Ack! Chloramines!
I made an innocent query to our city about how the water was treated. The water is not softened, but the public works manager said, "After being initially disinfected with chlorine, state water [yes, Morro Bay is on state water] adds enough ammonia to form chrloramines. Chlorine is a stronger disinfectant but tends to dissipate quicker than chloramines and can also lead to the formation of 'disinfection by-products' if free chlorine is left in contact with the water for extended periods of time. these by-products are undesirable. Chloramines are a more persistent disinfectant than chlorine alone and with the time and distance the water travels to get to Morro Bay and the desire to reduce the formation of by-products, it is the material of choice."
I did a quick search of chloramine references in The Fresh Loaf threads and find it to be particularly undesirable with sourdoughs. No wonder. Per the above description, they kill all the little beasties they encounter, including the delicate wild yeastie beasties.
The TFL references I found suggest that one switch to spring water. But the "spring water" I was using turned out to be questionable, giving me the same dough problems as my reverse osmosis (100% pure) water.
My choices of water are reverse osmosis (no chloramines, I assume), Culligan-soft tap water(with chloramines), city-processed-but-not-softened city water (with chloramines), and whatever I can find at the grocery store.
Maybe someone out there can advise me. I could see if I could find a different "spring water" at the grocery store. I could take my reverse osmosis water and do whatever Mike Avery is doing to harden his water a little bit. I could give up on sourdough. Any other ideas?
Rosalie
All of the reports I've had on chloramines have been from people who didn't know which end of whisk to hold on to.
I am somewhat afraid that my request will lead to you wasting time, but could you try to start a starter in your water and let us know what happens? If you already have, could you share your methods and results? A lot of sourdough home comes from people sharing their experiences with me, and me sharing their experiences with others. And... that's a lot of TFL too.
With regards to the chloramines, I'll suggest you check with your R/O vendor. Some filters and R/O setups do more than others with regards to chlorine and chloramines.
As to the water, I got a note from the AIB and he suggested Calcium Sulphate, which is an ingredient in plaster of paris and is gypsum. And a lawn treatment too. It's safe. So, I guess tomorrow I have to get some and compare bread with plain water, epsom salts and calcium sulphate.
I'm hoping to bake tomorrow, but I'm having "issues". We think the contractor is coming by to finish re-doing out bathroom and finish the other stuff he didn't do right. However, I'm not gonna bet on it. So, I'll try to bake and see what happens. Results to follow...
Mike
Okay, Mike, I'll give it a whirl. I just pulled a couple of loaves of sourdough, made with inside tap water, from the oven. This is the most success I've had with sourdough in a long time, maybe ever. My big problem with sourdough has been ambient temperature, not water. So my concerns may be premature. BTW, this starter was begun with the bottled spring water.
Perhaps what I could do is do parallel starters, one with tap water and one with rev os. Whatever I do to the one I do to the other, side by side.
And thanks for the implied compliment - that I know which end of the whisk to hold onto.
Rosalie
Well, Mike, it's been a couple of weeks. I've been plotting my experiment and have only just now begun. Nothing to report yet, but I'm taking extensive notes. I'll blog whatever happens, presumably beginning in about a week. I'm following (more or less) your starter instructions at http://www.sourdoughhome.com/startermyway.html using my home-ground whole wheat.
I've got three starters going because I thought the deck water was unsoftened, but now I'm not so sure. I took several samples into Culligan for hardness testing, and the main thing I learned was that my water softener needed maintenance because it wasn't working. (Also, the Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water turned out to have a hardness of 124ppm, so I don't know what my problem was.) The softener has been fixed and I'm going to take samples in again and see if they can do chloramine testing too. But I hear from different sources that the city water quality changes due to various circumstances, so the most consistent water will be my reverse osmosis water.
According to my research, RO water generally has a minimum of chloramines. (Aquarium owners don't want chlorine or chloramines either!) So if it turns out that the RO starter is the only successful one, the next question will be whether we have to worry about the chloramines when we make bread. I guess I'd have to direct my experiments in that direction, but I haven't done very well with sourdough bread to date so I don't know what I'll learn.
Well, it's time for the next feeding. See you later.
Rosalie
why not use distilled water? Most supermarkets have it.
The minerals normally found in water are very important to the development of bread dough. Distilled water has no minerals in it, and it makes way soft dough.
Bottled "spring water" is often sourced from city tap water and has all the same stuff in it you're trying to avoid.
So... I hope Rosalie will try the experiment.
Mike
Really, I'm interested. Calcium, magnesium from residual hardness? Sodium and potassium fom the water plant softening process? Iron from the pipes? But I would imagine that the flour itself has reasonably high content of these. I probably should hit my sourdough book collection, and find out if there's anything there on this matter.
