Hello All,

Glad to have found you all! Been baking sourdough since the age of 9 with varying degrees of success. Wasn't till recently that I decided that it wouldn't hurt to improve the skill set some. What a surprise! The old bread recipes of flour, water, salt, scalded milk, sugar, and oil or shortening (think Sally Lund here) has given way to the Bread Law: Flour, Water, Sea Salt and Sourdough only. One other item is time. I've found that working bread baking into my schedule took a bit of wrangling with recipe and technique.

I happened upon Daniel Leaader's book, "Local Breads" some weeks ago and the old flame was rekindled. Since then I've acquired "Bread Alone" and "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart. The enjoyment of organic artisan sourdough breads with my Wife's artisan organic jams is really something to annoy other people with. Also, open faced sandwiches of poached egg with slivered smoked salmon and fresh chives is unbelievable. The accentuation of food with artisan bread is hard to describe without samples so I'll quit that subject now but I'm sure many on this site are already there and I'm glad to join you all.

Bon Apetit,

Wild-Yeast

P.S. The best sourdough in San Francisco is baked in La Brea...,

I thought it would be interesting to compare four different approaches to sourdough fermentation. I've baked four test loaves, each with 500 grams total flour (using a 50/50 blend of Heartland Mill Strong Bread Flour and Heartland Mill Golden Buffalo for a blended ash content around .85%), 72% overall hydration, and 2% salt. All loaves started with 18 grams 80% hydration white flour storage starter.

The difference in the loaves is in the fermentation method. In one loaf a direct inoculation of storage starter in the final dough (one-step method) was used. In the others a sourdough preferment was built and fermented for different amounts of time. The final loaf includes a spike of instant yeast.

Fermentation Methods Used

1. Build final dough including 18 grams of starter, bulk ferment for 11.75 hours, final proof for 3 hours all at about 70F. (xls and html spreadsheets)
2. Build a sourdough preferment constituting 35% of total flour and ferment until just doubled, about 8 hours at 70F. Soak remaining final dough ingredients overnight in the refrigerator. Mix preferment and soaker and bulk ferment for 3.75 hours at 70F then final proof for 4 hours at 70F. (xls and html spreadsheets)
3. Build sourdough preferment same as in step 2 and ferment for 4 additional hours after it has doubled, about 12 hours at 70F. Proceed same as in step 2. (xls and html spreadsheets)
4. Build sourdough preferment same as in step 3. Add 1/4 tsp yeast to soaker. Proceed same as in step 3. (xls and html spreadsheets)

The idea is to compare a long fermentation from an initial very small amount of starter to using a sourdough preferment that is immature (just doubled) or more mature (peaked). Finally, in the last one, the idea is to add in a spike of yeast to improve the rise in the case where a large, mature (35% of total flour and fermented until peaked) preferment is used.

In all cases, the final dough was shaped into a loaf when it had a little less than doubled during bulk fermentation.

Photos of the crust and the crumb from left to right:

Comparison

Crust

I couldn't tell any real difference in the crusts. It's possible the first one was a touch darker than #2 even though both were baked at the same time. Maybe there was a little more enzyme action in it since the entire dough was hydrated at room temperature for about 14 hours.

Crumb

Although they are more similar than different, the crumb was slightly lighter going from 1-4.

For loaf #1, this may again be a function of the enzyme action, which may have in some way hindered the gluten development. Another explanation might be that I needed to fold #1 one or two more times earlier to improve the gluten development over the longer fermentation, as it did seem a little too relaxed at shaping time, relative to the other loaves.

For loaves 2-4, the more mature preferments did not hurt the gluten in this case. I believe the very strong flours contributed to the better results with the more mature preferments. The more mature preferments probably had a larger organism count than the preferment for loaf #2, as they weren't at the collapsing stage yet. So, with higher organism counts, higher fermentation byproducts, but very sourdough tolerant flour, the more mature preferments ended up with slightly larger loaves in the end.

