2 fundamental SD questions
I have a couple of questions about SD cultures that are talked about many times but I am not not really finding the answers. If you have written about this somewhere, I apologize, please just give me a link.
I have been reading advice or comments such as 'if your SD culture is never getting sour enough or just too sour, no matter how you vary your culture conditions, then you just have to start over and create a new culture (till you get what you like)'. Is this true? The flavor and other characteristics of every culture is different? Even in the same home? If I make a new culture today but maintain it exactly as my previous culture, flour, water, temperature, feeding schedule, my kitchen counter, then will the two cultures will be essentially the same or could they be quite different?
Related question, if I bring someone else's culture, developed somewhere else, into my home and maintain it my way, will this new culture eventually, maybe even soon, become like the culture I developed? Is there a point to trying 'exotic' cultures some people are selling if they cannot be maintained? Or are they that different in the first place?
Thank you!
I can't help with the first question, but many pizza makers have bought starters from Sourdough International, and several have said they have maintained numerous starters at the same time, and the flavor profiles stayed separate. https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=3065.msg26041#msg26041
This post goes for 17 pages, and i haven't read it, but if you are really curious https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=18283.0
Hi Katyajini,
The easy way to see if your starter will produce a more sour taste is to stop feeding it. If you leave your starter for 48 hrs without feeding you'll probably smell a very sharp odor. The second step would be to increase the amount of mature starter in the recipe which imports that mature flavor profile.Tartine bread wants to use 2-3 hour old levain, let it go 8-12 hr. old levain would change the flavor profile.The third way to get a more sour loaf is to use cold proofing during the bulk fermentation and/or the final proof to allow the LAB to produce more sour in the loaf.
I can't tell you if the strains of starter would retain their the original characteristics over time. There is a lot of controversy on that subject. I used for a time a home grown starter but when I switched to WW I had trouble, I'm currently using a Breadtopia starter which has been split into WW, rye, einkorn and bread flour starters without a problem. I've never tried the very expensive "designer" starters because of the cost. If you want to try the base starter I'm using I can send you some dried starter if you PM me with your address.
Al
Hi,
I am not an expert on the subject but have been baking SD with a starter that I received from a local baker in UK. Last week I visited Germany and kindly received a different starter from a bakery there. SD in Germany is known more or less for the more 'sour' type... I could see that the starter was much more rye based as a much darker grey colour compared to my white with a little bit of rye starter at home.
I have been feeding the starter now the same ratio of white and rye and baked yesterday my first bread with the starter based on a 50/50 recipe that I have done before.
How does it taste? I can't really tell a massive difference to be honest. I will bake the same bread now with the 'old' starter today, same flour and we'll see...
Maybe, it is a bit like a wine connoisseur and I need a better sourdough palate? Kat
Kat, I am able to produce extremely “sour” sourdough using a sweet (AP fed starter that has not been over fermented) by bulk fermenting a long time at room temperature.
I’m using a method taught by Teresa Greenway of Northwest Sourdough. For my taste, this is producing the best flavor profile for a sour loaf. And I love sour... Her method enables you to bake extremely sour to mildly sour by varying the technique. Her course is only $20, and IMO worth every penny. Here is the link, it’s called “San Francisco Sourdough”. https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=san%20francisco%20sourdough&src=sac&kw=San%20fran
The taste is highly distinguishable. You don’t need an educated palate to tell the difference. I’ve said many times on this forum that I am a Five-Grain Levain freak. And that nothing compares to it, IMO. But, since baking the San Francisco Sourdough, that statement no longer holds true. That’s all I have been baking lately and I can’t stop eating it. Hopefully, another diet won’t be necessary any time soon :-). To my surprise I am not gaining weight. I think it may have something to do with the long fermentation and it’s ability to break down the gluten and starches.
Danny
so it's not scientifically backed nor is it coming from a professional but purely from my own experience.
Once a starter is established then it's character is pretty much established too. One can coax out more or less tang by different maintenance and using it at different times however only within the scope of that starter's capabilities. I do believe that some starters will naturally be more tangy and others will naturally be more sweet. This is all established when the starter is made along with any other flavour profile but you cannot turn a naturally sweet starter into one which is very tangy. We put flour and water together, keep it warm and feed it... what you end up with is what you're given.
