If you've been following this blog, when we last left this subject, I was trying to determine which of my many jars of YW I should keep. I have decided that having multiple jars of different fruits is pointless, since it is near impossible to tell which fruit was used by either taste or smell. Some color will be added from darker fruits, but that's about it.
The question I had is what would happen if you fed a Blueberry Yeast Water/Bread Flour levain additional Blueberry Yeast water, using seeds from previous levain builds. Namely, what is the effect of increasing population of blueberry yeast over a series of builds while holding the overall volume constant. Would there be an improvement or degradation in rise times or volumes? Would there emerge a limit as to how quickly a doubling or peaking would occur? Would it explode into a new black hole? These were the questions that I just had to answer for myself.
I’ve been experimenting with various types of yeast water for several weeks now. I now have five separate jars percolating on the counter or in the refrigerator. Since I’ve discovered that very little if any fruit flavor is discernable in baked breads made from these waters, it makes sense to me to keep only one. It also makes sense to me to keep the one that is the most effective. I have heard that raisin yeast water is the strongest and most active. When I first started experimenting with these waters, I made a raisin/apricot yeast water, but the color and mu
The last set of experiments was to determine whether the use of fruit based yeast in the absence of flour in the starter would result in more fruit flavor in the final loaf. Much time and effort went into weaning my standard sourdough starter from a diet of wheat flour and water to a diet of pure fruit puree. This starter was used to create a boule with the starter, AP flour and peach puree. The result was less than spectacularly peachy.
We recently got very lucky and were able to buy a flat of the best peaches we have ever had. These peaches, just picked, ripened on the tree, are pure peachy goodness. At the same time, I’ve been experimenting with water/fruit fed yeast in bread baking. As a result of this experimentation I’ve discovered that it is next to impossible to get any fruit flavor from Yeast Water to be present in any baked bread. The water from the fruited yeast is just too subtle. Yes, the fruited yeast water has a nice effect on the crust (crunchy), crumb (moist and tender) and on the color (esp.
Over the last couple of weeks I've been experimenting with the properties of fruit based yeast waters. Starting with a strawberry water, I've so far transformed [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19830/36-hours-sourdough-baguette-everything-i-know-one-bread/]Txfarmer's 36+ hr baguette [/url] from a standard sourdough to one fed strawberry yeast water.
