So I decided to start a baking blog for this BlueZebra to keep track of my baking progress. Hopefully, some of the pros will stop in and offer their helpful suggestions and I will then have it compiled onto my site.
I am also going to ask Bill if he minds if I copy/paste his starter information to my blog so that I will also have it at the ready.
Tomorrow I am going to ignite the sparks that will hopefully lead to my first sourdough starter. I plan on using Mike Avery's starter recipe and instructions (he's at http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.html ) and will also keep my eye peeled on the test being conducted between Tatooedtonka and JMonkey, which started today. I will also check on Bill to see how his new starter is going too.
One thought. Last night I made pizza dough using the PR Neo-neopolitan pizza dough recipe found on Floyd's Pizza Primer thread here at tfl.com. This is the second time I made this dough. I am a bit confused about the instructions for dough development since I don't own the American Pie book by PR that has the recipe in it. Floyd's recipe says to rapidly stir the wet dough mass then set it aside to rest for 3-5 minutes, then to repeat this process. Then to split it up into bags and refrigerate if not using immediately.
I followed these instructions last time and although the end pizzas were really good, I ended up having to knead the dough at the last minute which threw my dinner timing off. The dough wasn't developed at all and had no extensibility or elasticity. It had no "oomph" and was very flaccid and brittle. So this time, I decided to experiment on my own. I kneaded it in the bowl (which I will discuss in a minute) after I did the brisk stirring procedures. Then I put it through 3 french folds on the counter at 30 minute intervals. Then I put it through a bulk fermentation. And then split it up into 4 pieces of dough. Put two of them in oiled bags and into the freezer and kept two pieces of dough out.
Wow the difference was incredible! The first ball of dough fought me as I was making it. It was soft and had a beautiful texture but it obviously needed a rest to get over the final fold and the splitting. This was evidenced by the fact that doughball #2 did get a 60 minute rest as I worked with dough #1 and made and cooked the first pizza to give to Brian. Brian's crust did not have near the oven spring despite the fact that I wrestled it into shape and proofed it for 30 minutes on the parchment. He did say that the bottom was very nicely crisp. But that the inside was a little gummy. I baked it longer too. It baked for about 8 minutes at 550 and was brown on top. The dough was only about 1/8" maximum in the center going into the oven.
My dough had a 60 minute rest and was beautiful to work with for final pizza formation. I did not let it proof on the pan. I formed the pizza. Topped it. Baked it at 550 for about 8 minutes and it was great! Crispy bottom but it did have some gumminess in the center. I am thinking this is a drawback in this recipe. If I blind bake the crust without toppings for a couple of minutes, I'm afraid it will be too tough and overcooked. But, I will try this next week with one of the doughs as a test. I will cook the second one next week at a lower temp (like 425) for a longer amount of time and see what happens.
Now for the breakthrough: The dough was very wet. Not as wet as the pagnotta dough but still wet none-the-less. I worked it with vigor for about 2 minutes then set it aside for 5 minutes. Came back and worked it again for 2 minutes (at this point I was already seeing good gluten development). Then I set it aside for 20 minutes. When I came back, I decided to fold in the bowl. Knowing that it's actually the stretching portion that helps to develop the gluten, I used my big rubber one-piece spatula and in a folding motion, would sweep around to the bottom of the dough and pull the dough up as far as I could before bringing the pulled section down and over onto the middle of the dough mass. Each time I did this, I gave the bowl a 1/4 turn. I worked the dough like this for about 3 minutes. I lost track of how many stretch and rotations I did. But it was uber easy and very therapeutic.
The difference in dough texture from beginning of this step to the end of it was incredible! Night and day. The elasticity of the dough was really beautiful and towards the end I could pull the dough up so much higher with the spatula than I could in the beginning (before the dough showed signs of tearing). When I touched the mass in the bowl it immediately sprang back at me. So I covered the bowl and set it to rest for 30 minutes. Then came back and began the folding steps. I started the dough late and didn't have time to do a preferment. I started at around 2:30pm. It gave me plenty of time. It was a beautiful and bubbly dough. I think I will try the ciabatta dough by working it this way. The dough definitely seemed to like it!
Another important note: I was really skeptical that 1 tsp. of idy yeast would be enough for this recipe with 5 cups of flour, but judging from the action of the yeast in my dough, 1 tsp was plenty! The flavor of the pizza was very nice. It did not brown very strongly so I think I will try adding some malt the next time I make it (which will be Friday after next...Friday being pizza night at the zebra pen).
I also made pasta dough last night. I felt like a real chef! I made it at the same time I began my pizza dough then set it to rest in the fridge until time to form it into sheet for fresh ravioli. I didn't use a recipe! Hard to believe! I just put about 1-3/4 cups AP flour in a bowl and put 2 good pinches of kosher salt in the flour. Made a well in the center of the mixed up flour/salt and cracked 2 large eggs into it. I used a fork and started beating the eggs up in the well and started pulling bits of flour into the center, still beating. When it was thick enough I turned it out onto the counter and did the Mike Avery fold and knead. Turn 90 degrees fold over once and do a strong frissage, then repeat turning the dough 90 degrees. I only worked the dough maybe 2 minutes. Then covered with a bowl and let it rest at room temp for 30 minutes. I came back and worked the dough another 2 minutes and by that time, the gluten had developed although it was still tender to the touch. I refrigerated about 3 hours. Then took it out split it into two batches and started putting it through the pasta roller. Make sheets out of it and set them aside to dry a bit. Then filled and sealed and let them dry a little longer. They were delicious and the pasta was a great flavor and so easy! It made 18 very large raviolis. So we definitely have leftovers!
My filling was fantastic. I had an empty larder so had to used creativity to come up with the filling. I made roasted garlic, gruyere, parmesan, craisin and pumpkin filling in a sherry cream sauce with bacon crumbles and fresh parmesan to finish it. Wow! it went so well with my green olive, onion and mushroom pizza!!! Add a cabernet sauvignon to that and I would serve that meal to company any night!
OK so what am I learning so far (in the last 6 weeks or so that I've been trying to become a home baker)? I've learned that the best thing a newbie baker can do is approach the bread with confidence. It isn't like a pastry. It isn't so fragile. And the recipes are fairly forgiving. I've also learned that the best way to learn about the feel of a dough is to make it a few times. Confidence is built through repitition. I don't pretend to know when every dough had been worked enough. In fact, I'm fairly sure I'm still underworking the dough, but the recent results this past week indicate that thanks to Mike Avery and many of the people here at tfl.com, I've experienced a huge breakthrough in baking.
Tomorrow I start the sourdough samba. I will spend today trying to think of a brilliant name and will send my hunter and gatherer out to procure suitable jars for the incubation! It's only proper that he have some role in this creation process! ;) I might even give him a vote on names!
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The following is a description of how I maintain my 100% hydration (1:1 flour:water by weight) starter. The term 100% hydration refers to the baker's percentage of water in the starter, i.e. the water in the starter is 100% of the weight of the flour in the starter.
This maintenance regime assumes that your starter is already healthy, fresh, and active. This is not what I would do to "start a starter", but rather it is the maintenance regime I follow to store, revive, and use my starter over time.
The following characteristics are for a 100% hydration starter. The characteristics, signs of health, problems, and readiness for use are different for starters maintained at different hydration levels.
Characteristics of my 100% hydration white flour starter:
Characteristics of a recently fed, fresh, active 100% hydration starter:
Characteristics of a 100% hydration starter that is not yet ready or is possibly unhealthy:
Assuming a healthy, active starter, here is the maintenance regime I follow to feed, store, revive, and use my starter.
Feeding
I almost always feed my starter 1:2:2 (starter:flour:water by weight) and then allow it to rise by double at room temperature, which should take about 4 hours when it is fully active and recently fed. Once it has risen by double, it is placed in the refrigerator. The starter can then be used directly from the refrigerator in a recipe for the next 3 days. On the first day, it is almost the same as it was right after it rose by double. On the second day, it has a little more flavor and may be ever so slightly weaker, but it is still at an excellent point to use in a recipe. After 3 days, it can still be used, but it will have stronger, more sour flavors, and it will be noticeably weaker in terms of rising power. If you have a recipe that uses a very small percentage of starter in the dough, it won't matter much if you use old starter. I've used week old starter in recipes where the flour contributed to the dough was only 5% of the total flour weight. If you are using the starter in a recipe that has a high percentage of starter, it may be better to use the starter after 2 days or less in the refrigerator.
Storage
Once the starter has been in the refrigerator for more than a three days, I consider it to be in storage. It can't be used directly in a recipe, but instead will have to be revived. If I plan to store my starter for a period of time longer than 2 weeks, I usually will thicken it up, as it keeps better at a thicker consistency. However, even at 100% hydration, I've had no problems reviving my starter after 2 months. At thicker consistencies, the starter can last for many months in the refrigerator. I believe Glezer says it can last more than a year in a very stiff consistency, like 50% hydration. However, the longest I've gone with my starter is 2 months. I use glass canisters for both feeding and storage. I usually pour the ready to refrigerate starter into a fresh container, so that the sides are clean and the starter is stirred down to take up less volume. The containers have a rubber gasket that seals them from the air in the refrigerator but allows some gas to escape if pressure and gasses build up in the container.
Revival
When the starter has been in the refrigerator for more than a few days, it must be revived first before it can be used in a recipe. I do this by simply feeding it once or twice in the manner described under "Feeding". After being stored for a week or two or more, rising by double after a 1:2:2 feeding may take something like 6-8 hours at room temperature. If it only takes 6 hours, one feeding works fine. However, if it takes more than 6 hours to rise by double at room temperature, I generally feed it one more time. The second feeding usually takes much closer to 4 hours, which is an indication it is fully revived. On the occasion where it had been stored for 2 months, it took a third feeding at room temperature before the starter would rise by double in 4 hours at room temperature after a 1:2:2 feeding.
Variations
You can feed at a lower or higher ratio than 1:2:2 in order to adjust the amount of starter you want to build to match a recipe. However, I never feed at a lower ratio than 1:1:1 to avoid any problems with acid building up or the starter becoming too ripe or underfed. Higher ratios can be used to lengthen out the rise time if you know you will not be back within 4-6 hours to store the starter in the refrigerator before it becomes too ripe. At warmer temperatures, the starter will rise by double much more quickly after a 1:2:2 feeding, taking something like 2.5 hours at about 85F, for example. At 85F the timing for rising by double will be very roughly half as long as at room temperature, and at 65F the timing will be very roughly twice as long (very, very roughly).
