March 15, 2017 - 1:26pm
Struggling with Semolina Durum Starter...
Over the last two weeks, I have tried to get a semolina durum wheat starter going. This is for a recipe of Pane di Altamura from Daniel Leader's book 'Local Breads'. I made it with organic Greek yogurt, bottled spring water and organic durum wheat as per his directions. The starter is thick and pasty, a bit like a thick mashed potato consistency. Is this a ripe starter or should I give the starter more time to develop or try some other approach? I am keeping the starter in a warm bedroom with the temperature hovering between 78 and 81 F.
thanks,
Pete
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I've never heard of this method. I've used water and sometimes pineapple juice just to get it going. More info is needed...
What are you feeding it now?
What is your feeding schedule?
Does it rise and fall? If so, over what time period?
What does it smell like?
P.s. I've just started converting some starter into a durum wheat starter for an Altamura bake this weekend. I can also give you Hamelman's durum Sourdough recipe which uses a starter and a Biga. Might be a good choice for your first bake as the Biga will be a back-up if you're not sure it's ready.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/50423/hamelmans-durum-bread
Pete,
Unless you are a purist and demand of yourself to get this starter going with only durum, I concur with Lechem on this. "I've just started converting some starter into a durum wheat starter for an Altamura bake this weekend'.
If you take an existing starter and then feed it as though it was the durum starter, it will not take long - a few feedings, before the "impure" starter portion is an insignificant percentage of the overall goop, and is crowded out in favor of the durum. It may never reach 100% durum in the starter, but it is an easy alternative for getting to point B from what you are doing right now. I've done it before starting with my mixed flour 75% hydration starter. And it is a pretty simple task.
I can definitely try converting a portion of my active sourdough starter to a durum wheat starter. Sometimes I get very wrapped up following recipes to a 't', I don't know when it is alright to improvise...
thank you both!
-Pete
Take a formula, find out what works about it, and then do something a bit (or a lot) different to make it your own! Of course with something as unique as the Pane di Altamura, you my wish to stick closely to the DOC results and methodology.
Improvisation is greatly advised (at least from my keyboard) once you understand what and how the original is supposed to work..
alan
and if it helps i'll explain how I'm converting a portion of my starter...
After a lot of reading on Pane di Altamura the recipe is pretty simple but it is an art to get the best out of this bread. The starter is a piece of dough at the same hydration as the final dough and is built up over a few feeds of 1:3:5. The final build would be the actual dough. So here's what I'm doing. My starter is always kept at 50% hydration but it doesn't really matter what yours is as the hydration will correct itself over time. Three builds should be enough with the final being the recipe.
Build 1: 10g starter + 30g water + 50g durum flour. Leave that to mature and then onto build two...
Build 2: 15g starter from build 1 + 45g water + 75g durum flour. Same ratio as build 1 but increasing it a bit to be left with atleast 100g for the final recipe. Leave to mature then onto the final dough.
Final Dough: same ratio
500g durum flour
300g warm water
10g salt
100g starter
The DOC states the dough should be 60% hydration but I think you'll find that should it be very fine re-milled durum flour then 65% hydration might be better but if your flour is just very fine semolina (not quite the same grind) then 60% would be more suited. There are variations of this bread in different regions of Italy all ranging from 60% to 70% hydration so feel free to fall anywhere in-between.
I think this bread benefits from a very mature starter. So with each build get the most out of it.
In the right conditions and if it's warm enough the bulk ferment, of the main dough, should be anything from 1.5 - 3 hours. It's quite a quick fermenting grain so watch the dough and not the clock. One gets the most out of it taking the bulk ferment to the outer limits but beware as when things go south, it goes south quickly! Once it over ferments it degrades very quickly. Shaping is an art. Surprisingly difficult to shape "no shape". Watch videos and this will become less cryptic. And final proof is very quick and sometimes seems non existent i.e. there is a pre-shape, rest and then a final shape right before baking. For this to work you need the bulk ferment just right.
When I arrived home, I began refreshing my two starters... using some of the discard of the ripe starter to foster the struggling semolina durum wheat starter...
My ripe starter is 1/2 all purpose 1/2 whole wheat... to refresh it, I held onto 20% of the old starter or 70 grams and added 100 grams of new 1/2 and 1/2 flour and 100 grams water.
Using another 70 grams of the discarded 1/2 and 1/2 from above, I added 100 grams water and mixed the two together. I then added 100 grams semolina durum wheat.
