April 13, 2015 - 5:59pm
Retarding each sourdough starter refreshment...
If retarding primary ferment develops beneficial flavored, why not retard each refreshment of a sourdough starter?
In beer brewing, ferment control was the key. Part of which was keeping temps from swinging rapidly. It may have been desirable to change temps, but advised to do so slowly. Do bread yeasts desire the same kind of controlled influence, is there more to it?
I'm wondering if anyone has any leads to the bio-science regarding the bread yeasts and why a cold ferment does what it does?
Thanks!
Dough-dough-head
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I've no idea about the bio-science, but my starters live in the fridge all the time. They're refreshed when I make bread (daily right now)
It's good to be able to maintain ferment/prove temperatures - in-general the higher the sourdough ferment, the more acid is produced. 24C seems to be the "sweet spot" for me - but that may just be coincidentally the temperature my bakehouse is at most of the time..
-Gordon
Thanks Gordy. I was under the impression that cold made for more acidity. After finding a biochemist's paper and your comment it seams I was wrong.
Any idea what the cold ferment does then?
not gordy.
Jbock220, your comment about retarding the primary (bulk, I assume) ferment is just what I was looking for. I want to do that the evening before I teach a sourdough class. I wonder if I should do the brief mix-autolyse-short mix with salt, then give it an hour and do a stretch & fold and then refrigerate. The other option would be just do the brief mix, autolyse, add salt, brief mix and retard before a S&F. Then the S&F would be done the morning before dividing, preshape, shape, bake. Do you have any answers for me? Thanks a lot!
Joy
Well, I've only made one terrible experiment with bread so far (got impatient and veared from my recipe). So I'm not much on experience, but reading BBA, that (cold primary/bulk fermentation) is the hot new trick.
i do know beer making and bread is somewhat similar (I quit drinking). The enzymes (at certain temperature) break down the starches into simple sugars, which are then able to be eaten by the bacteria and yeast. you can make sour beer with lactobacillus strains (very popular right now) Just like bread.
The question is or are, what temps work for what flavors in bread (like beer). You can control the yeast byproducts (in beer) by controlling the temperatures. One thing they don't seem to like is dramatic changes In temp. Also, warm = more phenolics (banana, bubble gum, pepper flavors), while cooler = maltire beer flavors. I'd like to know if that kind of detailed research is available to the amateur baker as it has become available to the amateur brewer.
out producing the yeast 13 to 1 where the yeast at reproducing at the same rate they do at 52 F. So, at 93 F the yeast is being retarded but the LAB are going wild. LAB they like the cold too. At 36 F LAB out produce yeast at a 3 to 1 rate. At room temperatures, 66 F to 72 F LAB slightly outproduce the yeast by about 10% or so. But at 36 F the rate of LAB reproduction is very, very slow. about 42 times slower than they reproduce at 93 F.
So, to get more sour at 36 F you have to retard it for a very long time. I retard my rye starter for 12-14 weeks and it really starts to make sour bread at the 8 week mark.
I think you will be miles ahead to take some very long retarded starter and build a levain with a small amount of it , say 10 g,over (3) 4 hour stages where each stage feeding is progressively larger and do the levain build at 93 F. Then, if you want it more sour, you can then retard the built levain for 1-2 days before using it.
I did a post about the No Muss No Fuss Starter here. Hopes this helps
No Muss No Fuss StarterThat's not true at all. At 52F/11C, yeast reproduce much more slowly than at 79F/26C (graph C): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC106434/figure/F1/
LAB do, at that temperature they are reproducing at about the same rate they do at 52 F. Here is a cart of Ganzel's data showing the relationship of reproduction rates of LAB and yeast in a SD culture at various tempertures.
As you can see yeast reproduce about the same rate at 93 F and 52 F. And here is the chart showing the LAB to yeast reproduction ratios where LAB outproduce yeast at various temperatures.