When to Refrigerate
I like flavors to be less sour and more mild in sourdough breads I make. I've found that the right flavors and lower amounts of sour flavor seem to be there when I don't let the starter become overly ripe during feedings. That's why I tend to refrigerate when the starter has just doubled. You can experiment with feeding schedules that allow the starter to become more ripe before refrigerating. It will change the balance of organisms in the culture and therefore the flavor. Also, when you use a large percentage of starter, the larger amount of accumulated byproducts of fermentation in a more ripe starter will contribute directly to the flavor and texture of the dough, in addition to the contribution made by the subsequent fermentation.
Converting Starters
I sometimes make a recipe starter for a whole grain bread by feeding some of my starter with spelt or whole wheat. I have never fed a starter with whole grain repeatedly to completely convert it, so I have to accept the flavor as is and a small amount of white flour in my whole grain recipes. I'm sure there are many subtle flavor differences if you feed repeatedly and fully convert a starter from being fed exclusively with white flour to being fed exclusively with a whole grain flour. I've found the feeding and rising process works about the same way with whole grains for a recipe starter, except that the rise times seem a little bit faster with the whole grain flours.
Mistakes
It's pretty hard to kill a healthy starter, but here are a few ways to possibly send yours over the edge.
Given the above, it makes a lot of sense to keep back a small amount of old starter in the refrigerator, even if just the scrapings from the inside of the container that came out of the refrigerator, until you're sure the feeding went well. It's also not a bad idea to make a small amount of stiff starter and keep as a backup. Some dry their starter and freeze or store it for backup.
Comments
What I describe above is just one way to do it. I'm sure there are many other ways, but I find this method convenient and robust. It's hard to kill a healthy freshly fed and risen starter that is stored in the refrigerator. It is convenient that the starter remains in a good usable state for several days. Very small amounts can be used when storing it for long periods to avoid large amounts of flour waste. I store something like 100 grams when I'm planning to store the starter for more than a few days, so my revival can be used in a recipe without wasting much if any flour. Maintaining only one starter and converting it for recipes each time is easy and convenient, although by not fully converting the starter to a whole grain flour some flavor or other characteristics may be missed with this approach.
No hands were lost to this "croc" last night but she was an angry sheila and fought like the "divil" as I whipped her into submission!
I tried making Jason's Quick Crocodillo Ciabatta bread yesterday...by hand! Lions and tigers and bears and Crocodiles! Oh my!!! It was a very wet dough indeed. Please see the recipe here:
Jason's Quick Crocodillo Ciabatta Bread (as posted by lildice)
Variaton 1
500g bread flour
475g (~2 cups) water
2 tsp. yeast
15g salt
Varation 2 (Semolina)
350g bread flour
150g semolina flour
475-485g (~2cups) water
2tsp. yeast
15g salt
In Kitchen Aid style mixer: Mix all ingredients roughly till combined with paddle, let it rest for 10 minutes.
Photo Results:
Commentary:
This is by far the wettest dough I've wrangled to date. If I did my math right, it's a 95% hydration dough, using flour as the 100% base. The recipe assured that it would not hurt my precious Kitchen Aid and it didn't. Mainly because I don't have one. So to be quite clear, no machines were harmed during the making of this bread...well except for the lever joint in my right arm that I fondly call "elbow". It's a little sore this morning!
I think I should have dusted the tops with flour as the writer suggested and I also think I should have been more patient in the final proof stage. I will say, these had fantastic oven spring though. Most likely because the dough was so wet. We haven't yet tasted of the beast, but the crumb seems a bit coarse. Not as creamy in consistency as the Pagnotta Bread from last week.
Methodology:
I used AP Walmart Store Brand Flour. Temp in the house roughly 74 degrees.
1. I brought all ingredients together until moistened, disregarding any particular order. The idy yeast was dissolved in lukewarm tap water. I didn't bother to measure the temp. I started this process at 5:30pm.
2. Once the ingredients were well combined, I stirred fairly vigorously for 2 minutes and then scraped the sides of the bowl. Covered the bowl and let rest 10 minutes.
3. I repeated stirring vigorously for 2 minutes, scraped the sides of the bowl, covered and let rest 10 minutes.
4. For 5 minutes I folded the dough in the bowl. Using a broad sweeping stroke from the bottom of the bowl, I gathered as much of the batter-type dough and lifted it as high as I could above the bowl in order to challenge the gluten strands. When the dough looked as if it might break away from the main body of the batter, I twisted my wrist once and set that scooped dough back into the center of the dough mass. Each time I performed this task, the dough gave a bit more resistence and I was able to stretch it a little more as well. I turned the bowl 90 degrees after each stretch. At the end of the cycle, I scraped the sides, covered the bowl and let it rest for 10 minutes.
5. Repeat step 4 with the stretch and fold in the bowl for 5 minutes. Scrape, cover and let rest 10 minutes.
6. Transferred the dough to a clean bowl that was large enough to allow the mass to triple in volume. At this point the dough had very well formed gluten strands but would not clear the sides of a bowl if stirred with a paddle or spatula. It was still wet and somewhere between very wet dough and batter.
7. Once in the large stainless steel bowl, I did a classic French fold. Using the spatula I folded the mass (stretching the dough as I folded) in thirds in one direction. Then folded the dough in thirds in the other direction. Scraped the sides of the bowl, covered and let rest 30 minutes.
8. Repeat step 7. The dough is rising at this point. Many large and medium size bubbles. I was careful not to punch down the dough, but still performed the French fold. It is a tiny bit more like a wet dough at this point. Scrape the sides of the bowl, cover and let rest 30 minutes.
9. Repeat step 8. The dough has almost doubled. Many more large bubbles. Again I was careful not to punch or deflate when doing the French fold. Much more elasticity in the bread. It is now definitely a wet dough with body but still very slack and sticky, sticky, sticky. A wet hand is your only defense! Scrape the sides of the bowl, cover and let rest 60 minutes. This was the bulk fermentation stage where I allowed the dough to triple in volume as per the original recipe
10 NOTE: This dough could have been improoved by one more French fold cycle but being pressed for time, I skipped the 4th French fold. Also, I chose to do the folds in the bowl using a spatula (or scraper) because I did not want to introduce any excess flour than what was called for in the recipe.
11. Using a spatula I turned the dough mass onto the lightly floured counter. Using a scraper and wet hand, I made a French fold in one direction only. This meant I had a long "log" of dough. Using the scraper I cut into 3 segments.
12. Making sure to have very wet hands I folded each segment separately. Each segment was folded in half. This was a straight half fold and not a French fold and was folded roughly in the opposite direction of the first French fold after it was turned out of the pan.
13. Re-wetting my hands I picked up each segment and gently teased the dough out to a "slipper" shape and placed the dough on a cornmeal covered, parchment paper. I gently continued to tease the dough into the classic ciabatta shape. There were still bubbles in the dough but it had deflated a fair amount. Each dough went on a separate sheet of cornmealed parchment.
14. I covered the dough with an inverted restaurant sheet pan or tray and set it aside for a final proof of 45 minutes. I started preheating my oven to 550 degrees.
15. NOTE: The bread could have gone another 45 minutes in the final proof. It rose only slightly during this time frame. Maybe because the kitchen was a little cooler at that point. I also omitted, spraying with olive oil and dusting with extra flour.
16. Using the back of a sheet pan I transferred the dough and parchment from the counter to the oven tiles. Each loaf cooked separately in the oven for 20 minutes at 550. Internal temp when removed was 206 for each loaf.
I would view this recipe as "do-able" by hand with very little effort.
Tasters Notes: Will not really look at making this again. Dough was just too chewy and crust too crisp and thick for pleasurable eating. Also, because of the quick method, there was very little taste in my opinion. Maybe I'm too used to using a preferment that's at least got a few hours on it before making the final dough? Hard to believe that a preferment of 6-12 hours gives that much of a flavor boost but it does or has done so for us. Prefer the Pagnotta recipe from SD-G and bwraith to this.
take over the world.
Zebra Log 5.23.07 10:30 a.m. CST
COMMENTARY:
Life begins. The melding of King Arthur's Whole Wheat Flour and filtered refrigerator water has been accomplished. In a rather sexless manner the two merge to become one, each giving up part of themselves to the other in the timeless dance of the sourdough starter mating ritual familiar world round.
Using the famed techniques of Mike Avery from www.sourdoughhome.com, I decided after much ponder to use actual weights instead of measures. Careful tracking of local climate conditions permits accurate baselines upon which to mount our impending takeover of the world.
METHOD:
1/4 cup KA WW Flour by weight (0.07lb) = 1.12 oz
0.07 lb Filtered Refrigerator Water = 1.12 oz
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 74.7F
Starter Temp 71.3F
Barometric Pressure 30.5mb and falling
Humidity 225% (Houston)
Using my favorite scotch highball glass, I combined earth and water to create fire. Sticking a probe up it's little bum assures me he is nice and cozy in his present locale.
With the aide of a hermetically sealed spork from neighboring Taco Hell, I stirred well to marry dry to wet. Covered tightly with a thin layer of clear, petroleum based, flexitive substrate, the newborn is protected from the dangers of germs borne from sneezes and lent. And so the wait begins.
Photos will be uploaded later as soon as the Brain returns to show me for the umpteenth time how to transfer photos from my phone to my computer. bwahahahahahahahahaha <maniacal laughter>
Zebra Log 5.24.07 10:30 a.m. CST - Day 2
COMMENTARY:
Well it didn't take me too long to screw up. I was up most of the night and so I overslept then leaped out of bed (yes I leaped!) and ran to feed the beast. Only, I should have stopped to read the recipe. This is where it all goes wrong...
I didn't look to see if there were bubbles (that's not the end of the world though). But what I did forget to do is throw away 1/2 of my Day 1 before I fed it Day 2's breakfast. So instead of feeding 1:1:1 starter: flour: water - I just fed 1:1/2:1/2. Bummer.
Ok so what am I going to do? I'm going to go feed another 1.1oz of flour + 1.1 oz of water and I'm not gonna look back. I won't throw away half of the little tyke until I see signs of life. Hopefully tomorrow. Then I will actually only reserve an original 0.14lb of the starter and proceed from there.
Hopefully I haven't screwed the beast...yikes that could be deadly to me!
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
1/2 cup KA WW Flour by weight (0.14lb) = 2.24oz
0.14 lb Filtered Refrigerator Water = 2.24 oz
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 76.7F
Starter Temp 76.4F
Barometric Pressure 31.5mb and rising
Humidity 225% (Houston)
In my faithful stainless mixing bowl, I combined the flour and water for the feeding and added the beast. I stirred using a rubber spatula and placed the beast back into a clean highball glass. Then I realized I had underfed and ended up having to repeat this procedure and it's now in my third favorite scotch highball glass.