This morning, the results are not dazzling, but I am encouraged to see some rise in the semolina durum wheat starter and the consistency is a bit thicker than cottage cheese, different than the paste of earlier. Hopefully, a few more days of feeding this second starter as I do the first will result in a healthy semolina durum wheat starter.
If you have a mature starter then giving it a feed of durum wheat flour should make no difference.
Last night I took 10g of my starter and fed it with 30g water + 50g durum wheat. Within a couple of hours it was already discernibly fermenting. It grew quickly which should be normal for durum wheat.
For the next few days try this schedule (you don't need to build too much as that'd be a waste)
10g of your starter + 30g warm water + 50g durum wheat. Knead into a dough, place in a glass jar and cover. Wait till it peaks and holes begin to show on top. Mine did so sometime during the night, can't give an exact time but it was under 8 hours. When it has done so then repeat as follows...
10g from the first build + 30g water + 50g durum flour. Wait till peaked etc then feed again.
Save up discards and use in other recipes. Hopefully within a few feeds your new durum wheat starter should be very active. Then build enough to make an Altamura bread.
Do you have a photo?
A side view would be good. Did the durum wheat starter rise a lot? How much? Perhaps a side view?
Now you've got your durum wheat one going carry on with feeds like described above.
If you thicken it up to 60% hydration you'll see a big difference. I don't know if you have re-milled semolina or just fine semolina but it'll behave differently to a normal wheat starter at the same hydration. Doesn't mean it's not working or strong.
I do not believe this flour is Rimaninata, the label only says "semola grano duro" but the directions from their website say it is used in bread baking and it is from Altamira, so I'll give it a shot.
Lechem,
I tried using your suggestion of measurements, i.e. 10 gms. water, 30 gms. starter, 50 gms. durum wheat and find my durum wheat sucks up a lot of water. I photographed the mass below. I'll keep running with the other starter I built last night and see where that leads.
thanks,
Pete
But no wonder you found it too dry. The formula is always Starter : Water : Flour. So that would be 10g starter + 30g water + 50g durum flour.
Pete,
I agree with Abe and Alfonso here. I have never made a semolina starter from scratch, I just converted my wheat starter to durum. After about 3 feedings there is almost no wheat remaining in the durum. I keep mine at 75% hydration and feed it 1 (starter) to 3 (water) to 4 (durum). But I am confused by your high temperature. I find that durum ferments very quickly, and mine ripens in under 6 hours at 70˚F. Beyond that, it really breaks down, almost liquifying. Keep an eye on it if you are at 78˚F, it may ripen in 3-4 hours.
BTW, another thing I recently learned is that durum, more than wheat, likes hard water. If your water source is very soft, as is mine in SF, you might consider adding some bottled water that is high in minerals. I have been using about 50% tap and 50% evian for my durum doughs of late, and having good success.
-Brad
Can't wait to try Pane di Altamura again. Got some ideas I wish to try.
Durum likes hard water? Well then London is the place to be :)
It's murder on the pipes, but good for us bakers!
I just posted a photo of my latest Pane di Altamura - it's getting close to the original.
10g starter from 1st build + 30g water + 50g durum flour
Almost there. The first build went really well. The smell after peaking then refrigerating till i could feed again was like grapes!
About to go into a Tupperware container...
I am really in the weeds with this... starting over and keeping notes... cracking this is taking some time, but I will figure it out... Brad, my tap water has a pH of 4.0 to 5.0, so I use two different bottled spring waters one with a pH of 5.0 and the the other is 6.0. I need to commit to only using the higher pH bottled water to resolve that variable, I can't just use whatever I have in storage. I bought some Acqua Panna (8.2 pH) with a hardness rating of moderate and will try mixing the two together once I progress a bit with this starter. Uliveto is probably a better choice for a hard water, though finding a local brand might be easier to find... This a.m., I am feeding my original sourdough starter and will give Lechem's advice another go. Brad, I looked at your Pane di Altamura thread and the results are awesome! Thanks everyone for the guidance.
Persevere. FYI, London water is hard water. I just used boiled, and cooled, tap water. Another thing to note is that with Pane di Altamura the starter "traditionally" is an old piece of dough leftover from a previous bake which is fed 3x keeping the same hydration all the while building up to the final dough. Hence the stiff starter builds I have been doing. Breads from this region of Italy using Durum Wheat can vary from 60% - 70% hydration so feel free to fall within this range.
I have half a bag of rimacinata which would be more suited to 65% hydration +. But I didn't have enough for the builds and final dough. Went to buy more but could only find extra fine semolina. They are almost the same thing and on it's own it does look like rimacinata. That is until you compare the two. So I'm using this for the starter build and saving the rimacinata for the final dough. This is why I've gone for lower hydration in the starter as semolina (even extra fine) will take less water. But for the final dough i'll probably up it to 65% hydration.
