October 12, 2023 - 12:23am
Using different flours for starters
This article: Using different flours for sourdough fosters different bacteria—and flavors (phys.org) describes how different flours can lead to different aromas and flavors in starters.
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Interesting work from just down the road.
Based on this info, I'll be using buckwheat from now on to feed my starter. I want slight acidity of lactic acid, but not the smell of acetic acid. Thanks a bunch!
I'm thinking more of combining mature starter made from different grains to make a levain or working starter for a specific bake. Since it takes some days or longer for the bacterial populations to approach an equilibrium, this ought to allow us to inoculate the dough with more specific LAB/yeast combinations.
I suppose that making a mature starter from a mix of grains will produce some unique mix of yeasts and LAB as well. Only experimentation will tell how well that will work out.
Tom
I just like to build flavor in hierarchical manner, which means the earlier the stage, the simpler the flavor profile should be. From there I can accentuate the fermentation flavor by varieties of flour and add-ins in final mixing. I enjoy slight acidity of loaves made with my usual methods (3 stages levain, high PFF%, 50% hydration starter and levain), it's just now I want more acidity without the smell of acetic acid, so more possibility to accentuate the acidity with add-ins (the smell kinda distracting)
So this is a good info. Maybe mix in some vital wheat gluten to buckwheat, so I can observe ripeness easier. I found there is no "fruity" smell when it comes to stiff starter/levain. It's either smelling wheaty or acidic, there is no in-between.
Jay
I find it incredible that they didn’t mention in the full article (or even record?) the ambient room temperature. Given the variability in temps that bakers use it would be ver helpful to know that, and it would have been even better if they had varied the temperature using a blocking design. Still, very interesting results.
I find it incredible that they didn’t mention in the full article (or even record?) the ambient room temperature.
Surprised me too. If I had been a reviewer I would have dinged them for that. The other thing they left out was the internal variation - the variation from one measurement to the next, just from measurement variation, and the variation between all four samples of each kind of starter. Without that, it's hard to assess the apparent differences between the different samples and fermentation times, except qualitatively. Still since most of us won't know the exact organisms we have, qualitative information is probably the most valuable.
Excellent point, a time series analysis of some type would have been great.
Does anyone have a source on the type of flour used by bakers in San Francisco in the 1849 Gold Rush era? I've looked around and can only asssume that it was of the Sonora type which was low in protein. I haven't yet obtained samples the Sonora type to try out an experimental build with this type....,
Wild-Yeast
Thanks - a good read. It looks like they carried on feeding the starters with the same flour they used to create them. I guess that is fair enough for an initial study, but what I would like to know is this: if you change the flour you use to feed the starter, does it change the starter composition?
I don't mean a radical change like AP to buckwheat, but something more minor, eg, if I have created a starter with French T65 and several feedings later I change to feeding with Italian tipo 0 or British bread flour, would the starter composition change substantially?
PS I enjoyed those Fermentology lectures - it was a shame when they finished.
Lance
Two things seemed fairly consistent -
1. Once the pH dropped far enough, the populations mostly stabilized within a few days, like 3 or 4.
2. Each different environmental substrate (type of flour) led to a different equilibrium population distribution.
So it seems likely to me that a starter for which you change flours would settle into a new equilibrium within a few days after most of the old flour was gone - either because it got eaten up or because its concentration became very small after repeated feedings with the new flour.
TomP
Durum Flour produces no [or hardly anything at all] tang even though acids must be formed. What property does the flour have that inhibits the sourdough flavour.
Follow the same recipe with a hard red wheat bread four and the flavour would be very different.