Sourdough steamed bun failure
Does this look like a problem with the starter?
I used Bob's Red Mill organic AP flour. I fed it three times across three days, two nights and observed very little activity (ambient of 74ºF). The very last night I put the jar in a water bath of 110ºF (unmaintained). In the morning the water bath had cooled, and I put the flame on to low to warm it back up to 110ºF. In under two hours, the starter volume increased by 60%. I decided to take advantage of this and make the buns.
As I stirred the starter mixture, I realized that a lot of the rise was watery top 1/3 of the starter. The bottom had clumps of doughy matter.
The dough is 50% hydration (accounting for the starter).
The recipe came from YouTube (in Mandarin).
I have to say, I've seldom had good luck making starter with Bob's Red Mill organic AP flour--probably 80% failure for me.
in the pictures. They might even classify as a choking hazard. Heating to 43°C (110°F) is pretty warm and it sounds like the lumps were cooked. Went from one extreme to the other. How old is this starter? Watery top also doesn't sound good. A yeasty sourdough starter at 50% hydration doesn't separate.
At 74°F making a new starter takes about two weeks. The first 60% rise with warmth was most likely a bacterial boost and not yeast. Will know more with more details about the starter, how it was made and its age. Temperature is important. Get above 75°F and stay under 93°F. Your location sounds unique and cool. Where are you located? (Roughly)
The starter was 3-days old, started at 100% hydration. For the final feeding I used a bit more water (because the lady's starter mixture appeared a bit looser in the video). The ultimate hydration of the starter was 118%. The dough was 50% hydration after adding the remainder of flour necessary to make the buns.
I am near UC Berkeley in northern California.
I heated the water bath to 110ºF because I proof active dry yeast in 110ºF water (and the steamed buns made using proofed active dry yeast work out excellently). Since the starter is isolated from the water by a glass jar, I figured the temp of the starter would be a couple of degrees lower.
In the video I linked in my original post, the lady makes the starter the night before, and she makes the buns in the morning. I figured three days would be enough for me. She lives in Taiwan in 28 to 30ºC (82.4 to 86ºF) weather.
Does she create a starter in one day? How? That seems kinda impossible unless some very specialized approaches are used. Even three days to be honest. "Normal" ways to create a starter (just flour and water) typically take much longer.
Also, 110F is indeed too much. Yeast will not die, but I think they won't multiply either. It's good for proofing, since they will ferment quickly, but not good for creation (or refreshment) of the starter, since yeast need to multiply there, not just ferment.
In this video, she makes the starter the night before using only AP flour, water, and sugar. She makes the steamed buns using that the next morning. That's at most half a day to make the starter. The ambient temp there is appox 28ºC (82.5ºF).
I think what she did was put cubes of some kind of yeast/starter/old dough and did a pre-ferment. Exactly what they were I don't know. Perhaps it's a Chinese style of yeast cake.
EDIT: Those cubes are a yeast dough! Basically Pâte fermentée.
In this video, she makes the starter the night before using only AP flour, water, and sugar. She makes the steamed buns using that the next morning.
In the video I linked in my original post, she did use frozen pieces of starter saved from a previous batch. Those frozen pieces came from a similarly-made batch, although in a separate video, she makes her starter using a bit of corn flour "to allow for a consistency that's easier for mixing thoroughly":
29ºC (84ºF) ambient
#面 Introduction #How to knead noodles# Shandong steamed buns
The introduction to Shandong noodles is not mysterious
2 cups of water and 3 cups of noodles
A cup of water weighs 202 grams
One cup of flour weighs 131 grams
5 grams yeast
20 grams of sugar, no sugar can be added
I think she is making a pate fermentee with yeast.
"麵" or "面" (simplified), although by themselves they mean "noodles", should really be taken as shorthand for "麵粉" (or "面粉"), i.e., "flour".
"引子" means "primer", or "starter" in this context. So "麵引子" means starter (made from flour) instead of "introduction to noodles".
The last sentence:
糖20克 不吃糖可以不加
Should have been punctuated by the lady:
糖20克。不吃糖可以不加。
It translates to:
"Sugar 20g. Can be omitted if not consuming sugar [i.e., optional]."