So now I have essentially doubled the behemoth and will wait to see signs of life (air bubbles). When I do, I will then split it so that there is only a 0.07lb or 1.12oz amount of the original left before feeding it and will throw the rest away.
I also realized that the cozy nook to the left of my fridge (it's home) is too warm in the mornings due to the coffee pot being turned on. The temp rose 2 degrees from yesterday to 76.7. And the temp of the starter rose too. So I moved it a little bit aways from this area. We'll see.
The beast is covered with plastic wrap. I will upload photos from yesterday, this afternoon. bwahahahahahahahahaha <semi-uncertain maniacal laughter>
NOTES: I just got an email from Mike Avery telling me to put the razor blade down and step away from the ledge. No sourdough starters were harmed in the feeding of starter this morning. Praise God! So tomorrow I will just retain the original combined weight that I'm going for. That being said, I'm afraid I messed up from the get go. Cuz I wasn't supposed to use 1/4c by weight. I was supposed to use 1/3c by weight. Soooo I'm going to just take the starter down to 2oz. and do it by weight. 2oz starter: 2oz ww: 2oz filetered water.
Newsflash! General Chaos Threatens to Overspill His Banks. Thousands of Lives Threatened! (Film at 11!)
Hi Bluezebra,
Over the first 24-48 hours, you can get that big rise. Usually, it's a bit stinky or very stinky, at least that's what happens to me. If you just keep at it, it should settle down and become very inactive for a few days. After that, it should pick up speed so that some time between 5 days and 14 days, you'll probably have a working starter. I have found keeping the starter slightly cooler in the first couple of days helps to avoid way too much of that stinky rise. Similarly, you'll see recipes that add some pineapple juice in the first two days. However, I haven't figured out if it really helps that much in the end. Basically, just keep at the feeding schedule regardless, and it should work.
Bill
very afraid to enter the kitchen. Apparently Brian has and returned alive, seeing as how I have coffee and he still has all of his limbs. So maybe theings aren't as bad as I think?
General Chaos continued to rule supreme last night. I knocked him back and did a partial lobe removal of his liver thinking that maybe the incubation in the scotch glass had something to do with his aggressive state. It did not phase him and I think I heard him laugh sneeringly at some point during a rerun of Deadliest Catch. When I checked his position at bedtime, the belly of The Beast was HUGE. It had risen 2/3 of the way up the ice tea glass.
The smell isn't so pretty. It's not exactly off. It's kinda um, grainy. But not that lovely yeasty smell I have in my yeasted preferments. I don't think I can strip paint or remove my nail polish with it, but I'm not remotely tempted to use it in a big ole loaf of pagnotta either...I tell you what!
His feeding time is at 10:30 this morning so I will be sure to report back in to News Central following the event. He did request foie gras last night and I had to tell him that foie gras was not breakfast food to which he replied, "Then bring me a pack a smokes and a Bloody Mary with my Cream o' Wheat, Beeeotch!" I just ignored him and put a minus sign next to his name on the refrigerator. (That's -1).
My plan is to perhaps conduct a frontal lobectomy this morning. I plan on leaving 2oz of the "sweetums" to ponder just who is in control of this little pleasure cruise. Maybe that will drum some sense of reality into him.
Thanks again - I appreciate your help so much!
p.s. I was theoretically using Mike Avery's technique for starter until I realized my lab mishaps. I was supposed to do 1/3c of flour by weight in the beginning and I accidentally did 1/4c by weight in the beginning. Then was doing the 1:1:1 thing per his advice and screwed up by doing the 1:1/2:1/2 and had to repeat the 1/2:1/2. So I don't know who's recipe I'm really following lol!
BZ,
I was a little confused about what you meant by "1/4 cup by weight", since I think of a cup as a unit of volume. However, maybe what you mean by that is 2oz of weight? Are you using volume or weight to do your starter, and if so, when you say 1:1:1, are you feeding equal weights of flour and water or doing something else? It doesn't matter way too much, except it helps to know the exact thing your doing when you describe what's happening. We'll have a better idea of the consistency of the muck, which does have a fairly big effect eventually on how it rises.
Also, I would always use a container that is 4 times the volume of the starter you put in it. That should be enough to avoid most of the spillovers going forward after this first stinky monster phase.
Bill
I swear each time I do something with that critter I sprout two more blonde hairs! Doh! (no offense meant to any blondes past or present).
Bill I was confused by Mike's book. His instructs were to do 1:1 by weight and then he gave measurements of 1/3c flour to 1/4c water. Which I assumed was about right on weights. So what I was trying to do was take the weight of the initial flour measure and use that as my baseline standard for weights (by a scale). Only my scale only does lbs/ounces and not grams so my apologies.
But what I did instead was got dyslexic! I did 1/4 c flour and measured that and it ended up being my baseline. I am weighing everything.
And thanks! I did put him in a larger glass. I "had" to eat about 4 pickles last night to get my pickle jar that I need! haha! And will wash that in the dishwasher today so that he can have a permanent home once he destinkifies! :D Just a note on the glasses: they seem to work pretty well as temporary houses. LOL, very easy to clean them cuz they don't have a "lip". Necessity is the mothah of invention, right? ;)
COMMENTARY:
The news is not so good. The Beast awoke with that not so fresh feeling. And upon feeding I noticed...indeed. His scent bordered between a sharp, acidic and slightly sweet smel balanced with the somewhat deeper notes of vomit after a hard night out "with the boys". Maybe that IS the smell of pure evil? Maybe it's brimstone? I don't know but I think he's hangin with the wrong crowd for certain!
By 10:30 this morning he had morphed back into his small and seemingly unobtrusive even benign size as if to build my false sense of security. But fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice...shame on...let's not go there. For certain I will not be seduced by this evil master plotting for world domination a second time! Rest assured. We will NOT have a repeat of yesterday...Not on my watch...
I'm thinking my somewhat lax approach to maintaining a sterile field helped to birth this behemoth. So I will revert to the use of my hermetically sealed sporks from Taco Hell in future. Scraping be damned!
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
2 oz of The Odiferous Beast
2 oz of Filtered Refridgerator Water
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 74.9F
Starter Temp 74.7F
Barometric Pressure 32.5mb and rising
Humidity 225% (Houston)
In my faithful blue and white cereal bowl I mixed the 2oz of The Beast with 1oz of water and 1oz of KA WW Flour. I mixed and incorporated and then realized I heard Brittany Spears singing her famous..."Whoops She Did It Again" song and knew that for the 3rd day in a row, I had made an unfortunate lab error. *Sigh*
At least this time I knew just what to do. I got out a second bowl and mixed up 0.06oz of filtered water and 0.06 of KA WW Flour and mixed it up and sacrificed it to the mighty beast in the second bowl. Still using my trusty spork, I swirled and stirred the innocent into the stench of the master. I then transfered it to a large ice tea glass hoping to accomodate it's wicked increase of gass-filled repugnance. No more scotch glasses for this laddy. His evilness was too intense to risk it.
So to cap it off, I finally made a 1:1:1 feeding by weight beginning with a 2oz starter specimen of General Chaos aka The Beast. I put him back in his oh so cozy nook to think about matters and to adjust his lifestlye. He asked for a boom box and some whacky tobaccy. I told him this wasn't prison and I soooooo wasn't his beootch. He said, "Not yet, anyway."
I covered him once more with a tight seal of plastic wrap and considered putting the whole thing inside a ziplock bag but at the last moment, stepped away from the ledge...bwahahahahahahahaha <nervouos maniacal laughter>
Hi BZ,
I didn't follow what you meant about fixing the feeding ratio. I understand that you used 2 oz of the beast and 1oz each of flour and water. To make that 1:1:1, wouldn't you just add one more ounce each of flour and water? I didn't follow why you would add .06 oz of water and flour. Sorry, I'm probably just not reading right here.
Bill
Bill I swear, how hard is it to add 2+2, right? Apparently it's very difficult for some of us!
My scale only goes to the hundredths. I thought it went to the thousands but it doesn't so I had to choose this morning between saving it to .12 or to .13 (.125 is 2oz) since it measures in decimals of lbs. So I randomly chose .12 since that was an even number.
I get confused because of preferment math. It will say 1:1 of flour to water...so what I did for the second day in a row was took the weight of my starter and instead of adding an equal weight of flour and an equal weight of water to the starter, I divided it by 2 and because the weight of the flour and the weight of the water equalled the weight of the starter! bwahahahahahahaha! I'm such a dumba88!!! Seriously, Bill!
Doh!
Soooo, that meant I had added only 0.06lb of flour and 0.06lbs of water and it meant I had to add that same amount again lol. Hopefully (I think) I did it right the second time and so now I have the original 2oz of starter (.12lb) + (.06+.06flour) + (.06+.06 water). :D
Yours very truly,
The not-so-bright-baker
OK BZ, I get it now. You are using a scale w/pounds on it. I thought you were saying you added .06oz, and that was not computing.
So, as always, good luck with the continuing saga. The bad smells should go away in the next day or two, most likely.
Bill
I love it Bluezebra.. From the photos, the humor, and wow, look at dem gadgets!!!
Very nice.
Tattooed Tonka
You know, I have been having a similar experience with a new starter, and I think I will just keep going at it and see what happens, thanks to the comments in this thread. I started it on Monday morning, just 1:1 flour and Brita filtered tap water. Stirred it and left it alone for 24 hours. Then I fed it 1:1:1 and left for the day, and when I got home about 8 hours later, it had more than doubled, was foamy and smelled like orange juice (weird). I was so stoked, because I thought I had a super starter on my hands! A one-day starter, woohoo! =) But then I fed it the next day 1:2:2, and it failed to rise that day. So I have kept feeding it 1:2:2, and it keeps failing to rise. It does get small bubbles all over the surface and throughout, but that's it. It might rise about 1/8 of the original volume. So then I had no idea what I could be doing wrong. Anyway, per bwraith's advice to you, bluezebra, I will also keep plugging away for a week or so and see if it gets happy again.
Note, I just fed it 30 minutes ago at 1:1:1 (I thought maybe I was overwhelming it with too big of a feeding) and it has risen about 1/8 of its original volume already. So there's a question--could a double feeding be too much in the early stages? I successfully made lots of sourdough bread about 3 years ago with a homemade starter, but it's been a long time and I need to learn the tricks and theories all over again.