To sum up there will be some range your starter is capable of but it will be unique to that starter alone.
and I would not be surprised as the same applies to me when it comes to wine!!
I shall sit down with a blindfold and taste the same bread from the two different starters and see whether I can taste the difference! Kat
Interesting experience. Very sour sherbet. Not something I shall be doing too often.
My starter is naturally sweet and I can coax out more tang but the make-up of my starter will be established. i.e. the types of yeasts and bacteria which my starter is home to was decided when I made it. So someone else's starter might have different types of yeasts and bacteria to mine and no matter what I do mine is not going to have that particular make-up. But I can encourage my starter to favour the bacteria more so and bring out more tang.
You wrote, “My starter is naturally sweet and I can coax out more tang but the make-up of my starter will be established. i.e. the types of yeasts and bacteria which my starter is home to was decided when I made it. So someone else's starter might have different types of yeasts and bacteria to mine and no matter what I do mine is not going to have that particular make-up. But I can encourage my starter to favour the bacteria more so and bring out more tang.”
It seems a general consensus that yeast add little to no “sourdough” flavor to a bread. Would you agree?
Isn’t the LAB responsible for the “sour” flavor profile that sour (tangy) flavor lovers seek? I think you mention that above.
If the above assumptions hold true, then we can manipulate a “sweet” starter to produce a “sour” flavor by pushing the overall population of LAB to a greater percentage. Longer ferment, different hydration, whole grain, etc..
Do the various LAB bacteria found in grains and nature produce tremendous differences in the flavor of bread? Or is the ratio of yeast to LAB the determining factor?
Dan
”inquiring minds want to know”
My answers and observations are mostly from my own experience so by no means is this coming from the bread bible.
What takes up home in our starters is decided when our starters are made. You'll have a collection of yeasts with one particular yeast being dominant. And so to with bacteria.
Yeasts are responsible for most of the leavening and bacteria the sourdough flavour. When it comes to flavour there's more though. For poolish and biga (being all yeast based) brings out more flavour. So there's another factor going on in there.
I do believe that different bacteria can produce different flavours. Hence a yoghurt or vinegar taste to the bread. We can manipulate the starter to be more bacterial but tip the balance too much in favour of bacteria and you don't get that beautiful risen loaf which comes from yeast.
So while we can both do exactly the same thing your starter might produce a more tangy bread and mine, while more tangy then usual, might still be less than yours.
That's my highly layman understanding.
and will have to experiment with that....although I don't like my SD not too sour personally......
So my limited findings from comparing starters from total different places is, so far is that 'whatever' starter you have that the continued 'nurture' element at home and what you do with the starter appears to be key rather than where the starter has come from in the first instant, if that makes sense. All so much fun.....Kat
is create a new starter from scratch, bake with it a few times then combine it with my original starter. This prevents inbreeding, adds health to the starter and hopefully new dimensions in it's flavour profile.
Your comment about inbreeding sent me searching for yeast reproductive strategies. I thought that their reproduction was asexual - each cell produced a duplicate of itself. Lo and behold, they occasionally do a little 'dating'. In a stressful situation they produce haploid buds that must hook up with another haploid bud to complete the process. I wonder if anybody farms 'stud' yeast?
Perhaps the wrong word but I mean Just replicas of the same yeasts and bacteria. Creating a new starter and adding it to the existing one introduces other types of yeasts and bacteria.
You've now gone into a part of microbiology way above me. Perhaps this would make an interesting thread.
Way above me, too. You're right; this would make an interesting thread. The quick info I found cited a "stressed" situation for a specific yeast without defining stress. It would be interesting to know if the 'wee beasties' would cross polinate like some plants; if there's enough genetic variation between members of the same specie to make this an adaptive strategy; if certain stressors are more 'potent' than others - moisture, food availability, competition, temperature. So, is there a microbiologist in the house?
We do have an in house microbiologist - Debra Wink. You may have heard of the pineapple juice method when making a starter which is her method.
On a similar vein here is my next experiment - http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55773/saccharomyces-boulardii
I am thrilled to pieces, so many responses!