Thanks for the comment about pâte fermentée. I need to look into what that is.
https://crustylabs.com/pate-fermentee-vs-poolish-vs-biga-vs-sourdough-starter/
Yippee
Hi!
For the first video, under the video, she gives a clear description of preparing a poolish (soft and bubbly preferment, leaven, levain) from
400g flour
5g yeast
20g sugar (optional)
400g water
The second video shows how to prepare a sourdough starter from scratch, using the recipe from a 96 years old woman, but she starts it with commercial yeast as well, and shows on the clock how fast it immediately doubles in volume, giving it a series of refreshments afterwards, to propagate wild yeast and wild lactic bacteria it it as well.
She takes a clean glass jar, adds a teaspoon of dry yeast, 100g water and a heaped spoon of brown sugar, blooms the yeast, stirring it vigorously, then adds corm flour and all purpose flour to it and watches it rise.
Your sourdough did not rise, because you did not add yeast to it. Normally, white all purpose flour has no wild yeast of its own in it, only bacteria. So white flour starters usually have yeast added to them in some form (in the first step, to initiate fermentation and to suppress the contaminating bacteria) - yeast in any shape or form, from packaged yeast to yeast on skins of fruits, to a pinch of raw bran or whole grain flour rich in wild yeast.
The videos that you linked show two "starters"/levains, both initiated with white flour and commercial yeast. One is ready in one step while another requires several steps to grow and mature (she mentions six steps in a comment under the video). Later, she shows how to preserve a piece of ripe leavened dough, flattened and cut into squares, as a frozen starter for the future batches of mantou.
The lady did add yeast to the mix at 2:31 in the video! She did not show her adding it, but upon watching it again, I do catch her say, "Now the yeast has been added. I have it all mixed in thoroughly."
I was totally focused visually on her video demonstration and didn't read the description that lists the recipe, and the video didn't actually show her adding it in.
I have been under the impression that organic white flour contains some wild yeast naturally. I thought I've seen videos of people making sourdough starters completely from white flour, but perhaps I was mistaken.
Thanks.
Yes, sure, I've seen recipes for the white all purpose flour and water only starters as well. They take weeks to mature, because white flour is so clean, so void of wild yeast cells. They might foam initially, right off the bat, but it is due to bacterial foaming, there is no yeast. The studies show that white flour has nearly zero yeast, even after 5 days after mixing flour with water, nothing grows there. Whole wheat flour is very rich in wild yeast though. Rye flour also has wild yeast in it.
Recently, I've been reading a novel about a rural Chinese family in the 1980s and there they did take a piece of old mantou dough from the neighbors to prepare a batch of new leaven for stuffed meat buns in their family for the first time as well. It wasn't frozen old dough though, they had no refrigerators in the village back then and it wasn't wintertime either. So, they did use sourdough starters in the past just like Europeans or Americans did, for their steamed breads and buns.
Thanks for starting this discussion, though. This woman makes beautiful steamed breads, good technique perfect bread texture, and she is so nice, she giggles at the end of the video, happy with her breads.
Chinese people, especially those living in the north, have long used old dough to make mantou. Instead of calling it a starter, they call it "flour fertilizer"(麺肥).
Yippee
Funny you mention that. She signs off like that in every video. She is saying, "We will meet again next time!" (我們下次再見嘍！) It's been echoing in my head because it sounds so cute and catchy the way she says it, yet almost bearing a longing quality. The final, high-pitched syllable, "LO!" (嘍) is a final particle, in this case simply an exclamation of finality/completion. She uses it to effect saying "bye, bye!" without actually saying it.
She only started demonstrating how to make Shandong mantou because she was absolutely pissed about some famous mantou chef who had gone on YouTube or somewhere and said that the key to what makes Shandong mantou was lye (edible lye). She became livid and made videos telling how they are truly made as she learned it from her Shandong grandma. She explained that in the old days without refrigeration, some times the dough would indeed sour a bit, and only then would the vendor add a little lye solution to the dough to get rid of the acidity to have them more salable. It is not really an ingredient; only used when needed to salvage "damaged", or affected, mantou.
