasting seeds, but I think they do taste a lot better that way. I also always toast nuts when I'm using them as well, because I think they are more flavorful then. You may want to try both oven roasting and toasting in a skillet, if you don't have a preferred way to handle that already. Some people find one easier, and some find the other easier or better.
thanks a lot for your comments. Maybe I will follow a multigrain sourdough recipe first to see how it goes before I use my own mixture. I can see I will be trying out lots of things in the next couple of weeks including toasting some of the grains
There seem to be so many ways to use sourdough it will keep me challenged for a while!