CLAS and white flour breads

Hi again!

With clas, I did the first step (of Ryebread's 50-50) by keeping dough at 30C. By 6hr, the dough was bubbly. I think some look for the rise to flatten out-(not sure). But  I stopped it and went on.

I do think this 1st step was a factor in the sour taste. Other high % ryes I've done were a bit different-like breads that start off with a scald. 

I am just learning about ryes but I do love eating them!

A wow factor for me came by adding 4% whole grain wheat malt (from brewing hobbist supply) to freshly milled wwheat. I usually use around 8-10% rye (from clas) . Such a nice crunch and the crumb improved too. The loaf is lean. (1/2 tsp diy for around 500g tot flour)

If you try flas, you will get another crumb. I love that type of bread too.

Glad to hear about your experiments. Please send crumb shots.

I am going to try 8-10% instant mash potato flakes in dough today.

G. Bishop and Benny both did neat bakes on these recently.

 Hi jo_en!

Would the rye clas qualify for "pure microbial cultures"? 

Historically, CLAS was created in the 1980s in the lab by bread scientists experimenting with pure lactic bacteria cultures and fermentation and maintenance schedules. Their goal was to speed up production of breads that traditionally require sourdough starters or traditionally yeasted breads that require long bulk fermentation times or yeasted preferments.

Later, Ternovsky proved that the same starter, a genuine CLAS, could be created from scratch from whole grain flour (rye or wheat) and water. He tested both its microflora and performance in a lab setting and at home. He never mentioned rye malt. It is his method that Sergey used in two versions, with and without acidification in the first step. Acidification could be achieved by adding to the flour and water mixture some vinegar, sour whey which was drained from yogurt or kefir, sourdough starter, yeast, sour juices, or even canned pineapple juice as Debra Wink does.

Andre (RusBrot) claims that his yeastless rye malt starter created in one 24hr long step is also a CLAS. I do not know if he ever did a five step method CLAS to compare the two. I never tried his 24hr method myself, I only tested Sergey's method of acidified first step in a five day method where he recommended using vinegar to shorten the process from the usual 4-5 days to only two, maximum three, days. It was as long as usual in my case, not a ready to use CLAS from scratch in two days, but it created two different starters with unique characters, and both undeniably were CLAS. I described it here.

Did you get the plum essence in the 4-5 day clas method?

Yes, every time. Sometimes, it is honey sweet ripe plum aroma if I use European rye flours, but more often it is a sour plum aroma with spicy flavor notes when I use NA rye and wheat flours. Every time, it is a trademark of a genuine CLAS.

The aroma changes every day in the 5day method as you refresh it. Initially it stinks rotten for a day or two, then it smells like sour pickles, then as rye bread crusts, and finally as sour plums or sweet honey plums, with spicy notes of cloves and dogwood in its aroma.

 You can get it even in 48hrs using acidified one step approach (with vinegar) although in my case that one step took longer than 48hrs, it took 63 hrs at 40C. I guess flour quality influences it, some flours are richer in the necessary bacteria and enzymes than others. And vinegar quality matters as well, chemically pure white vinegar is not the same as, lets say, apple vinegar with the mother of vinegar in it, i.e containing living acetic and lactic bacteria in it.

Yes, I am at livejournal as well :) Welcome to my journal there, jo_en! I haven't made new entries there in a while, being distracted by new projects in different areas, but the journal is alive, with lots of activity in the comments to the existing posts and in private messaging in LJ.

Precaud, if you want sour bread, then you should look elsewhere, try a different starter. CLAS is a lactic acid starter, its purpose is to add lactic acid to bread, not to make bread sour.

Lactic acid is extremely mild tasting, even in high concentrations it does not make bread sour and that is the beauty of it. It allows bakers bake perfect rye breads with high acidity that they need for rye crumb quality, yet not sour tasting or even sour smelling. And it improves crumb of wheat breads without making breads tasting like sourdough, it does not alter their nature, they still smell and taste like well fermented yeasted breads, even though they bulk ferment for a short time.

For sourness, look for San-Francisco type starters and SF sourdough mimicking fermentation schedules, i.e. long time in cold environment. Then your breads will be effortlessly sour. Such starters and schedules have bacteria which produce tons of acetic acid which is sharply sour even when added to bread in small amounts (low temperatures slow down bacterial activity, they do not produce much acid when kept in refrigerators, but then the acid they produce is acetic acid, sharply sour in nature).

I think RusBrot's oven is so small that he has to preheat it to 250C/480F and keep it on that setting because introducing a large mass of cold raw dough immediately brings its temperature down to more appropriate levels and lower settings would not bake and brown his breads appropriately.

I haven't paid much attention to his recipes so no comment on hydration. It depends more on how strong and how dry is his flour, on how much water it needs or is capable of absorbing,  than on what high hydration means (a certain dough consistency) when we bake with flour with average strength and normal moisture content.

There's a recipe  for👆👆👆 in this book. 

Yippee