You sound like a doubter. All I can say is that early on in my use of the reverse osmosis water, I realized that the dough was not right (a "liquid" surface, not just sticky). So I'd say that the minerals that may be on the flour are not enough.
Rosalie
Not! I had a horrible time just over a year ago because of chloramines in our town water. I'd had a very successful starter (made from sourdolady's instructions) for a couple of months but, as the weather warmed up, and we started boiling off sap in our kitchen, I failed to understand the connection between warmer temps and more active yeasties. To my embarrassment I proceeded to starve my starter to death.
Not to be put off, and having had the experience of creating a lively starter so easily, I simply tried again. And again. And again. After about 6 tries I started getting a little panicky; the starter would do fine until I stopped using pineapple juice, then all signs of impending life would quickly disappear. Again with the embarrassment; after way too long I tried again, using spring water imported from a friend's house from out of town. Success! That starter is still with me, rising bread like crazy (except when I do something wrong...). It is carefully fed with whatever flour is available, but only using spring water hauled in from out of town. When I run out of that I usually buy whatever is cheapest at the grocery. I'd probably be fine using tap water at certain times of the year, like during cold weather, but I honestly don't want to have to track what the water company is doing at what time of year! It's easier just to lug the water.
Chloramines are definitely a real problem, in sufficient concentrations (there are times when running water in the kitchen sink makes the kitchen smell like a swimming pool).
I'm intrigued by the discussions of hard vs soft water that have been going on here. I'm not sure that our water is strongly one or the other here, though I've wondered if it's a bit on the soft side. I'll be interested to see what you all come up with.
edh
in the kitchen? I make syrup every year and couldn't imagine boiling it off inside my house. Doesn't that impart huge amounts of water into the house? How much syrup are we talking? Maple, I take it?
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Redundancy is your friend, so is redundancy
edh commented:
The easiest way to answer that question is to call your local water department, tell them you're a baker or brewer and you need information about the water's hardness. You may be transferred around a few times, but every city I've lived in has been happy to tell me what their water is like,
Mike
My town has annual water quality reports for the past 10 years or so online, the town I moved from used to mail these reports to all residents. So this information is by no means a secret.
My (very limited) practice in beginning a starter is to use distilled water and a whole grain flour, on the assumption that I am sidestepping any possible problems with chlorine or chloramine while taking advantage of the maximum number of organisms that could be resident in the flour (compared to white flour, anyway). So far, it works fine. I also use distilled water for refreshing and building my starter, again so that I avoid killing off a substantial portion of the organisms that I actually want to thrive.
Once I'm actually making a dough, I'll switch to tap water; on the assumption that I have a large enough mass of starter with its attendant organisms to successfully inoculate the dough in spite of losing some portion of the organisms to chlorine poisoning. Dunno if that's sound science but it seems to be working for me, so far.
Adequate mineralization of the tap water isn't a problem locally; replacing water heaters every few years is.
Paul
Good point, Mike! It never occurred to me to just ask the water company (are you seeing a pattern here?). It's a small town, with a small water company, so there won't be any transferring; there's only one guy there. On the other hand, the spring water we're bringing in tastes so much better, I'll probably never go back to tap...
Mkelly27; we only have 6 trees, and they're Norway Maples, not sugar, so we produce a wopping 2 gallons on a good year! Most of the evaporation happens on the woodstove in the living room, and simply provides welcome humidity in an overly dry house. There are usually a few days though, when the sap flow gets ahead of us, that we speed things up on the kitchen stove. Walls get a bit drippy then! If it's fairly warm out we also take it out and cook it on the gas grill. Mostly just do it for the fun of it, and nostalgia...
edh
I see two issues here being confused.
The first is the presence or absence of chloramines, which affects the wild beasties in sourdough.
The second is the presence or absence of minerals, which affects the texture of any bread dough.
Rosalie
The question becomes how do you cope with chloramines. And does that cause a new set of problems?
If you are using distilled water or running water than an RO setup, then you get rid of the minerals. Which DO make a difference. How much of a difference?
I'm running a bake test and adding .03 grams per loaf of epsom salts made a big difference. I'm still narrowing down the correct dosage. And wondering how to check my tap water... I have a feeling I'm on a bucking horse trying to shoot a moving target.
Mike
I have high regard for your experience and opinions, but I though ppl here were talking about minerals (plural) in water for bread dough (or sourdough starters). Epsom salt is just one mineral - magnesium sulfate.
As long as you're mineralizing water, what about food grade gypsum (calcium sulfate) or refined nigari (magnesium chloride)? Or anything else, for that matter...
Color me confused re your baking test. Can you elaborate?
It would be interesting to know how the bakers in Burton-upon-Trent deal with the water and what kinds of bread are popular there. The dissolved solids are so high there it must have some impact on the breads.
Eric