Katie in SC
Hi Katie,
The big rise is not unusual at all. It's more the rule for me. I think 1:1:1 every 12-24 hours is good if there is no activity. If you start getting strong smells like nail polish remover or latex paint smells, it probably makes sense to go to a higher feeding ratio, maybe 1:2:2 every 12 hours, once you have that going on. Sometimes, I've found doing a higher ratio like 1:4:4 in the very late stages, when it is close to "taking off", and letting it sit for a day somehow makes it start up. It may help to avoid really warm temperatures in the first stinky part of the cycle, meaning stay closer to 70F than 80F. Once it's in the quiet phase at about day 3 or so, it probably helps to get it a little wamer, like closer to 80F.
Bill
I'll keep plugging along, then. I really appreciate your advice, and bluezebra, I will be watching your progress as well!
Katie in SC
Hi BZ,
I think the acetone smell is not very unusual either. I've read some things that say the smell is a bad sign in some way, but others seem to say it's an indication of being underfed and not unusual. Since I have had that smell develop in a number of starters I've started at some point in the cycle, it doesn't seem too unusual to me. I don't really know, but I can say that cultures that had that smell have worked fine for me once I fed them for a while and they became stable and active.
After this stinky early phase, the culture usually becomes very quiet, so don't be discouraged. It always seems to eventually come around if you just keep feeding it and stick to a routine. As I said, sometimes it seems like an occasional high ratio feeding can help to get the starter to take off if it's been quiet for along time with the lower ratio feedings.
Bill
doing too ok? Maybe we can kinda go through this together...I would think even some signs of life is a good thing so maybe the 1/8 rising is good? What day are you on?
About the double feeding, that's what I thought too is wow...I musta supercharged the little bastages with the terrible lab accident yesterday! :D
I think if you did it once, you're gonna be successful again Katie! Lord knows your other baking is beautiful!!!
I will keep you posted and keep checking on your results, too. It's rather disappointing to know that that second day big rise was just a matter of course. I really did think, in my innocence, that I had some real special environment here or something! Oh, well. I'll just keep on feeding it (mine is just water and KAF bread) every morning on schedule as advised. Hopefully we'll be baking with our starters soon!
Katie in SC
Mine is King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour. Mike Avery suggests rye as the better flour to use for starters but I'm allergic to rye (my very favorite too!) and so I used whole wheat which is his second recommendation.
I know how you feel about the 2nd day rise, lol! I thought wow and actually sang this song yesterday...."Whatsamattah wit you, why you look so sad, shuttuppayorface!" LOL, thinking, hey sourdough starters are a sinch! What's so hard that people go on and on about it right? ROFL!!!! I laughed so hard at myself this morning. ROFL! I don't know if it was arrogance or ignorance! :D But I prefer to think it was shear naivete! (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
So you're on day 3 as well?
I was outside with my son and remembered you asked what day I was on. I started it on Monday morning, so I guess that makes it day 5. I hope it starts showing some vigor soon. I threw out my frozen starter from three years ago for this guy. And this is the thanks I get. =)
Katie in SC
(P.S. Seems I remember that song--"shuttuppayorface"--did it come out in the 80s?)
Hey BZ, I'm on day 8 and I finally have something to report with my white flour 100% hydration starter. It finally doubled today. Actually, today's the first day it has had any real significant rise of any kind. I'm just keeping 3 oz at the start of each feeding and tossing the rest, then feeding 1:1:1. Anyway, 12 hours after the first feeding today it was doubled. So I fed it again, and now I'm going to hope for another, faster double overnight. I'll let you know how it goes in the morning!
Katie in SC
You have yeast budding out all over!!!! :D
Can't wait for the report tomorrow!
Or, at least, that's what my husband has taken to calling "it". I decided to go to a feeding every 12 hours after reading one of Bill's comments yesterday (my mind is kind of mushy with all of the sourdough info I'm trying to process, so I can't remember which thread I read that advice in). I was feeding it just once every 24 hours up until yesterday. Anyway, so yesterday it got a 1:1:1 feeding at 8 AM and another one at 8 PM. When I woke up this morning and went to check on Dear Stanley, it was around 8-ish and he/it looked like this:
As per custom, the starting level last night was at the top of the piece of tape there. I've been keeping the jar on the counter right beside the fridge, because a good bit of warm air wafts up there. It's beside the stove/oven range, so I have also been keeping the range hood light on. I haven't taken a temp reading in that area, but my guess is high 70s.
So let's talk about Stanley. Smells clean and sour, and also a little like beer. When I stirred him down from the condition shown above, he was sort of the thickness of pancake batter, but slightly ropy, like ciabatta dough. I fed it 1:1:1 again at 8:45 or so, and now it's an hour later and already risen above the tape by about 1/3 of the beginning level. Wooooooo! I think I'm gonna be ready to bake in a few days!
I don't know why I enjoy this so much, but it has been tremendously fun to watch and tend to this starter. Is it geeky to get so excited about yeast? (Just kidding, and even if it were geeky, I wouldn't care!)
ETA: It is now 10:30 AM and I checked on Stanley. It's been 2 hours since his last feeding, and he has doubled! I think this dog might hunt!
definitely looks like it hunts! That's outstanding and he looks so much more vigorous than General Chaos!
It sounds like there are good numbers of yeasty beasties in Thick Stanley! :D I know just the consistency you are referring to. LOL, remember, I "wrangle snot" here... (high hydration doughs).
General's home is right beside the fridge too! It's the darkest and somewhat coolest place in the house. I suppose though that with the fridge running that it is actually a "warm" spot rather than a cool spot. But man I'm clueless to find another spot as dark and set away from commotion!
I know what you mean about fun. My next starter will be done using SoDo Ladies method. I want to see which one takes less angst! :D I will call that one Ch-ch-ch-chia! Cuz I always wanted to name a pet that! These guys are better than pet rocks, don't ya know! And don't sweat being a geek. Geeks have more fun! ;) I married a geek and have since become one myself. We will take over the world, don't you know?! ;)
Yeast on Katie! :D
LOL! You're hilarious! I forgot to mention in my comment before that this is day 9, or at least I think I forgot to mention it. Since this thing is rising so much in a short time frame, maybe I need to feed it at 1:2:2 tonight when it's time for its next feeding. I'd really love to bake with it tomorrow. I wonder if that is too soon? And I just can't wait to see what happens with Gen. Chaos in the next few days. Because you know I'm a few days ahead of you. I predict Great Things for him! (And, Great Bread for you!)
Katie in SC
Hi kjknits,
It certainly does look vigorous enough to bake with. Are you feeding 1:1:1 by weight, i.e. is it more of a paste than a batter right after feeding?
It has more the look of a slightly higher hydration starter, but maybe it's just that I don't normally use a 1:1:1 ratio, and that's what it ends up looking like after 12 hours.
If you want a benchmark, try taking some of it about 5 hours after feeding and give it a 1:2:2 feeding. If it rises by double in something like 4.5 hours at room temperature, then it's working like mine and should be good for making bread.
Just for what it's worth, I think you get a different character of starter if you feed it at a high ratio. If you want to play with maintaining more than one, just to check the difference, try feeding some of your starter at 1:10:11. It should rise by double in about 8 hours and be nice and ripe at 12 hours - ready for another feeding. If you do that for a few days, you should notice that your starter maintained at 1:1:1 will smell different from the one maintained at 1:10:11. I've been playing with that recently. The idea is that when you maintain a starter with higher feeding ratios, you get relatively higher amounts of lactobacillus, which prefer the higher pH they get to enjoy with the higher feeding ratio. One is not necessarily better than the other, but you may notice qualitative differences in flavor between them when you make bread the same way with one or the other.
Bill
I have been weighing the starter I begin with (usually I start with 3 oz and toss the rest) and then feeding 1:1:1 by weight. I learned that from reading your advice (and that of others) right here! =) Otherwise I would be doing the "remove a cup of starter, then add a cup of flour and a cup of water" thing that they recommend in the KAF anniversary book, which takes no consideration of how much starter you had to begin with. It is rather frustrating that it's hard to find real worthy sourdough advice out there. Thank goodness for the Fresh Loaf, and for people like you who are willing to help the newbies!
At 11:30 this AM (three hours after its morning 1:1:1 feeding), it had more than doubled again. It smelled great, yeasty and a little bit sour, with somewhat of a beery scent as well. I went back and read some of your comments on the sourdough forum and decided I should give it a 1:2:2 feeding at this point, even though I have just started feeding every 12 hours. It seems it might need more resources. Anyway, I used 3 oz starter and 6 oz each white flour and Brita-filtered water (again, by weight). To answer your other question, immediately after feeding, it's a thick paste. It thins to the pancake batter texture after it has risen. So right now, it's thick and kind of lumpy. I'm going to see how long it takes to double now. If it doubled in 3 hours this morning with a 1:1:1 feeding, perhaps it's logical to assume it will double in 6 hours at 1:2:2? Although, I'm starting to think that sourdough defies logic. =)
I appreciate your advice and I hope bluezebra doesn't mind this conversation on her blog!
Katie in SC
Hi kjknits,
BZ, if you'd rather kjknits can create a blog entry and I'll go continue this part of the discussion there. Meanwhile...
As far as how long to rise, mine rises by double in 4.5 hours at 72F after a feeding of 1:2:2.2 (I say 2.2, because I thicken it slightly more than 100% hydration).
There is a relationship between the feeding ratio and the time it takes to double. Very roughly speaking, when you halve the dilution ratio, you increase the time to rise by double by about 2 hours. A feeding of 1:2:2 has a dilution of 5 times (5 parts of new starter after feeding divided by 1 part of old starter), whereas a 1:1:1 feeding has a dilution of 3 times (3 parts new starter to one part old starter). 5/3 is not quite double, so you will add less than 2 hours to the rise time going from 1:1:1 to 1:2:2.
Bill
then it's here in my notes! ;) (selfish aren't I?!).
And that math now makes sense to me too. So that is an awesome formula to have on hand!
But as I said earlier, I fed my starter at 1:2:2 at noon today. This was just less than 4 hours after the last feeding, which was 1:1:1. Left to go pick up my son and do some shopping and got home at 3:30. The starter (Stanley) TRIPLED. It was about to come out of the top of its jar. What the heck? I'm going to call this guy ready and start a poolish tonight for some baking tomorrow. I want to make these boules that Floyd posted a while back. I'm so excited! Can you see me jumping up and down???
Katie in SC
when it triples??? Bill you gotta lotta 'splainin to do here! :D
I'm thinking your gonna be a baking fool soon, Katie!!!
Well, BZ, for one thing, when it triples it means it's about to 'splode. =)
Katie in SC
Hi BZ, kjknits,
Well, I've never had mine rise that fast. What temperature more or less? It'll be interesting to see if it stays that way for longer periods of time or settles into a more sedate routine after a while.