I love to eat Chinese steamed buns, especially those with sweet bean paste stuffing, but I have yet to learn how to make them yet (hopefully soon) so sorry can't help you out here. The buns are supposed to be fluffy and would melt in the mouth without much chewing. Yours look solid :) and not ballooned much. Could these be made with instant year instead of sourdough? Not sure if I like any hint of sourness in my steamed buns though, it would be using instant yeast for me if I was gonna make some.
The same lady makes it in this video here using active dry yeast.
Using sourdough starter to make bread does not automatically mean that the bread will taste sour in any way. The "sour" in "sourdough" refers to the acidic by-product of fermentation to generate gas from the yeast on the flour particles. That acid is protection that inhibits bad bacteria. The sourdough starter is only a portion of the entire bread dough. Any sourness you taste in a bread is due to the final bread dough having been fermented to achieve that taste.
Here are my notes from that video:
Ingredients:
The kneading techniques are to prevent dimples from forming on the surface of the final product.
*Stirring in multiple directions can result in dry bits of flour.
Disclaimer: I have never tried this recipe.
If you're going to make the yeast version mantou(no filling), I highly recommend 老爸's recipes:
https://youtu.be/NsZJECwH564
https://youtu.be/JlvvoYbOseE
https://youtu.be/uEX1xRneRKc
https://youtu.be/LOlkwCRn0oo
Yippee
P.S. with red bean paste filling
https://youtu.be/oW2Q_ZpXU74
https://youtu.be/C1desj-fb54
Thanks Yippee for some interesting links with making steamed buns. I hope to get to making some one of these days. I miss the food especially Dim Sum in Chinatowns (New York & Boston), actually there are so many of my favorite Chinese dishes that I like to learn to make someday, haha, perhaps when I retire with more time to play. You guys/gals are lucky to live in southern California where there are so many good Asian foods everywhere.
I had no idea that the Asian grocery store in Cincinnati where my friends shop does not sell roast pork ! until they recently asked me for my homemade roast pork recipe . So, to "improve their quality of life", they are moving to Irvine, CA, to retire. 😄😄😄
Yippee
You made me hungry thinking about it, as Chinese roast pork belly and baguette are a match made in heaven for me.
Chinese Roast Pork (Better Than Chinatown!) - Rasa Malaysia
Did you want to make a sourdough starter from scratch? Using just flour and water?
Over the weekend I got a new flour I've not used before: Organic bread flour from Central Milling. I had an exchange with a distant "neighbor" where she said she made great starters using that or Harvest King by General Mills. These are all just white flour as far as I can tell.
She wrote, "I use artisan style bread flour, either Harvest King (General MIlls) or Central Milling Artisan, and tap water. My starter is stiff, so 3:2:1 flour, water, starter when I feed. I've had it for 12 years, but you can start one from scratch and have it ready to bake bread in 7-10 days."
That was early last year. I haven't followed up with her as to how exactly she started the 3:2:1. I mean, there is no 3:2:1 for the very first batch when there is no starter yet to be that "1". But the pic of her loaf was impressive indeed:
but the liquid I used was raisin yeast water, not tap water.
Yippee
That reminds me. I did use that once (2 years ago), and that was the only time that the starter worked really well for me. The water itself took four days to get fizzy. Then, using that, it took just one day to arrive at a strong, active starter. It lived for one month, during which I was able to make two loaves of bread, all very decent. I tried to maintain the starter, but after the first batch of raisin water was used up in daily feeds (or every other day), I wasn't able to get a new batch of raisin water to work like before. I could get the water to fizz, but the starter would just end up a dead blob at the bottom of the jar after showing some activity for the first couple of days.
The problem I have is finding organic raisins that are not coated with oil. They don't seem to exist in California (or even the U.S.). I had to rinse the raisins in a sieve using hot water. I think I got lucky that one time maybe because the hot water wasn't hot enough to kill the yeast on the oily raisins I had. I can only guess that the hot water may have killed the yeast in the subsequent attempts to make raisin water. I heated the water to 110ºF every time. Or perhaps the oil residue just inhibited any activity in the starter.
