Ken's Sourdough Try #1

[DeejayDebi]

Great looking loaves! I am dying to make more bread but I am waiting for a part for my oven which died almost a week ago. I did all of my cooking and baking in the smoker for Thanksgiving.

[iratherfly]

Thanks Debi!
The experiment continues... Had more goat's whey and was running low on bread. This time I did it with 1.5 cups all purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat and 0.5 cup rye flour. Added 4 tablespoons Oat Bran, 4 tablespoons of flaxseed meal and a big tablespoon of vital wheat gluten (to make up for the fact I've used rye flour, whole wheat and all-purpose which all have lower % of gluten than bread flour). There was  1/4 tsp yeast, 1.5 tsp salt and 1.5 cups whey.

After 18 hours I took it out of the bowl, sprinkled the surface with oat bran, flax seeds, roasted sunflower seeds and caraway seeds. As I folded the dough into a loaf I got them all incorporated inside and outside the loaf - nice!

I have gotten close to what I wanted. I think I should have added a bit more salt to stabilize the flavor. I also should have risen the dough in a warmer place and should have maybe put more vital wheat gluten and tad more yeast - it just didn't rise high enough before the oven and didn't do a great oven spring . You can always tell hoe much the bread have risen by looking at how much the slits opened up.  Better than last loaf I made which was over-hydrated and too soft, but look at the photo below closely: It's a "tree and branches" kind of pattern. The "branches" slits hardly opened on one side (uneven oven!!!) and the "tree" slit opened up nicely but cracked at the beginning and end. I think this cut pattern requires that I connect the "branch" slits to the "tree" slit and that I tilt the lame (bread slitting knife, I think it just the word "blade" in French) at the 30 to 45 degree angle when slitting the branches.

Overall, quite tasty and hearty but needs way more air.  Will improve it on the next batch!

[Queixo]

Hello all,
this is my first post in this subforum.
I'm an absolutely newbie to cheese making, but I've been baking sourdough bread at least once a week for more than two years.
I strongly advise on measuring by weight instead of by volume. This is the only way of making the same bread consistently.
Also, this solves other problems like adding the right amount of salt. Just use 2% by weight of flour. This is a standard, but if you find the bread too salty (or too little) for your taste, adjust accordingly next time.
This is this week's bread, made with an extremely hydrated dough:

[iratherfly]

Gorgeous bread? Is it sour? whole wheat?

As for measuring by weight - you are right, though the dough I use have consistently the same weight (150g per cup of bread King Arthur bread flour). Water has always the same weight. If I use whey than the weight is a bit different. It's just a matter of memorizing.

For the highly hydrated breads such as the no-knead method in French/Dutch oven, eye-balling it is fine for me. ...I Let the bread surprise me. But still, 3 cups flour are 450g and 50% water would mean 225g which is 225ml... easy. It begins to change when I add heavier whole wheat, cracked wheat, rye or spelt flours but the bread would still hold up nicely.  The yeast is just a starter so 1/4 tsp is enough. Salt can vary depends on taste. 1.25 tsp for 450g flour+225g water is a good ratio for me.

[Queixo]

Thanks iratherfly,
the flour I used is not exactly whole wheat, but as it is stone ground is not white flour either.
I like stone ground flours a lot, they have much better flavour.
I made this bread with a sourdough starter, I seldom, if ever, use yeast.

If measuring by volume works well for you I'm not going to say don't do it, but you will still have some issues if you want to share a recipe, because no two persons fill a cup the same way.
See this post in The Fresh Loaf for good info on the matter, and much better written than I could do.
50% is very little water for the breads I bake, my breads are usually in the 70%-80% range. The bread in the pic above is 90%, but that is not a dough I make very often. Of course, the amount of water depends on the kind of bread you want to do, and the kind of flour you have. I don't have access to KAF flours, but have only read good things about them.

[iratherfly]

Queixo, you are right about giving out weights instead of volumes when sharing a recipe.