Bill
Bill, I'd say it's high 70s in the spot I have been keeping it. Our AC is on and the thermostat is set to about 74, but then the spot Stanley lives in is right next to the fridge, where warmer air comes up from the back of it. And the kitchen is always warmer than the rest of the house, anyway.
I plan to start a 2x a day, 1:2:2 feeding with it so I can see if it settles into a routine, as you say. And, I am going to bake with it tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. Wish me luck!
Katie in SC
Hi Katie,
The faster rise is somewhat explained by the warmer temperatures you're using. My 4.5 hour doubling after a 1:2:2 feeding is at about 72F, so you'll go quite a bit faster in the high 70s. It still seems pretty fast, even at the higher temperature, though.
If you feed it 1:2:2 repeatedly every 12 hours and keep it at the higher temperature, it may eventually have some problems. It would be getting very ripe at the end of 12 hours at the warmer temperatures. You may want to consider moving it to a cooler spot if you're going to feed 1:2:2 every 12 hours. A better ratio for feeding every 12 hours is something like 1:4:4.
If you are going to use the starter to bake some bread, I would suggest using it about 6 to 8 hours after feeding at 1:2:2, as opposed to waiting until it is 12 hours old.
I've been doing a little experiment lately and feeding mine 1:9:10 every 12 hours. The results have been very good. It has an intense aroma and made some very good bread, using it 12 hours after feeding. It doubles in 8 hours at 73F or so, and gets to a peak around 12 hours.
Bill
Oh, good advice! Thanks. I will start feeding it at 1:4:4 in the morning. Phew, all of these numbers are making my head spin. And in my quart jar, I guess I'd better keep the starter in that ratio pretty small. Like maybe just 1 oz. Because Stanley blew his top off over dinner! (And I had stirred him down twice since 3:30.)
I do have a little 6 oz sponge sitting by now for tomorrow's (hopeful thinking here) baking. =)
Katie in SC
Katie,
I imagine the baking will go very well with a nice strong starter like that.
You're right about using tiny quantities making things easier. It really helps to get a good scale and go down to amounts like 10g:40g:40g, so you keep the whole thing from growing out of control. The cleaning process is easier with less gunk and smaller containers.
Bill
Hi Bill (and bluezebra), I set out a sponge last night for a couple of hours then put it in the fridge, and now I have my simple dough (flour, water, gray sea salt and starter) doing its first rise. I can't wait to see what it does.
As far as scaling, I have a Salter kitchen scale and it does measure grams--I rarely use that feature, unless a recipe gives me grams. But I will start using it to weigh my starter/flour/water at feedings. 10 g is a nice amount to work with! So, thanks again for your advice, Bill! I don't know where I would be without this forum. I sure wouldn't have any sourdough bread in the works today. =)
Will keep you both updated on the bread. And I am excited to read your day 7 log, BZ!
Katie in SC
COMMENTARY:
Well I fed General Chaos at 10:30a.m. this morning and just barely got things right! It's beginning to be quite funny that I simply can't do math! The only reason I'm recounting this is because I want to prove that breads are much more forgiving than we give them credit for being. I again, had a terrible lab experiment this morning! And just barely put it right.
General Chaos aka The Beast aka Sir Stinksalot is generall challenged by my chaotic mind and all around thought processes and complete lack of scientific methodology! This morning I was actually able to add the correct amounts of new flour and water together to get his breakfast gruel right but when it came to measuring the right amount of Sir Stinksalot, I failed! I should have only added .12lb of him or roughly 2oz. to the new mixture but instead I got confused again and added .24lb or almost 4oz! What made me catch it was that the old glass was empty! :eek: The horror of it all! Again!!!
But being the rather crafty and semi-tricky person I am, I was quick on the uptake and since SS is kinda like pourable dough at the moment, I quickly poured about half of him back into his old skink hole. I carefully evened it out till the scale read .36lb instead of .48lb! LOL! Doh! Homer has nothin on this novice!
So I quickly finished the feeding (oh man is he a stinkeroony)! And put him into a new glass. I will be making Bill's Pagnotta Bread. I'm making a double recipe (one plain with whole wheat and the other whole wheat with olives). I started the preferment yesterday and put it in the fridge overnight.
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
2 oz of Sir Stinksalot
2oz of WW Flour
2 oz of Filtered Refridgerator Water
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 74.7F
Starter Temp - too stinky to measure the temp!
Barometric Pressure 31.5mb and falling
Humidity 225% (Houston)
Using my trusty hermetically sealed spork from Taco Hell, my trusty bowls and scale, and my bandanna tied around my mouth to protect myself from the onerous stench, I completed the measure of new feed and old sourdough. OMG IDK my SSSS is gross!!! I have determined that I will give him one more day to control the odor or I'm going to add 1tsp of fresh lemon juice.
I have figured out a way to lower the temp in his immediate environment by filling two glasses with ice water. I place a glass on either side of the starter. It has lowered the temp to just above 71 degrees. I will keep this little chilly environment going through tomorrow as well.
There was no boil up or otherdrama in the zebra pen yesterday so I think he is defeated but still putting up the cursory objections with his no bathing platform.
Now on to pagnotta baking!
BZ,
It sounds like you're doing an instant yeast version of the pagnotta with some whole wheat in it. If you get a chance, could you post how you're doing it?
Bill
BZ,
The idea of surrounding a bowl of dough with containers of ice is so simple and perfect when you want to lower the temperature just a few degrees. Neat!
Sue
RECIPE PER BILL WRAITH (*items are changes per bz)
Bill’s Conversion of Sourdough-Guy’s Sourdough Pagnotta
400 grams fresh 100% hydration starter (my starter was taken
out of the refrigerator after having been refreshed 3 days earlier.
I probably should have used more recently refreshed and vigorous starter)
*Note use in place of starter:
200g of AP flour
200g water
1/8 tsp ady yeast
Body of Recipe:
650 grams water
700 grams KA Organic AP
50 grams KA rye blend (optional - substitute white flour,
whole wheat, or other)
50 grams Heartland Mills Golden Buffalo flour (optional -
substitute white flour, whole wheat, or other)
1 tsp IDY Yeast*
18 grams salt (1.264 Tbsp)
300 grams pitted halved olives (I used calamata olives)
Mix
Mix ingredients until well integrated and there is some resistance
to stirring. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes. I think there was
slightly too much water for my choice of flours and maybe because of
the olives, which made the dough harder to handle. This was very slack
dough. I would use a little less water next time, but I'm reporting
this as I actually did it.
Fold and Rest, Repeat. Every 30-60 minutes pour the dough out onto the
counter, let it spread a little, and fold it up into a ball. Put the dough
back in the bowl, cover and let rest 30-60. Repeat this process every
30-60 minutes 3-4 times.
I may not have repeated this enough, given the very wet dough I ended up with.
The dough was still too slack later when I tried to shape the loaves.
Bulk Fermentation
Place the dough in an oiled rising bucket or bowl. Allow it to rise by
double at room temperature. Actually, I wanted to bake by midnight, so I
let it get a little warmer, about 80F, which may have been a little bit
of a problem. I think it made the slack dough even a little more slack
to also be warm.
Shaping
Pour the dough out on the table on a bed of flour and cut in two. Work
with each loaf separately. Form a ball by carefully and gently pulling
the sides toward the center repeatedly to get some surface tension on the
smooth side underneath. Do not overhandle.
Here I was a disastrous dough handler. I way overhandled it because it was
too slack and would not form a ball. It just kept spreading out quickly.
Well, I just decided after way too many times pulling at the sides to stop
trying and went for flat bread. So, I can't emphasize enough, don't
overhandle. Just make that shape and be done with it. I am doing a second
version, and I think I've discovered how to do this. Use thumbs and fingers
of one hand to pinch and hold the gathered sides over the center, holding
the gathered edges up a little to help the sides stretch and the shape to
become more round and taking a bit of weight off the loaf. Use the other
thumb and a couple of fingers to pinch a bit of the side, pull the bit out
and up and over to the center, stretching the side as you do. Gather that bit
in with the first hand along with others as you work your way around the loaf.
Try to make it round by gathering a bit from the place that sticks out the
most.Turn the dough over onto a thick bed of flour with the rough side down.
Final Proof
Allow the loaves to increase in size by double. For me, this took about 3
hours. I'm still having a hard time figuring out when these higher hydration
loaves have finished proofing. As I said there was too much water, and I
never got these loaves to stiffen up very much. They mostly spread out on
the counter.
Bake
Bake at 425F.
This took about 25 minutes, and the internal temperature went quickly to
210F, which I've experienced with these flat high hydration loaves. I didn't
get much oven spring. I think the overhandling was a serious problem
Cool
Allow the loaf to fully cool.
COMMENTARY: This is a yeasted version of Sourdough Pagnotta that Bill Wraith worked out based on Jim's recipe for Sourdough Pagnotta Bread. I made one whole recipe of regular bread and one whole recipe of olive pagnotta. I used KA WW flour and AP flour per the recipe instructions.
METHOD: I made the yeasted preferment yesterday at noon. I allowed it to sit out until 11pm last night then refrigerated it overnight. I doubled the preferment by taking the stated weights x 2.
I took the preferment out of the fridge at 9am this morning and allowed it to sit for a couple of hours to warm up. I then weighed the total and divided it by 2 to get my two batches. I used 100g of KA WW flour and the remainder was AP flour.
I added the olives to the dry mixture and the yeast I decided to add, into the water and preferment. I thinned the preferment with the rest of the water volume. I added an extra 1/4 cup of water to the olive pagnotta. For some reason it was very dry after mixing.
I've have given it 8 wet folds in the bowl all at one cycle. Then I gave it 4 counter FF and am allowing it to sit for an hour and rise a bit more. My dough has been rising throughout the folding process and I've been gentle to not totally deflate the dough as I do the stretch and folds.
I will split the dough, shape and allow each to double. Then bake per the instructions.
NOTES: Adding the WW flour made the dough drier than I'm used to working with. I am used to very high hydration doughs. So I added an extra 1/4c of water to the mixture. I also added 1 tsp of yeast to each recipe because I am in a hurry today to have it baked by 4pm. I am going to take some to my nephews graduation celebration so hope it turns out ok!
BZ,
Thanks for providing the info about the conversion. It's interesting to know how that went. I used a fairly large amount of sourdough preferment in that recipe for basically the same reason you boosted up the yeast, I was in a hurry. It could be that it seemed more wet to me because of the large amount of sourdough preferment in there, which would change the texture of the dough relative to using a yeasted preferment. I don't think there's enough whole wheat flour in there to make that much difference to the hydration. The other possibility is that my olives may have been wetter than yours. Maybe that had some effect.