But not the end of the world. It can still work. You can use any organic fruit fresh or dried. What you really need to avoid is preservatives.
Once you have a yeast water going the oil is even less of an issue. In our days it's nearly impossible to find any dried fruit unadulterated even organic. There are still some fruits which aren't coated in oil as much as raisins. Have you tried dried apricots?
I'll look into giving that a try.
I think I'll first try just the new bread flour from Central Milling, plain, and test how that goes since it has high ash content (and perhaps some bran).
That weren't organic. They were bright orange. Didn't realise they had preservatives. After a week they still hadn't done a thing and looked as if I had just put them into water.
Sourced some organic dried apricots that were dark brown (colour change because of the lack of preservatives) and they started to ferment almost immediately and within about three days it was ready. What a difference!
I daren't use them anymore because i'm allergic but dried mulberries (if you can find them) make a very strong yeast water.
I've always had success making raisin yeast water with Walmart's Great Value raisins. Sometimes they are not in stock and I have to use organic raisins and they always end up moldy.
You don't need the yeast water anymore once you use it to make a starter. You just refresh/feed the starter regularly with white or whole-grain flour and water, and use it to make a levain every time you bake.
If you decide to keep a jar of yeast water and use it to build a levain each time you bake, or simply use the yeast water as part or all of the water and let it leaven the dough, then you will need to refresh/feed the yeast water periodically with new raisins.
I used to keep yeast water and traditional sourdough starters, but have recently switched to a different type of sourdough - concentrated lactic acid sourdough (CLAS) - for efficiency and convenience.
If you are interested in learning more about CLAS and its application, please see here and my blog entries.
Yippee
Me too have had good results with "cheap" non-organic raisins that I buy from our local Kroger's. Sun-maid's golden raisins had also worked well for me. With all that said though, fresh grapes would be a number one choice for me to make YW with, fresh green apples are a close second. Learned a lot about YW making and usage in the last couple of months, taking a break and going back to using instant yeast for the moment due to my busy summer lifestyle.
Here are mine in fridge for several weeks without feeding, these yeast waters would perform as strong as instant yeast which kind of surprised me.
I see that the one on the left is a mix of different raisins.
The one on the left was made with fresh grapes but was refreshed a few times with Sun Maid golden raisins and Kroger's generic brand raisins. Some original grapes (about 2 months old now) were still in there sinking at the bottom, it tastes like wine and smells alcoholic. The two middle ones are LAB waters call sourwort, which I use to inject a mild sourness into my breads. The one on the right is apple water made from fresh green apples, it has been refreshed several times already.
Are you saying without even using them to make a starter first? Just replace the water with the yeast water and the dough would rise without any sourdough starter?
Correct. I don't create a levain (some even call for a 2-stage levain build) with my yeast water, I use it straight up as part of the water to make a dough. Everyone is different though so my way may not necessary be a correct way so you will have to experiment it for yourself to find what work for you. Obviously, I am speaking as someone that is not afraid to experiment and to fail so nothing really scares me anymore nowadays to try anything that I think is fun to do.
This lady uses artisan style bread flour (0.5-0.6% ash) not white all purpose flour (0.4% ash), in her starter. Her flour is not as white, it has creamy color, it has some bran in it and wild yeast.
Her starter is a stiff starter as well, she kneads it by hand and transfers wild yeasts from her skin to her dough as well. Baker's hands are a rich source of yeast, it's been proven. That is why her starter is ready in 7-10 days, instead of more common 2-3 weeks when made from white flour and water.
Reminds me of gum eraser from drafting class:
"crumbles with use"
Not these ones.
You must be an architect to be in a drafting class? Are they still offering a drafting class with papers, pencils, rulers, erasers, etc. with all the CAD software so common nowadays?
Some do. Some don't. I would say most don't.
People lack manual dexterity/mobility/skill/motivation to just letter (handwrite) decently.
So many higher learning institutions have decided to just skip anything manual. Just have them press keys, move the stylus, or click the mouse. As long as people pay for the schooling, they're good.