Pete - thanks for your kind words.
I don't think that pH is the thing you want to focus on here. More important, I believe, is the hardness and, relatedly, the calcium (that usually comes from calcium carbonate from limestone at the source). When I worked in a semiconductor facility, we used highly purified water. It was pH 7 in the large storage container, but pH 5 when it came out of the tap because it easily picked up the carbon dioxide from the air, acidifying it slightly. When using a water with a sourdough culture, the acid produced by the LAB will quickly overwhelm the effect of pH from the water.
The hardness will affect how it reacts with the flour. I looked at the Acqua Panna analysis (buried very deeply in the website), and the calcium at 30 ppm isn't as high as the Evian or Gerolsteiner waters. Evian has a hardness around 300 ppm (same as mg/L) and calcium 80 ppm. Gerolsteiner doesn't list hardness but calcium is listed around 350 ppm. I've tried both, and the Gerolsteiner seems to do a bit better. Unfortunately I can't find the still version mineral water near me so I have to buy the sparkling variety and let it go flat. I mix it 50/50 with my soft tap water. I haven't yet tried San Pellegrino which has a calcium content of 180 ppm and readily available. As I am writing this reply I found this website that lets you compare content of many different water brands.
Good luck.
-Brad
Brad,
Yes, I think the snowstorm here wiped out the water selection at the local markets... not much in the way of the frou frou waters, i.e. Gerolsteiner, Evian, Fiji nor San Pellegrino. I did pick up Acqua Panna two weeks ago and am trying that until the Gerolsteiner is available.
thanks,
Pete
All going well?
Thanks for the check-in!
With John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over" playing through my mind, Friday in the p.m. I took 70 grams of my mature sourdough stater and combined it with 100 grams of the durum wheat and 100 grams Acqua Panna. I refreshed the durum starter this a.m., holding back 70 grams from last night's build and added 100 grams durum wheat and 100 grams Acqua Panna. I anticipate things will go well, if a bit slower than the results you are getting. I am not home enough to feed more than Perhaps I give this a few days to develop instead of further refreshing. Right now, I am not getting the rise out of this new starter and imagine I need to strengthen it with more refreshing. I am using the larger amounts because durum wheat sucked up the water when I tried your proportions.
I am leaving the two starters out in my kitchen instead of the bedroom. 67 to 74 F.
thanks!
Pete
Is from Italy and so too is mine and yet I'm able to make a dough at 60% hydration and you are not. You've gone for 100% hydration i see. Surely that will be a paste even if yours soaks up more water. Sometimes a dough needs a bit of working before it comes together so getting your hands in there is fine. You could have tried slowly upping the hydration to 70% and seeing if that works. I highly doubt it's possible for 70% hydration durum wheat not to form a dough. I'm also curious about your starter. Taking just 10g of mine and feeding it 50g (5x it's weight) and it springs to life maturing very quickly. Yet you've taken 70g of yours and fed it 100g flour (just 1.4x) and it's not responding as well. Puzzling!
Persevere! Keep at it and let us know when it comes to life.
The yeasts in your starter are quite low vs. the bacteria. Perhaps your mother starter needs some TLC to improve the yeast numbers.
Yes, I am experiencing a form of apoplexy here with this little project! Perhaps I should bring my starter along with me to feed it more regularly than just mornings and evenings.
Your starter needs a few good feeds and should be allowed to fully mature at room temperature. This should increase yeast numbers in your starter which I'm thinking right now it's more bacterial which can happen when one starts keeping it in the fridge. If one refrigerate too early after feeding and doesn't allow the yeasts to multiply it can offset the balance favouring bacterial growth. So its all I'm how you manage the mother starter. Perhaps when it runs low you, in future, rebuild in two or more stages each time with a good feed and allowing it to fully mature and with the last feed give it some time to bubble up by half before refrigerating. When it comes to building a Levain the same idea. Take a little off and build in two or more stages thus increasing the yeast growth. Twice a day is fine. With good feeds it should take time to mature anyway. Once you've restored your starter then fine to refrigerate again. When a fully fledged starter gets lazy it's probably off balance due to maintenance. If your starter is now sluggish don't fall into the trap of feeding too much and discarding etc. Don't whittle the yeasts down even further. Backtrack a tad as if making a starter. If you see what I mean. Feed when it needs feeding until then patience. Give it all the time it needs to mature. Once it gets quicker and more reliable you'll know it's back on track.