Bill
Bakers Notes:
This dough is so incredibly easy to work with. I use very little flour on the counter when folding thanks to Mike Avery's video at www.sourdoughhome.com, showing a great technique for doing the stretch and fold method of dough development. I tell you right now, for those who don't believe me, this method is so easy and works on any dough...why would anyone choose to knead if it was possible to work the dough this way?
Again, this bread was rushed through it's paces because we were taking it to a dinner for my nephews. So I made 8 lift and folds in the bowl as the first step(this is NOT the same as a FF). Then I made 4 FF on the counter at 30 minute intervals. After the last fold I allowed it to rest for an hour. It had more than doubled by that time (maybe even approaching tripled from the original dough size or not quite)?
Then I split each recipe into two loaves and stretched and folded each of the those loaves in order to try to get some surface tension but you can see from the before fotos that the dough is very slack and while it looks great just after folding, it losens up and spreads over time. I allowed each loaf to rest an additional 30 minutes (at least). The olive loaves rested longer and rose more during the final proof because of the additional time.
Then I baked each loaf at 550 for 15 minutes, transfered parchment and bread from sheet pan directly to stone and baked an additional 8 minutes at 425. The internal temp was 211 but again because of the dough hydration, the crust softened. This isn't a problem for me because I always tear off a chunk and reheat it at 400 degrees till the crust is crisp. By using this method of cooking, the crust thickness is perfect for me and the crumb is the moistest and creamiest I've ever personally tasted (and I've had some dynomite bread in my lifetime).
Well worth the effort (which is very little) to make this recipe. I can't wait to have a sourdough starter and be able to make it as a sourdough pagnotta!
I took 2 huge loaves with us last night. I wished I'd thought to weigh them after baking because they were quite heavy. I would say each loaf was maybe a 2lb loaf? It was well received by everyone! Never underestimate a gift of home baked bread!
The first time I made it the dough seemed much more moist. I used all AP flour then so I just assumed that maybe it was the WW flour. It's raining today so it's 100% humidity here :D so it's not that the humidity is drier today.
Or maybe I just mismeasured last time! :D You know I'm challenged in that way sometimes!
The first time I made this it turned out great to us. It quickly was deemed the best bread so far. The crumb is soooooo creamy!
Any ideas?
BZ,
Since the amount of whole wheat added is only 100 grams, I would expect that to only make a difference of about 10 grams in extra water needed, which is only 1/3 ounce of extra water to adjust the hydration. The main thing is that you made the adjustment to get the consistency to be slack, as it should be for this kind of dough. I'm glad it worked out and that you like it so much.
Bill
I've baked the two "plain" loaves and am on the first loaf of the olive breads. The oven spring is pretty huge. Dough very slack and spread alot. I will upload before and after photos for you to see later on tonight or tomorrow. I have to get ready to go to leave for my sister's.
COMMENTARY:
Doing the "Happy Bakers Dance"! I made it through science lab without a single mishap! All measurements went as smoothly as planned! I think all the mental practicing I did yesterday helped! Day 5 feeding is accomplished! And dare I say it? I think Sir Stinky is a little less odiferous this morning. I did take a walk on the wild side yesterday and stirred his innards up with another hermetically sealed spork in order to aerate him. I think it helped and at the very least it did not hurt.
This morning he had a few bubbles in the sides of the glass. So I think he is alive but slumbering. I'll accept that!
I again helped control it's environment with the two glasses of ice water flanking either side.
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
2 oz of Sir Stinksalot
2oz of WW Flour
2 oz of Filtered Refridgerator Water
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 73.1F
Starter Temp - still too stinky to measure the temp!
Barometric Pressure 32.5mb and rising
Humidity 225% (Houston)
Using my trusty hermetically sealed spork from Taco Hell, my trusty bowls and scale, and my bandanna tied around my mouth to protect myself from the onerous stench, I completed the measure of new feed and old sourdough.
There was no boil up or otherdrama in the zebra pen yesterday so I think he is defeated but still putting up the cursory objections with his no bathing platform.
COMMENTARY:
Well, Happy Memorial Day to all! What can I say? I'm an experiential learner. I can read. I can write. I can see spot run. I can see Johnny chase spot. But when it comes right down to it, I learn by shear, boring repetition. Maybe that's not a bad thing? And maybe that's more common than naught. But the truth is, if I want to internalize something I must do it over and over and over again in order to move it from the short term memory files to the deeper intuitive level.
I say I'm an intuitive cook. I use my senses sure! Especially my sense of smell and sight. I see when colors change. I smell when something changes to a deeper note or tone. But I can usually look at a recipe and intuitively know how to get there from the list of ingredients. I "know" how it's going to taste in the end. I "know" how much of each ingredient I want to put in the recipe based on my "tastes", in order to reach "my" proper balance. It's a pinch of this, a handful of that. Like my grandmother.
But I only got to that level through years and years and years of kitchen drudgery. Doing the sheer repetition grunt work my teachers didn't want to do. I have peeled a mountain of spuds, cleaned acres of lettuce, cut thousands of tomatoes, and seeded, peeled, chopped and diced my way across the continental U.S., if you lined my vegetables up end to end. I have watched the pros in my life, my grandmother, dad, mom, sissies and brothers, now nephews and nieces cook. I've watched elite chefs cook. I've taken their classes for free while working in a cooking school, washing dishes and doing all the mise en place and prep cooking for the classes. And nothing has prepared me for now. For dealing with bread and yeast.
So now I'm back to the experiential learning of repetition. Of repeat then repeat some more...And for the second day in a row I'm proud to say that I can now take 2oz of starter and combine it with 2oz of water and 2oz of flour! Woooohooooo I'm crawlin' now but soon I'll be walkin' out that door!
The Beast is still smelly. A little less smelly than yesterday and sure there were more bubbles in the mix but it wasn't enough to make them rise. That's for sure! I've been stirring the little guy in the evening to really increase the aeration. I've been controlling his incubation temperature with the ice water. It stays about 71.3 degrees or so in his little corner of the world. I am determined! And I will intuit this process too! As God is my witness! ;)
Today I did something a tiny bit different. I can no longer say I'm using Mike Avery's recipe or process. (sorry Mike). But I really want to rid the world of the stench. I don't have any plain vinegar nor do I have o.j. in the house but I do have organically grown limes and lemons from our trees out on the patio. Brain picked 15 off our lime tree yesterday! So I added 1 tsp of freshly squeezed juice to the 2oz of water. I also switched from filtered fridge water to bottled water to see if maybe the chlorine was messing with his little self. So we'll see.
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
2 oz of Sir Stinksalot
2oz of WW Flour
2 oz of Bottled Water
1 tsp of Lime Juice, freshly squeezed
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 73.4F (before refilling the ice water glasses for the morning)
71.4F (after 30 minutes with the ice water environment)
Starter Temp - still too stinky to measure the temp!
Barometric Pressure 31.5mb and falling
Humidity 225% (Houston)
Using my trusty hermetically sealed spork from Taco Hell, my trusty bowls and scale, and my bandanna tied around my mouth to protect myself from the onerous stench, I completed the measure of new feed and old sourdough.
There was no boil up or otherdrama in the zebra pen yesterday so I think he is defeated but still putting up the cursory objections with his no bathing platform. I have decided to kill or be killed today. I've added the lime juice to see if acidifying his environment a touch will help kill the remnants of leukonostoc bacteria.
Hi BZ,
I've almost always had a fairly flagrant stinky phase when I've started starters at 80F with whole wheat. However, I would have expected it to be gone by now. The acids in the somewhat bubbling culture should make it pretty difficult for stinky things to live in it. By adding the lime juice, you should be well cured of any trouble with stinky stuff, I would have thought. Are you sure the stinky smell is still the same - would make you gag if you take a deep whiff? If not, you may be OK by now.
Assuming it's progressing more or less normally, you might want to consider switching over to white flour for the feedings sometime soon, unless your plan is to keep this as a whole wheat starter. Also, for ongoing feedings you may want to let the starter warm up to whatever warmer temperature you have closer to 80F in the kitchen. Keeping it cool may be helpful in the first day or two when that stinky phase happens. Other than that, it'll start up much faster at 80F than 70F. Also, a splash of lime juice for one feeding may help if there is a lingering stink in the starter, but adding it on subsequent feedings may just slow things down.
Good luck with it.
Bill
I think the smell now is just a slight background acridness. (I just finished taking a wiff of it! LOL and no gagging occured. It smells a little more "nutty" than vomitty). I only added the lime for today kinda like Floyd or I can't remember now who suggested a shot of vinegar but all I had was rice vinegar, malt vin, tarragon, and balsamic lol. So I went for the lime as lesser of the acidic evils.
I will also go remove the ice water now. It's actually been closer to 70's in it's environment today. I also wondered about whether to switch over to white flour. I mostly make white loaves for now, but didn't really know if feeding with wheat would just keep adding more of the good yeasties to combat Mr. L.. So tomorrow I will start feeding with AP flour and we'll see what happens.
There are some bubbles (very small and very few in it now). I'm determined lol, this first one is going to work!!! Right? :D
Thanks for the help, Bill! BTW, did you see the oven spring on the yeasted pagnottas? The crumb is soooo outrageously creamy too! I feel decadent when I eat it!
Hi BlueZebra,
I'm very happy to know the pagnotta conversion is a good recipe. It's always good to know what works.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the lime juice. You're pushing the pH lower with the lime juice, which may slow down the development of the pH sensitive lactobacillus you're trying to encourage once it starts to bubble. However, that will only be the case for this one feeding. If you feed it flour and water from here on out, it'll go back to normal acid levels for a starter very quickly. If the starter is bubbling, you might also consider feeding 1:2:2 every 12-24 hours. I've had better luck getting things going by using 80F and 1:2:2 every 12-24hrs , and feeding it when it seems runny or has stronger tangy smells in it, once it's bubbling. If it is rising markedly within 12 hours, you can try going to 1:4:4 every 12-24 hours. Once the activity is enough to raise the starter, it helps to have it live for a longer period at higher pH, which the higher feeding ratio does, so the lactobacillus have a chance to establish themselves. It helps to thicken the culture a little (85-90% hydration) once it starts to bubble.
I usually switch over to white AP flour once it is bubbling a little, but I don't know when the best time to switch really is.
Bill
I see some bubbles (very small pin heads) today on the sides of the glass and when I look down into the starter. But it isn't bubbly like Susan's looks in the TT / JMonkey How's It Goin Thread.
If it helps, I can take a pic and upload it. I was wondering if increasing the feeding proportions would be good. But didn't want to overwhelm the yeasties that were in it. Also I'm conflicted about when do you do 12 hour feeds and when do you do 24 hour feeds?