Barry: Thank you so much for those threads!! wow! I have been reading those two threads in the pizza forum. Those people are fanatical. It has so much information though. It does seem that most of them agree that starters can be quite different from one another and that they maintain the distinction. That is really good to know. I wish I could ask them something about the starters they are using.....
agmeneghin: Thank you for your kind offer. I am not quite ready right now, but I might reach out later. I dont like overtly sour so much. I am interested in creating more flavor with less sour..That is why I am wanting to explore other starters to see if i can make bread with rich complex flavors with mild acidity. I have been experimenting, and am still new at this but my breads get quite sour by the time I have a vigorous starter...maybe I am missing something and wanting to learn..
Kat...see, you find that where the starter comes from does not matter so much, when care for it your way, it becomes your own. The people at the pizza forum say they taste distinct differences in the crust from there stash of multiple starters and not only that they do not get cross contamination....so the controversy. Of course you tasted only two starters and could be a coincidence that they taste the same but they were also from far apart lands..And then there is the palate. I think I would taste a difference.
Dan: Thank you so much. I have a 4 of TG courses and was eyeing the SF SD course. But I dont know f it will do that much for me. I dont like sour so much. But you are recommending it so eventually I will probably get it. Not gaining weight would be desirable. Dumb, dumb, dumb, question I know, What is it about SF SD bread? Is it just sour? Or is there something else that makes it so special?
Lechem: it is exactly what you are saying, a symbiotic combination of organism takes hold at the beginning. Which ones do must be based on probability of numbers present and the nature of the starter medium. Then like population dynamics throughout Nature, once those first organisms take hold and make it there homeland it becomes very difficult for other organisms to get in even edgewise. I see it that way too. The question then becomes are there multiple organisms which produce slightly or very different flavor molecules around? We are not discussing flavor differences due to different substrate (flours) or temperature. But differences due the bug itself.
I didnt get this: you have made your own starter several time. So do you percieve a difference in there taste/flavor/strength in the baked bread? I agree yeast produces flavor. At least when I make a biga the bread is quite different. And I think when you mix two or more starters the stronger organisms, as a function of the combination, will win out and some will die out. The mixing would probably, gradually, strengthen the starter unless they were equally strong when you mixed them. Good luck with your expt!
Dan again: I am asking the same question about flavor produced by various bugs? Are there bugs in my home that will inherently produce different flavors given the same flour and temperature?
Thank you so much guys!
Kati, I’m glad you found help. That’s what TFL is all about. Hopefully if I or anyone is inaccurate, some with specific knowledge on a particular issue will “gently” correct us. Opinions and beliefs are nice but “the truth will set us free” :-)
“Dan: Thank you so much. I have a 4 of TG courses and was eyeing the SF SD course. But I dont know f it will do that much for me. I dont like sour so much. But you are recommending it so eventually I will probably get it. Not gaining weight would be desirable. Dumb, dumb, dumb, question I know, What is it about SF SD bread? Is it just sour? Or is there something else that makes it so special?”
With Teresa’s Method she teaches how we can control the amount of sour by using time and temperature. You can use her formula to bake bread from mild to very sour.
I am eating a lot of SD bread lately and (surprisingly) not gaining weight. I am beginning to think that the bacteria in the Levain and also the extreme fermentation breaks down the gluten and also degraded the starches. Maybe someone more knowledgeable will chime in and confirm or clarify this thought. God, I hope I’m right. I love bread!
“Dan again: I am asking the same question about flavor produced by various bugs? Are there bugs in my home that will inherently produce different flavors given the same flour and temperature?”
I’m not sure. Lechem and I have been discussing that very same thing. But the “bugs” you mentioned are derived mostly from the grain and not so much from the air. I do know that after baking this bread at least a dozen times that it is either my first or second choice for favorite breads. My other favorite is Hamelman's Five-Grain Levain. Can’t decide which one I like best.
Dan
If I want to stay on the sweet side of the culture, I learned from Ken Forkish's book and elsewhere that to refresh the culture two or three times before using it. @ 1:5 and about 3 or 4 hours apart. The problem I am having with that when I refresh 1:5 the culture hasn't moved much at 3 or 4 hours. Just a little. Is this correct? Am I supposed to again refresh the very, very young culture? Or is my culture not that vigorous?
I don’t know much about Ken Forkish, except that he is highly respected. But in my experience, a 1 to 5 feed (20% starter) would need a warm temperature to rise (double or more) in 3 - 4 hours using white flour. And it would require a very active starter.