The oven spring went in opposite order to the loaf volume, not surprisingly, which explains why the result after baking is not as different, but the overall loaf volume before baking was significantly larger for loaf #3 than loaves #1 or #2. In the case of loaf #4, the yeast clearly had a big effect on gas production before shaping. I did deflate it a little during shaping, of course. It again was significantly larger pre-bake than loaf #4, but after baking it was only a little bit larger. In summary, the loaf volume before baking increased significantly from loaf 1-4, but the oven spring, which was greater in 1 and much less in 4, offset much of the difference. Nonetheless loaf #4 had a noticeably lighter feeling in the mouth.

Flavor

All of the loaves were fairly mild in flavor. However, without a doubt, loaves #3 and #4 were more sour than loaves #1 and #2. Everyone who I had test the loaves was able to discern the more sour flavors in #3 and #4. There was some debate about the order of #1 versus #2 and #3 versus #4. My youngest son, William, noted a sweetness he seemed to like in loaf #1. I believe he may be detecting, once again, some effect of the enzyme action that was probably greater in that loaf, which soaked for so long at room temperature, and may have resulted in more starch broken down into sugars. My oldest son thought #2 was more sour than #1, which may be correct, given that it had a slightly longer total fermentation time. My son's girlfriend felt the order was 1,2,3,4 from least to most sour, but others had no opinion on #3 versus #4.

Comments

I believe the following are true, all other things, particularly the temperature and amount of enzyme action in the process, being equal.

The difference between #1 and #2 is minimal. You can do a one-step or two-step process timed for convenient stopping points, and the results will be nearly alike, provided that the preferment is not allowed to get very ripe. A two-step process where the preferment is allowed to ripen significantly more will have a more sour flavor.

The least sour result comes from a one-step process run from a very small initial amount of starter.

At some point, I would like to test out effect of temperature in a side by side comparison. I believe if you adjust the fermentation times so that the relative ripeness of the preferments is similar to the loaves above, that the results may not be very different from above. I suspect the slight favoring of lactobacillus versus yeast at temperatures around 65F will have a smaller effect on flavor than overall relative ripeness of preferments and final dough, but I don't know if that test will get done at my house any time soon.

I'm from Germany and have always made my own bread. Since I moved to America 3 years ago I have always wondered what exactly Artisan Bread is? What makes bread Artisan?
It's just a question that's always foated through my mind. Maybe you can help me out.Martina

Hi everyone,I am an avid baker and lover of anything baked. Currently I am writing a paper on the advent of artisan bread within America for one of my Journalism. I was wondering if you could just message me with:
-WHAT 1ST INTERESTED YOU ABOUT ARTISAN BREAD? -HOW HAVE YOU INCORPORATED THIS INTO YOUR LIFESTYLE?-WERE YOU ALWAYS INTERESTED IN BAKING? -WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO COME UP WITH NEW RECIPES or DO YOU PREFER TO STICK WITH THE TRIED AND TRUE? (please add your name, state and the bakery you are affiliated with- just so that I can get all my sources right)
It would be a great help for me. Since this is a subject that lies close to my heart, I would like to incorporate stories and oppinions from bakers across America.
Hope to hear from you soon!!Martina

A few weeks ago I bought two copies of Jeff and Zoe's new book "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" and had one shipped to my 83 year old father. Since my Mother passed on, he has been trying to be creative in the kitchen and has ventured into some rather tasty foods. I thought it might be fun for him to learn to bake small loaves of bread for himself and to take with him when he visits friends.

one hour podcast with some neat tips on the prep and the baking process.

Hi Guys,

I am new to this site though not new to baking by any means.  Have been making my own loaves for several years but now want to give this 'no-knead' technique a go.  Does anyone have a simple basic recipe for a first-timer?  Any tips on how to go about baking my first 'no-knead' loaf?

Many thanks,

Dan 

Recently, I've been attempting to grind and sift my own flour. The grinding is straightforward with a Retsel Mil-Rite, an excellent home stone buhr mill or my new Meadows 8-inch stone mill. However, the mysteries of sifting the flour have been less straightforward. A subsequent blog entry will deal with my progress on grinding and sifting my own flour. The sifting project motivates the need for measuring the ash content of my flour.

Ash Content