I thonk you misunderstood what I said though: what I meant it that I DO use baker's formula (% of dry matter by weight), I just memorized the weights of the different ingredients I am using so I can do the math in my head - but again, you are correct about needing to share the recipes with weights and not volume.

If you have followed some of my cheesemaking adventures here you might have notice how much I am into learning to feel your food. As consistent as you may be, milk may not behave the same way in different seasons, elevations, atmosphere, time of day or milkings... Dough is no different. A skilled artisanal baker and cheesemaker do develop a skill to smell the yeats, feel the curd, do lots of visual pathology - to get the best and most consistent results. I recently realized that both my scale, my pH meter and my thermometers have been lying to me. As soon as I put them aside and began to rely on what I have learned, my cheese and bread came back with flying colors. Felt a bit like looking at Google Maps on the iPhone while searching a restaurant downtown, being so stuck to the screen and not noticing I was already there and walked away. You kind of wake up and say "wait, couldn't I just lift my head and look around as I used to do my whole life? I would have found the place by now!"

For me then, it's less about pressing weights and sticking pH meters in the milk or tuning the oven a few degrees up or down, it's more about imagining the consistent target and tuning up everything around it to make it happen for today's dough or for today's milk. I am getting better at it but for me this is a dream skill to have. For many bakers, brewers, wine makers, cheesemakers and even Sushi chefs it takes about 5-10 years to get it right...

But I suppose this is a whole new discussion on a different subject.

[mtncheesemaker]

Made my regular sour dough recipe using all whey instead of water. Made a "sweeter" bread. The whole wheat flavor really comes through. I would have thought the whey would have made it more "acidy".

[iratherfly]

Nice work with the lame Pam! I am trying to learn to use it correctly now so that I get the right slits for each bread.

Yesterday had friends over for brunch. I made whole grain no-knead bread. For the first time ever I was able to do this in 8 hours with whole grain flours (whole wheat and dark rye) AND get this fluffy, airy big bubble texture crum with crispy crust. In the second rising I added roasted sunflower seeds, caraway seeds, oat bran and rolled oats. Was one of my best breads ever. Forgot to take a photo!

Beautiful breads Pam! How long did you ferment the dough (you said it was on the sweet side.) Whey actually develops a more buttery soft texture to the inside (especially if there is butterfat floating in it) and it has a rather sweet effect. I need to use goat's whey and let it ferment 18 hours min before I begin to feel tanginess in the finished bread. I don't use it to get sour. I use it because its acidity helps the yeast consume the dough slower so that the gluten is developed slowly and you get big bubbles and high rise instead of a sugar feeding frenzy that gives the bread a faster but far more dense and less desirable structure with yeasty smell/taste. It's fantastic for no-knead formulas where it really does the work of kneading on the gluten

[mtncheesemaker]

Thanks, Yoav. I bought a cheap little serrated knife at our local butcher shop that I use for slashing the dough. Works great.
The dough for this is from a 2 day process. (From The Art of Eating magazine.) Without the whey, it's tangy with a crisper crust. I'm going to keep making both as they are different. I may try the whey version with walnuts and raisins for a breakfast toast.

[countrygirl]

I picked up a fantastic book at Amazon called Artisan Baking by Maggie Glezer. It has some brilliant recipes in addition to sourdoughs,using poulis and scrapdough which make wonderful baguettes without the sour tang. It is sourced from bakeries all over the world and has a lot of professional tips and tricks.
Recipes are easy to follow and I've made some astonishingly great breads from it.

[iratherfly]

Oooh better look it up!

[Tomer1]

Hi!
Let me pitch in some knowlage.

The sourness of a bread is determined by amount of acid (lactic and acetic) formed by various bacterias which use the flour's enzymatic converted sugars as a food source.
The amount of acid is determined by several factors:
1.Ratio of sourdough starter:overall dough flour used
2.Hydration of sourdough starter
3.Fermentation time of sourdough starter
4.hydration of final dough
5.total fermentation time of the final dough

By controling these variables you can control the PH\TA of the bread.