I know you get asked these questions all the time and I can do a site search but it's a bit comforting knowing you're discussing my individual situation! LOL, how's that for selfishness, eh? Anyways, let me know when you're tired of discussing and when I need to let research be my guide!
Also with regards to the pagnotta. Man I love this recipe. It's so simple really. You know? And the density of the bread is delicious. I would love to have you experienced people try it with the yeast to see if it tastes as good from your perspective as it does to mine! You know "in a vacuum" without anything brilliant to reference as a baseline, even mediocre tastes like nectar of the gods! :D
Hi BZ,
Yes, very good question. This is where it gets murky. I haven't started enough starters to be very confident about all this. I'm just relating my own particular experiences which amounts to about 25 starters in the last couple of years, a lot of them recently, due to some experimenting I've been doing. So, realize this advice is from limited experience. I think this is true of many if not most. We get one going, whatever way we do, and then we don't worry about it after that too much.
With those caveats, what I meant was "some" bubbles - not enough to cause the starter to rise, but enough to see them (usually a profusion of tiny ones) a few hours after feeding. If you have that activity, you should also notice that the smell changes so that 5-10 hours after feeding, it probably has a tangy sour smell or some kind of aromatic smell to it. Also, when the acids have built way up in the starter due to the fermentation activity, it makes the flour turn "runny". It loses that thick paste consistency and seems like soup. All of that means the yeast and lactobacillus are probably working away in there, but the numbers are a little low, and the balance between them all may not be right. To get it really going, you need to feed it often enough to replace the food supply, and more importantly, to bring the pH back up for a while. The lactobacillus can't multiply in numbers when the pH is too low. On the other hand, you need to let it ferment in between feeding long enough for the yeast and lactobacillus to multiply as much as possible. So, you can feed it too much or you can feed it too little. Either one can cause problems. Yeah, and you can't tell when it's too much or not enough. Below is what has worked for me, but it's awfully hard to describe "activity level", "bubbles but not rising", "rising a little".
When there is little or no obvious fermentation activity (few if any bubbles, not sour or tangy or aromatic smells), feeding 1:1:1 every 12-24 hours is probably about right. Then, when it begins to smell more aromatic or sour and have bubbles in it 12 hours after feeding, you may want to try 1:2:2 every 12-24 hours. And so on. If it is starting to actually rise noticeably, you can probably feed it 1:2:2 every 12 hours. When it's doubling in less than 12 hours with 1:2:2 feedings, you can try 1:4:4 every 12 hours or so.
I've found that it works well to feed something like 1:10:10 at room temperature every 12 hours with a completely active and healthy starter. I've also been trying Glezer's firm starter, and it seems to work to feed the firm starter 1:3:5 every 12 hours. That's keeping it very active. You can feed it much less often, or better yet, refrigerate it, once you have a good active starter.
I hope this helps. Unfortunately, between only doing 25 starters myself and not having found any really illuminating written material that gets into very much detail about what's really going on from day 3 to day 10 of starting a starter, this is about all I can come up with.
Bill
Even I can do that math! LOL!
Thanks so much for your information. I think it would be cool to keep track of the 3-10 day activity then maybe even publish something like that, Bill. Even if it's web material, you know?!
Here's a photo of the bubble activity. I think it's definitely alive. The temp here is only about 71 degrees indoors due to rain.
Bill, these shots were taken at 3:15, and the feeding time is generally 10:30 a.m., so roughly 5 hours post feed. Consistency is still a bit thick although for two mornings in a row, the consistency is pourable like a melted malted milkshake.
It occurs to me that I wouldn't know a "good" sour smell to the starter from a "bad" sour smell! It is sour. It is a tiny bit nutty. It is still a little reminiscent of the smell of New Orleans Bourbon Street on a Sunday morning in October! ;) There is an aromatic component of it, certainly!
Would you go to 1:2:2 at this point? Would you use 1oz of starter or 2oz of starter?
Thanks!
Hi BZ,
It looks like it has bubbles in it. If the consistency is getting fairly runny compared to what it was when you fed it, then that would be another indication of fermentation activity. I would probably feed it 1:2:2 and maybe use all white flour or half white, half whole wheat flour to start moving it to all white flour. It will be thinner using white flour because white flour absorbs quite a bit less water than whole wheat does. I would probably feed it about 10% extra flour, i.e. a 90% hydration, like 1:2:2.2, so you still have a fairly thick paste that is a little bit hard to stir. After 12 hours, if it again has bubbles, strong sour smells, and is getting runny, you could feed it 1:2:2 again. Or, if it doesn't seem very fermented after 12 hours, then let it continue for another 6-12 hours and see how it is then.
Once it starts to rise, you could feed it 1:2:2, and wait for it to finish rising and get smelly and runny. Then, feed it again 1:2:2, until it rises by double in less than 12 hours.
As far as amounts, I use quite small amounts. I have a scale that has a precision of about 1 gram. I use about 4-30 grams of starter in a total of 80-90 grams of starter. For example, if I'm feeding 1:1:1, I might do 30g:30g:30g of starter:water:flour. If I'm doing 1:2:2, it might be 16g:32g:32g, and actually once I'm doing white flour, I'm using 90% hydration so it might be 16g:30g:34g. To do a 12 hour cycle with my current active starter, I would feed it 4g:36g:40g.
I would work with smaller amounts, if you can. However, realize that small amounts of extra flour and water can make a big difference in consistency.
Bill
Ok Bill!
So my scale isn't so accurate as yours. Since that's the case, I will use 1oz as my minimum specimen.
My 10pm feeding will look like this: 1:2:2.2 (using AP flour)
1oz Starter: 2 oz water: 2.2oz AP Flour
.06lb Starter: .12lb Water: .132lb AP Flour
Hi BZ,
I'm just wondering if it is rising at all by now. It would be interesting to know how much it rises as a percent of the original volume right after feeding. It helps to mark the starting volume in some way and then monitor the time by which it rises by 25%, 50%, or 100% depending on how much it's rising, or maybe what percent it is rising at 6 hours or 12 hours after the feeding - whatever is most convenient. If it isn't rising, then you can try to (subjectively, admittedly) keep track of how many bubbles, how strong the smell, and how much is the change in consistency.
If it is rising even a small amount in 12 hours, it may well work to feed 1:2:2 (or 1:2:2.2 with white flour) every 12 hours, especially if it seems to be done rising and getting sour smelling and runny by the 12 hour point.
The smell can vary quite a lot, but in general it's usually not a "stinky" smell, like the baby vomit or spoiled smells you got in the beginning that make you want to gag if you take too deep of a whiff. Sometimes it's sour or sharp or tangy. Sometimes it's flowery or sweet or alcoholic. You can get a lot of different smells in the intermediate stage before it becomes healthy, so don't worry too much about that. The evidence of activity is that the smell intensifies as the hours go by and should be very noticeable at the end of 12 hours, if not well before. If you smell an acetone smell, that is a sign it needs to be fed.
Bill
The little rascal is indeed rising! Are you sure it's the good stuff? The smell is stronger as I can tell and the consistency is more runny. Very foamy and bubbly. I will take a piccy at exactly 12 hours which will only be in about 10 more minutes! It's almost doubled by this time!
I plan on transferring to a real jar now and will mark the original volume. I will feed the 1:2:2.2 of white flour AP
Here are photos and the 2nd feeding for today has been accomplished!
Hi BZ,
Good chance it's the "good stuff". The next part of the process is to strengthen and stabilize the starter. What should happen is that as you feed it 1:2:2.2 with white flour, it will rise by double sooner. When it is taking around 8 hours to double (or less), you could try going to a 1:4:4.4 feeding ratio every 12 hours. Of course it will take a few hours longer for the starter to double with that feeding ratio, but the starter should strengthen some more after a few feedings at that ratio, and sooner or later it will double in less than 8 hours after the 1:4:4.4 feeding. When it is doubling in less than 8 hours for a 1:4:4.4 feeding, you could then try a 1:10:11 feeding. About the fastest mine will double after a feeding of 1:10:11 is in about 8 hours or so. Then it can ripen until the 12 hour point. I can leave my starter on the counter feeding it 1:10:11 every 12 hours. That same starter if it is ripe doubles after a 1:2:2 feeding in about 4.5 hours at 72F.
I usually let the starter double, stir it down (if I'm there, but it's not critical to stir it down), and let it rise a while longer. It seems to me everything works well if you let it ferment for another few hours after it has doubled. The ratios mentioned above are meant to allow for the whole cycle to happen every 12 hours. That's why you would increase the feeding ratio when you are doubling in less than 8 hours.
Oh, and the runny consistency you have seen should diminish. You'll still get the intensifying aroma, but the consistency should remain much more pastelike but with lots of air in it, after doubling and for a few hours after that, once the starter is more active and healthy.
Once the starter has gone through a number of cycles and is clearly healthy and active and at "full strength", you can go into maintenance mode. One version of that is the blog entry on 100% starter maintenance. However, I'm also maintaining a Glezer firm starter and also using a 1:10:11 feeding ratio every 12 hours for my 100% starter, which is different from what I've done for the last couple of years and described in the blog entry on 100% hydration starter maintenance.
According to some scientific papers and a couple of articles I've read, if you routinely use higher feeding ratios like 1:10:11 (or a firm starter like Glezer's fed at about 1:3:5), you should get a starter with relatively larger amounts of lactobacillus than one where you feed it 1:2:2 or 1:1:1 routinely, since the pH is always much lower when you repeatedly feed using a 1:2:2 ratio, compared to using a 1:10:11 ratio.
Bill
Ok I didn't answer you last night because oh my... you "sploded my head" with all your sourdough numbers! You must waltz into this gently with me. Remember I'm Remedial Rita when it comes to the numbers! I "think" I understand what you're telling me...but I will re-read it and digest it again over coffee!
General Chaos has only risen about 3/4" over his starting point, marked by the top edge of a piece of cello tape. Maybe he's in shock cuz I only left him one kidney last night when I split him into 1oz?
Or maybe he's sayin, "I'm a wheaty! Dammit I need my wheaties! I don't want this week a88 white crap. Have you lost your bloomin' mind?"
At any rate, I don't think we will see his face on the box of Wheaties any time soon so the world is safe! :D I will feed him a 1:2:2 ratio feed of AP flour this morning. I'm teetering between adding about a 1/2 tsp of lime juice for grins and giggles or just letting it go as is? Maybe I will do that tomorrow if he doesn't show alot of activity today. It's so fun playing "mad scientist"!
