Salt rising bread question
So, back in the day (1975 or so), I used to make salt rising bread several times a year. At the time it was just my father and myself living in this little cabin in the woods -- pretty rustic and, being a couple of bachelors, not exactly fastidiously clean. But the bread always came out great.
Fast forward about 15 years... Dad had passed away, I;d gotten married, and had to clean up my act ;) Got a new roof. New furnace. Remodeled kitchen. All very fine. But then one day I decide to make another batch of SRB. Used same recipe, no real change in procedure. But this time it was awful! Imagine the usual cheesy smell, but about 3 or 4 times as strong. I had to actually throw out.
The only thing I can think of is that, perhaps with less outside air circulating thru the house, it ended up with different strain(s) of critters in the sponge. Does that make sense?
Any suggestions before I try this again?
TIA.
Enter "salt rising" in the search box-there have been a lot of posts on this in the past. Below are just 2 of the bunch. Ford had some pretty good experience with it. I know there had been some youtubes with 2 gals that have a salt rising bakery in the US. I would search there,also. They had troubleshooting comments.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17611/salt-rising-bread-revisited
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/41624/salt-rising-bread-problem
Bake some deliciousness and post back!
Found it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVAChVAI_S0
Thanks, everyone!
Interesting, reading some of the references from all you kind people, that it is bacteria, not yeast, that do the rising on this bread. I was thinking changes in air circulation and/or species of yeast in the ambient air may have had an effect, but that does not seem to be likely. Guess I'll just give it another shot using one of the referenced recipes and see how it does this time.
Well, following up on a couple of folks' suggestions, I tried the potato version off the "mary's nest" web site.
Came out quite well, all things considered. I followed her procedure quite carefully. Got a nice bubbly sponge, but not overly smelly, which was surprising (and different from my previous experiences using previous recipe). But since it was frothy and looked correct, I continued. Main surprise was that the final rise was quite robust -- the breads were overflowing their pans when I checked after and hour and a half. I ended up gently deflating a bit and folding the dough back into the pans... then went ahead and baked. So, the tops came out a bit funky ;) but the bread is very tasty, though milder in flavor. Going to try the corn meal version next week and see if that ends up stinkier. Note to myself: next time use larger pans! ;)
Hi Jeff,
What was your original recipe? I want to make it like we used to have it for toast & butter.
I miss the strong smell(bad) that preceded the wonderful, fresh out of the oven taste
Thank you
TM
Recipe and video included.
https://forum.breadtopia.com/t/salt-rising-bread/21943?u=abe
Thank you Abe, Looks interesting!
I'll give it another try.
It's interesting that some recipes require 24 -48 or more hours for the "risings / emptyin's" to mature, but others are over-night 12 hours or so...
Further evidence that art tastes BETTER than science...
MT
Salt rising bread is very finicky and needs quite a precise temperature for a quick spontaneous ferment. Get that right and it should work well. Some might give extra time in case it doesn't meet those requirements and it's sort of wait and see what happens scenario.
The only comments about the recipe attached that are 'negative' is the lack of salt. One tsp in the whole loaf. Whether this is usual of salt rising bread or not I don't know. Other then that those who have tried it are impressed by the results even if it was preceded by an aversion to the smell of the starter.