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Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

phys.org

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Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#11

Post by Pyramus »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #8
fransje26 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the obsession with having your starter double in size? I haven't heard about it before. I'm feeding my starter by weight, so that I can take the same amount out when I bake, and the volume of growth really doesn't come into play.. I mix in whatever I have, mostly rye and spelt, sometimes wholegrain wheat, but it hardly ever doubles in volume and the bread comes out fine at the end of the process. If you have a…

It's a measure of how alive/acive your starter is. If you know what you are doing, you can indeed just wing it and judge things by feel, touch, and smell, etc. But you do need to know what you are doing to be able to do that. Weighing things out indeed helps and I do that too because it makes things easier. But it's worth noting that people have been baking bread for millennia without access to any hyper precise meas…

I would add that it's a measure in particular how active the yeast is in your starter culture, and yeast is the crucial ingredient for fermentation.

Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#12

Post by scns »

0xDEADFED5 wrote: post #4
esafak wrote: post #2

> One surprise was that rye flour fostered a much wider diversity of bacteria than any other type of flour... That is not so surprising. It is common knowledge that starters love rye, right? Now we have a scientific experiment to back it.

shrooms love rye, too!

The highest decorated Vodka is made from rye. Vodka judges love rye too!

Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#14

Post by badcppdev »

gniv wrote: post #7

Neither this study nor the previous one from the same authors seems to look at the water. I would have thought the hardness of the water also influences what grows in the starter. Especially with white flour, which has few minerals.

Have you done any experiments on this? Using hard water vs demineralised? I have no idea if this is a thing that's spoken about in the Sourdough baking world.

Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#15

Post by beauzero »

If you live in Georgia, Bread Beckers is an excellent source of different grains and instruction. Most of her classes/workshops are free on YouTube as well. Changing our diet with good grains has really helped overcome some chronic health conditions.

Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#16

Post by hooo »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #5

Using the right flour is something to use to your advantage if you are doing sourdoughs. One obvious thing from this article - not all flours actually contain gluten - has an implication for how you evaluate your starters. If you are looking for your starter to double in size, which is something world + dog insists on in online recipes, you need a flour that contains gluten. Flours like rye or whole wheat don't have…

My brown rice flour starter doubles in size. I think gluten ones triple? Doubling isn’t so hot

Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#17

Post by hooo »

glodalitazic wrote: post #13

As a celiac i am not surprised ;)

Celiac of like 25 years here. I started making gluten free sourdoughs a couple months ago. I base my technique on the bakerita.com recipe, but now use all sorts of flours. It is amazing

Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#18

Post by cinntaile »

beauzero wrote: post #15

If you live in Georgia, Bread Beckers is an excellent source of different grains and instruction. Most of her classes/workshops are free on YouTube as well. Changing our diet with good grains has really helped overcome some chronic health conditions.

What do you mean with good grains?

Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#19

Post by crabbone »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #5

Using the right flour is something to use to your advantage if you are doing sourdoughs. One obvious thing from this article - not all flours actually contain gluten - has an implication for how you evaluate your starters. If you are looking for your starter to double in size, which is something world + dog insists on in online recipes, you need a flour that contains gluten. Flours like rye or whole wheat don't have…

I don't struggle to get rye starter to double in size. I don't know why. Maybe something else is at play here, not gluten. But, really, it works well (at least for the doubling in size part).

I use two starters, one fed with all-purpose flour and another one with rye flour. The difference I can see is that the rye one takes noticeably longer to "deflate". I.e. if I don't use the all-purpose flour starter right about after 4 hours, it'll start dropping back to its original size and in maybe 4-6 hours will have almost the same volume it started with. With rye starter the process takes more than a day. Also, for the same proportion of water / flour, the rye one feels noticeably thicker.

BTW, I buy rye flour from a Polish supermarket. Local chain supermarkets only have all-purpose and whole-wheat flours and occasionally the "00" (pizza) flour.

Re: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria–and flavors

#20

Post by slothtrop »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #5

Using the right flour is something to use to your advantage if you are doing sourdoughs. One obvious thing from this article - not all flours actually contain gluten - has an implication for how you evaluate your starters. If you are looking for your starter to double in size, which is something world + dog insists on in online recipes, you need a flour that contains gluten. Flours like rye or whole wheat don't have…

> Flours like rye or whole wheat don't have a lot of gluten relative to white flour

I think you mean Bread Flour specifically, as opposed to the All Purpose Flour that most people associate with white.

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