I use a sweet starter for my sourdough because I don’t want to bring a large acid load into a dough that will Ferment at 74 - 76F for a total of 18 - 20 hours (including proof). So, I try to use the Levain BEFORE it recedes. I use pre-recession as an indicator rather than time. I do like to see at least a doubling to be sure the Levain is active.
Dan
combinations and stages can all affect the taste of a starter ir levain not to mention which of the 2 dozen LAB and yeast you might have in combination in your starter to begin with. Some LAB make more lactic or acetic and some can't even make acetic acid at all. Some LAB make more Co2 than yeast. Some LAB can be made to produce CO2 and ethanol just like yeast and no acisd at all with the right circumstances.
I can manipulate my NMNF starter make very sour or very non sour bread with any flour depending on how I handle it and the process used but I can't make it do something it just can't do biologically. Different Wee Beasties prefer different grains to live on in the wild and some can live on anything but are only native in a certain place in the world. So different grains from different places can and produce a unique SD culture.that can and will do different things. This is why people say if you don't like your starter make a new one with a different grain from a different place.
It is just science and if you know the science the rest is easy enough that even Lucy can do it:-) Just learn how flours, temperature, time, and hydration affect LAB and yeast and the SD world will be your own to manipulate any way you want. It just takes time to learn it all so don't give up you have the rest of your life to master it.
I am so sorry that I let this very interesting conversation drop (for a while). There was spring break and a long vacation.... I do hope I can revive it...
@Dan: I am now looking at pre-recession too to determine when the levain is ready for me. When you make your San Francisco style sourdough bread a la TG do you use your homemade starter or are you using a 'bought' San Francisco sourdough starter? I am contemplating getting one (SF SD starter) just for the fun of it and see how the flavor contrasts with my home grown starter. Do you (does anyone) know if this type of starter makes a real difference to flavor?
@dabrownman: thank you so much for that eye opening refresher. Everything you are saying makes so much sense to me in the light of what I already know but had never thought of it all pulled together as you have written. a) What is NMNF starter? b) I followed exactly the directions given by a poster here how to make a SD starter and it worked pretty well. In this particular method pineapple juice and some whole grain rye flour is used in the beginning before switching to water and white flour. Are you saying that if today I made a new starter but instead of rye, say, I used whole wheat from a particular source. or buckwheat, or durum wheat....etc and then stabilized into white flour the flavor of this new starter is likely to be different from my first starter? Because the different whole grain will have brought in a different set of organisms? But if I maintain the new starter with the same white flour as i have been will this new flavor remain?
Thank you so much guys!
I use a starter that I made. But I have also used a different starter (from a friend) to make the same bread and the taste are extremely different. Although, as I continue to refresh the new starter it quickly starts to taste like my original one.
Have others found this to be true? Do starters from different parts of the country quickly take on the characteristics of your original starter?
I think I’ll make a separate post for this question. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55989/do-starters-different-regions-become-similar-when-maintained-one-location
Dan
here are two videos I found that nicely summarizes the major facts/characteristics of SD starters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de0qJIoQMRg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7e62Dazio
Dan: Thank you so much for your answer! This really does answer one of my questions. That the nature of the starter can and does change when in a new home. Your new thread confirms the same. Thank you for that too.
The remaining question is if i make a new starter what is the likelyhood that it will taste different from my first one. Given that i will use a different whole grain in developing it.
thank you so much Dan!
Katy, some think they will change and others don’t. My experience leads me to believe that they definitely do in my case. It may be the my flours, I suspect that to be the case for me.
It is my understanding that the microbes in a new starter originate mainly from the four. So, yes different flour, different starter characteristics. If possible, use organic whole grain flour. It f you don’t have a mill, maybe you can get some Whole Wheat or Rye Berries and grind them in a coffee grinder or crush with a mortar and pestle. Fresh ground would be th3 absolute best.
Once the starter is active you can coax the flavor profile by changing the hydration and/or the temperature. You can also target the flavor during the fermentation of the dough. Warm temps flavor Lactic Acids (smooth yogurt-like) and cooler temps (Acedic Acids) bring out a sharper tang. It’s hard to describe flavor with words, IMO.
HTH
Dan
thanks Dan will work on it