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Make your own sourdough

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Re: Make your own sourdough

#91

Post by washadjeffmad »

mtrovo wrote: post #87

I love this geek / hobbist way to approach cooking. Do you know any other books / websites / youtube channels with the same format? I enjoy watching French Guy Cooking [1] (he even has a video series about making your own bread which is quite good) but never found other sources with the same format. [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/FrenchGuyCooking/featured

Look into food science and biotech journals and other industrial literature. Heston Blumenthal's cookbooks also read more like lab manuals than most, and he takes advantage of common scientific instrumentation to create precise and reproducible recipes. Just learning basic lab methods is enough to make you a significantly more insightful cook.

If you're mostly interested in bread, I found Daniel Leader's books to be excellent guides. "Local Breads" in particular goes into the many different levain and biga/sponge methods and the regional sourdoughs that use them.

Re: Make your own sourdough

#92

Post by lostlogin »

hendricius wrote: post #82
lostlogin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The type of flour and the temperature it’s kept at make the most difference imho. You can notice a change in the smell as seasons change.

That would be really interesting to have in the recipes as well. Did you conduct any A/B tests?

More or less - bulking up the starter and putting it in the fridge (7 degrees) but leaving some in a new batch of bread at 2o degrees. If you try bulking up a starter with high grade white flour you notice a difference pretty fast too.

Re: Make your own sourdough

#93

Post by drsim »

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #59
drsim wrote: post #24

If you live in Denmark, the Meyers bakeries will give you free starter, just bring a container: https://www.meyersmad.dk/om-meyers/meyers-virksomheder/meyer...

That is truly amazing! How old is their starter culture, do you know?

I don't unfortunately know. Their Purpurhvedebrød [1] is very nice with walnuts and cranberries. It got me thinking I'd like to try making it. The recipe mentions 'young sourdough'.

[1] https://www.meyersmad.dk/lav-mad/opskrifter/purpurhvedebrod/

Re: Make your own sourdough

#94

Post by cup-of-tea »

riffraff wrote: post #67
cup-of-tea wrote: post #28

Baking is a surprisingly geeky thing to do. While cooking is more about knowing your ingredients and tasting as you go, baking absolutely requires strict adherence to a recipe. I can't actually remember why I started baking bread. But when I first started the product was horrible. I would let the dough rise in a warm place and "make it big" as quickly as possible. For me the rising was just about CO_2 so it made sens…

> while cooking is more about knowing your ingredients and tasting as you go, baking absolutely requires strict adherence to a recipe. I am not sure I agree (or maybe I don't understand). It is fairly common to mix a dough and have a recipe step like "when it's smooth and doesn't stick" or "when the consistency is of a thick goo". Ambient humidity, what sort of surface you use for kneading, temperature of your leavin…

When presented with a selection of vegetables and other ingredients a good cook could make a nice meal by just making stuff up. Want a thicker sauce? Reduce it more, or maybe thicken with flour, it's up to you. You can just taste and adjust as you go.

You can't do that when baking. If you add too much liquid to a batter you can't just add flour to make it perfect again. You'll ruin the other ratios. You can't just bake it at any temperature in any sized pan for any amount of time. When it comes out will either be cooked or not. If you burnt the outside then it's ruined.

A good cook can consistently produce great meals without any recipes whatsoever. A baker cannot.

Re: Make your own sourdough

#95

Post by poooogles »

mtrovo wrote: post #87

I love this geek / hobbist way to approach cooking. Do you know any other books / websites / youtube channels with the same format? I enjoy watching French Guy Cooking [1] (he even has a video series about making your own bread which is quite good) but never found other sources with the same format. [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/FrenchGuyCooking/featured

The modernist cuisine books might be up your street then.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=modernist+cuisi...

Re: Make your own sourdough

#96

Post by bonesss »

lmilcin wrote: post #55

Recipe is fine for sure, and I was doing this for a long time, but some time ago I have learned superior way of keeping sourdough. The oft cited recipe asks for feeding it every day and also keeping something like 100% hydration. Remembering to feed it every day is a major hassle for me. My sourdough is a piece of bread dough that is enough to use for my next batch. Basically, after first rise and before I shape my b…

For people attracted to this methodology, the term to google is "stiff starter".

Re: Make your own sourdough

#97

Post by vanderZwan »

lmilcin wrote: post #65
bgaluszka wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you get sourdough made at some other place after couple of weeks your local culture will take over thus sourdough will loose that other place uniqueness so to speak. But I'm not an expert just something I remember when I was interested in sourdough and pizza making.

You are correct. Your method of keeping the starter will over time select the culture that is best suited for your method of keeping, from available gene pool.

Reminds me of a story I heard of a beer brand (forgot which one) that opened a new factory which was heavily modernised, but decided to take the wooden roof from the old one and install it above the copper kettles in the new location to make sure the environmental bacterial cultures would remain the same to keep their "flavour identity"

Re: Make your own sourdough

#98

Post by malhotrag »

acqq wrote: post #89
slow_donkey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2% bp not total weight. Should probably clarify since this isn't a baking audience

> 2% bp not total weight. Where bp stands for... what? > Should probably clarify since this isn't a baking audience. Yes please.

bp => Baker's Percentage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_percentage

Re: Make your own sourdough

#99

Post by bonesss »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #86
firmgently wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! I'd been baking all my own bread for years but had repeatedly failed to cultivate a sourdough starter despite following lots of guides to the letter. I finally got mine living nicely when I completely let go, stopped measuring and worrying, just learned to smell and watch. I pour flour in straight from the bag and splash water from a big container, as long as the consistency is somewhere between thin mud and thi…

I would strongly recommend getting a digital kitchen scale (cost is under $30) and measuring water and flour in repeatable weights. A volume of flour is just not a consistent weight - it can be packed loose or tight.

That's very relevant for the bread-making process.

For starter feeding, though, I'm with the GP post: measuring all the time is a PIA, and totally unnecessary. The margin of error is massive, after a few measures you'll know the consistency to aim for, and if you're too stiff/wet it's dead simple to compensate when baking.

Feeding by texture lets you get to know your starter better, follow its rhythms, and makes daily feedings a very easy habit to maintain. We've been pulling this off for 5,000 years without a digital scale :)

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