Pit your durum starter to one side and give it time. Treat the same way. When it shows signs of life then continue feeding but whittle it down to half of what you're building. Shame to waste so much expensive good quality flour.
Yes, when I know I am baking, I usually feed the mature starter on a six hour schedule instead of every twelve. This should probably should be done when I am trying to launch a new starter from this one. I imagine you are baking all the time with your starter and feeding it three and four times a day. I am sure it is thriving! I can barely find the time to bake one bread a week here.
thanks,
Pete
Keep my starter in the fridge and build levains. My mother starter gets fed about once a month. It's just a subtle difference on how we manage our mother starter feeds and levain builds.
When I arrived home tonight, my durum starter showed what i think are the promising signs of development...
That is a thickening surface... a bit like the top of a new container of sour cream. A bubble even formed after this photo.
I am skipping a feed and see how things progress. As for my mature starter, I fed it tonight and will feed it again at 6am, noon and when I am home at 10 pm. Patience is a virtue.
At 10 PM last night I moved my resting 'sour cream' textured durum starter to a larger container and feed it like so...
Each ingredient landed in the jar seemingly in its own layer. I mixed the mass thoroughly together and marked off the start level. Six hours later here is the difference in rise...
Patience definitely is the key. Good feeds and allowing your starter to fully mature each time should strengthen it up and increase the yeast population. I am of the opinion you don't need anything else in a starter except for flour + water though.
Well here is the Pane di Altamura in its traditional shape. The final dough was 70% in the end. While 60% was ok for the starter where I used fine semolina the dough was Semola Rimacinata and needed more water. Plus the starter is fermented more so and it degrades so feels more hydrated by the time its used.
Looks great! How is the crumb? How does it taste? More photos please!
Shaping like this is actually harder than it seems. You'd think a boule or a batard would be more difficult but doing this takes more time to learn. I've got some improving to do.
Now I've only heard about this bread, and how good it is, but have nothing to compare it too. Never tasted the original. So basically its a stab in the dark.
Crumb is dense which is how it's supposed to be. The taste is supposed to be slightly sweet and while mine is it does have a strong pasta taste (for good reason) but nothing like I'd thought it'd be for such a famous bread. There's much more flavour in the crust! So while I've had better other wheat breads this one is oddly more-ish. Whatever I do with the starter builds I always get the same taste unlike other breads where altering the starter brings out different qualities. There is never any tang which not present in Pane di Altamura, so while this would make it more like the original I'm not sure why this happens. It's a hearty loaf. On it's own it's good but eaten with olive oil it really brings out the best. And it toasts up really well.
I'll try to get more photos posted.
Yes, I have Daniel Leader's book "Local Breads" which has some illustrations and I have studied a bunch of videos on youtube. I have two days off ahead of me here to completely focus on baking! I am off to the market to pick up some flour and water and give this time to rise and plot next steps...
Di Gesú Bakery Pane di Altamura Altamura Bread
Di Gesú Bakery Pane di Altamura Altamura Bread
Shaping and Baking the Altamura Loaf
Altamura Loaf - Shaping and Baking
Bread from the Wood-Fired Ovens of Altamura
Bread from the Wood-Fired Ovens of Altamura
Il Pane di Altamura
Il Pane di Altamura
Seen the first 3 but not the last one. I've watched those over and over again. They handle the dough so easily and shape it so fast they make it look like a doddle. It's not! That comes with time.
Write to Floyd at floydm@thefreshloaf.com and ask him to enable your private messages.
I have done so many things to get this starter going (adding honey, 1/2 whole wheat/ 1/2 all purpose flour, rain dance, deep prayer, meditation, spoke to my priest) I am not sure how I would calculate hydration at this juncture. I am going more by feel and grateful to see it rising.
Just get it strong. When making the bread then start concentrating on aiming for an ideal hydration.
When you say "strong", I take that mean it should be fed multiple times a day so the yeast have lots of bacteria to eat. I am doing this as I grow the volume of the starter.
It has no problems in at least doubling in under 6 hours. I don't think you have to be slave to your starter and feed it multiple times a day. I think once in the morning and once in the evening should suffice. To encourage the yeast population it should have a good feed and be left to fully mature before the next feed.
I once stumbled upon a Pane di Altamura success. Since then I've never been able to replicate it. Don't know how I ever did it but it was a good mistake. My most recent bake doesn't even come close.
Really, you are a bookend for me getting this loaf going...
I will keep feeding and discarding today, building it up the yeast and bacteria.