To creat a sourdough starter you would usually double its volume in each feed so to keep enzymatic action in control,PH in optimal range (not too sour) and provide the Lactic bacterias with food to multiply.

A liquid levain (100% hydration) must be fed twice a day when in warm room temp so its not to over ripen thats why I prefer to use a stiffer levain (0.6-.8%) refrigerated,
It only needs feeding about once a week if not in use.
When making bread I take some of that "master culture" the day before and ripen a starter using two feedings.
The hydration of the starter is determined by style,
You can also use a stiff and a liquid starter to control the outcome, each has its own charectoristics.

The optimal way to achive a sour-tangy tasting bread is not by using an over ripen stater which smells like vinegar and have lost most of its gas producing abillity but extend bulk fermentation time.
An overripen starter can be used in small qunatitiy (remember the inceased enzymatic action,too much will damage our doughs gluten structure) when short bulk fermentation is required and sourness is required. so its used sort of like a flavour additive but its a compromise.

There are two practical ways to achive sourness :
Build up the acidity duing long cool bulk fermentation (10-12! hours),shape, proof and bake
Bulk ferment in warm room temp (2-4 hours),shape into a basket or la cloche and retard in the fridge overnight, baking the next day (after giving it 2-3 hours in room temp to warm up a bit)

The lower the fermentation temp the greater the acetic-lactic acid ratio so by controlling the temp you can control the charecter of the bread.
The longer the fermentation the higher the TA.
The catch is to not over ferment,this is achived by expirience and expirimenting.

[iratherfly]

That's great info Tomer. Why would there be lactic acid in the bread?

[KosherBaker]

Hi Tomer. Great Post. If you don't mind I have just a few nitpicks.

The sourness of a bread is determined by amount of acid (lactic and acetic) formed by various bacterias which use the flour's enzymatic converted sugars as a food source.

Actually starches. The bacteria munches on starches that were damaged during grain milling, converting them to sugars. The Yeast then munches on those sugars converting them to CO2 and alcohol.

A liquid levain (100% hydration) must be fed twice a day when in warm room temp so its not to over ripen thats why I prefer to use a stiffer levain (0.6-.8%) refrigerated,
It only needs feeding about once a week if not in use.

I totally agree with you that a starter of 60% - 75% hydration, only needs to be fed every 5 -  7 days if kept in the fridge. However, feeding a 100% hydration starter twice a day at room temperature is not enough, I'm afraid. 3 to 4 times a days is much closer to what is needed, depending on what is the final objective for it.

That's great info Tomer. Why would there be lactic acid in the bread?

Believe it or not there is a lactic acid producing bacteria, is sourdough starter. I believe Lactose and Amylase are the acid producing bacteria in sourdough.

I picked up a fantastic book at Amazon called Artisan Baking by Maggie Glezer.

That is indeed an amazing bread baking book. Another favorite of mine is called "Bread" by Jeffrey Hamelman. Probably the best book on bread baking out there at the moment.

Thanks, Yoav. I bought a cheap little serrated knife at our local butcher shop that I use for slashing the dough. Works great.

Another great Lame replacement is one of those Teflon coated serrated knives. I have one made by Pure Komachi, it is the Tomato Knife model.

Lastly, Yoav, if you'd like you can have your fiancee ask her doctor what specifically she is allergic to. The reason I ask is because there's another lesser known acid present in the bread, called Phytic acid. It is believed to be a toxin, especially when consumed in large doses. So people who are sensitive may have a reaction to it, although for most of us the doses are much too small. Incidentally, the sourdough culture has the enzymes that break up this acid and make it digestible and for the most part harmless to humans. However, if you use store bought yeast for leavening then no such luck.

Sorry for the long post, just started reading this forum, as my sourdough write up is almost done.

[Tomer1]

That's great info Tomer. Why would there be lactic acid in the bread?

The same reason it also exists in various fermented foods, to feed.