Anyways, I will be back in about 15 minutes to give my commentary on Day 7! ;)
Hi BZ,
Don't worry, it should speed up soon. Yes, it will slow down a bit with the white flour at first, but with patience it will start to do it's thing again.
If you could estimate the percentage rise, where 100% rise would be a doubling from the original volume, that would help. That fact that it is rising by 3/4 inch sounds like a very good start, but it really helps to know what percent rise it is.
If it were up to me, I'd leave out the lime juice going forward. If it's rising and getting sour, the acid levels should be high enough without the lime juice using a 1:2:2 feeding. Although the lime juice acidifies the culture, which may help with getting rid of any lingering stinky organisms, it also will discourage the lactobacillus in the culture.
Bill
I would guess then that the % rise was 30% in round figures. I still am not thinking it's smellling like a sourdough oughtta smell (in my head) cuz I've never smelled a starter before. It's a bit like asking me to draw an elephant and I've never seen one before, right? :D
I also began to think it was the difference in the glasses as well. One is tall and narrower so there's less air/o2. So I put it back in the same type of glass for today. I won't start using the Ball jars until I'm sure the bad guys are completely gone and I start to build the starter volume for baking!
I also think that the difference in temperature overnight versus during the day might be a factor? It's about a 2-3degree difference in the room from night to day. Right now it's 74 in the zebra pen and early this morning it was 71.7. I look at it this way, at least right now we will get some reports on days 6-10 for you, Bill! :D
COMMENTARY: It's been a busy day at the zoo and the zebra pen has been active today with lots of work and little play save for playing hooky here on the fl website. So I'm still not convinced that I'm not raising a budding crop of Leuconostoc bacteria. I'm still not having that loving feeling about the smell. It certainly smells nothing like my preferments after 12 or more hours. I really would have to stretch my imagination to say it smells "yeasty" and like bread. It's still pretty sour and not too pleasing to the nostrils and as my nose is getting stuffy I have to ask, has anyone died from sniffing leuconostoc bacteria? If they can and I do? Please no flowers but speak of me well and drink lots of wine and beer and eat great bread for me!
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
1:2:2 FEEDING DONE AT 12 HOUR INCREMENTS WITH AP FLOUR AT 10:30 AM/PM.
1 oz of Sir Stinksalot
2oz of AP Flour
2 oz of Bottled Water
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 74.7(before refilling the ice water glasses for the morning)
Starter Temp - still too stinky to measure the temp!
Barometric Pressure 30 mb and rising
Humidity 225% (Houston)
The little guy is still kinda stinky. He only grew about 30% since this mornings feeding. Nothin more to add...hope I'm not raising leuconostoc.
I don't know anything about leuconostoc, but it sounds nasty. I never even heard of it until I found this site...is it really that prevalent? Still, I wonder what could be causing the strong smell? Maybe you will be like me and start seeing significant rises on about day 9, and maybe it will sweeten up. You don't have that much longer to wait...
Katie in SC
COMMENTARY: Well this is the first evening where I have real hope in the General Chaos. I think he is slowly growing and I think the chances of him taking over the world are very slim. At least not today. He's grown by 50% at 12 hours. I fed him again tonite with AP flour and stirred his little brains up! He informs me he has very little frontal lobe left so I better mind my p's and q's.
For some unknown reason I departed from my measurements. I thought....him maybe if I just give him a little bit more flour to water he'll like things a little better...and it was only after I did it that I realized I prolly made my hydration equation hideous. I mean their's gotta be a reason that all the sourdough numbers Bill talks about are in geometric proportions, right?
So not trusting in his good nature I put him in a 32oz pink cup, thinking that might either neutralize his testosterone or else spur it on! He did smell alot like vinegar tonight, but the baby puke smell is kinda absent. So maybe there's hope in the lil guy yet!
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
.07lb starter : .15 flour : .12 bottled water FEEDING DONE AT 12 HOUR INCREMENTS WITH AP FLOUR AT 10:30 AM/PM.
1 oz of Sir Stinksalot (it's on the high side of 1 oz)
2oz of AP Flour (.15 oz is on the high side of 2oz. More like 2.4 oz)
2 oz of Bottled Water
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 74.7(before refilling the ice water glasses for the morning)
Starter Temp - still too stinky to measure the temp!
Barometric Pressure 30.5 mb and rising
Humidity 225% (Houston)
I really think he turned the corner today. He doesn't stink. He's more acidic/vinegary smelling today. He's also more viscous tonight at pre-feed. The 2.4oz of flour to 2oz of water and 1oz of starter made a much firmer paste-like starter so maybe that will make a difference. I'm planning on doing a 1:4:4 tomorrow. Don't know why I plan on it exactly. But I figure what the hey? Right?
I think he's turning the corner, too! I'm looking forward to your next update, because it was day 9 when my dear Stanley finally started to act like a starter. I'll keep my fingers crossed!
Katie in SC
for you please.
Today is Day 9 and it's time for the second feeding and I really don't know what to feed General Chaos.
Or I should say how much. I did feed a 1:4:4 today at 10:30 am and he's still only rising by about 55-60%. It's only 74 in the house. I guess I could put it in the micro with a glass of warm water to bring it closer to 80...
Any ideas about ratios to feed it?
TIA! I need to be feeding it soon... no pressure or anything! ;)
Hi BZ,
Warm is good. If you can get up to 80F by setting some warm water next to it in a well insulated container (like the microwave oven), that will help. JMonkey and Ehanner showed me about using a cooler with a bowl of warm water in it. You might try that, if you have a cooler and don't want to tie up the microwave.
As far as the feeding ratio, I still haven't figured out what works best or how to tell. I would normally feed it again if it seems very runny and smelly and heavily fermented. If it doesn't seem very fermented, you could switch back to a lower feeding ratio like 1:2:2 for a few more feedings or just let the 1:4:4 one go until the next morning and see how it is then.
I hope it works. I'll be somewhat out of touch, with dicey internet access, for the next few days. Hopefully it'll just take off and start working for you. I'll check in if I can to find out how it's going. Good luck with it.
Bill
Look forward to hearing about your adventures and sea bread!
I learned to sail on a little 4 man Boston Whaler (day sailor) - lake sailing. And hubby used to sail in the Atlantic. It's been a loooooong time since we last sailed though!
I must have been reading your mind. I went ahead and went back to 1:2:2. I'm too tired to try to figure things out about raising the temp tonight but I will work on it tomorrow. It smelled like vinegar tonight but it was more loose viscous dough than runny.
Anyways! Have a great time!
How is your consistency now? Is it real runny, or gooey when it is time to feed?
I found with mine that after it built up with bubbles, it was real gooey, I would stir it back down and let it eat for another couple hours before I would feed it again. By the time 12 hours was up the consistency was very runny. I would then feed again, and start the process over.
Like Bill has said, I would go to the 1:2:2 ratio again for a while to get your boys up fully before hitting them with a higher feeding ratio.
My guys are still running strong, but I am currently feeding them all 2:4:4. For me I like the idea of starting them out with 2 oz. of starter so I can be sure it is an even pool of established starter going into the feeding.
Im not trying to claim the role of expert in this, you know my story. But this is what Im doing in case it helps.
TT
Tonight I decided to do 2oz of the little guy instead of the 1oz I've been doing thinking I was reducing their numbers too much, you know? Mike Avery told me it would be much harder doing it with smaller quantities but the scrooge in me just hates wasting so much flour! LOL, silly right? I guess there were too many days in the 70's when my dad lost his business where we added every penny together to make $20 at the grocery store feed 4 for as long as possible!
But I did feed 2oz: 4oz : 4oz tonight so we will see how they're doing. I think they did right at 75% rise in 12 hours at around 74 degrees today so maybe I'm not too far off? Maybe be able to bake with it this weekend?
I think your idea of stirring them at 2 hours is a good one and I will try that for tomorrow to see if that helps jolt them! The dough at the end of the 12 hours is bubbley and gooey. It isn't runny. There for awhile it was but not anymore. But the smell is definitely better than before. It's still an acidic sour vinegar smell but isn't stinky like throw up.
Will it ever smell like my yeasted preferments after 12 hours? I miss that lovely yeasty smell of bread rising. :D Thanks for your help! I can hardly wait to make the apple bacon onion bread!
I would be surprised if it will ever smell like that. My yeasted preferments smell great. My starters stink. I know some folks says their smells like candy and such. I havent come across any candy that smells like my starter. I probly wouldnt eat it if I did. My starters are smelly. The wheat one is much stronger, I even turn away a little when I stir it due to its sour smell. My white isnt so bad, but it still isnt candy.
But I am trying to make sourdough so I dont have big hopes for sweet smelling. Thats why I continue to love my yeast poolish breads. It just smells GREAT, before during and after the bake.
Have a good night...
TT
No one has told me that! I just kept expecting it to smell like warm and yummy bakers yeast. This was started as a whole wheat but I would guess it's now a white starter since I'm using AP flour.
I guess I won't ever give up the poolishes then cuz I love that smell!!
Oh btw, I meant to say your stirs 2 hours prior to the twelve hour mark sound like a good idea but I wrote it wrong! :D
Have a good evening yourself. (Hey I made a pretty interesting dish tonight to go with our "crack slaw"). It was a "calzone" of sorts made with pizza dough I made this past weekend. So it's been in the fridge since Saturday. I filled it with a potato, onion, garlic and mushroom, a bit of roma tomato and a tiny bit of leftover zucchini and mozzarella cheese and 3 crisp pieces of bacon crumbled into it. Then baked it at 475 for about 25 minutes. Seasoned it with salt pepper thyme and a bit of basil. Then had fresh grated parmesan.
I thought it was pretty awesome and it made a very large calzone. It gave me and dh a serving each with a leftover serving each per person for tomorrow's lunch!
COMMENTARY: This is a brief account posted in retrospect since Day 9 was yesterday. The little guy had a good day. Kept mostly quiet with a bit of muttering but was altogether happy to be back on his "home planet" or should I say in it. I moved him to an empty Claussen dill pickle quart jar thinking that yesterday would be his "breakout" day.
Now some of you might be gasping at doing this thinking you're messing up your culture with the smell! But I contest. The little tike was already smelling like vinegar. So I figured it couldn't hurt too bad! So he had room to spread out and stretch all his fingers and toes (he looks more like an amoeba than a yeast).
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
1:4:4 at the a.m. feeding
1 oz General Chaos: 4 oz AP flour: 4 oz bottled water
2:4:4 at the p.m. feeding
2 oz General Chaos: 4 oz AP flour: 4 oz bottled water
12 hours apart at a 10:30/10:30 schedule
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 74.0(before refilling the ice water glasses for the morning)
Starter Temp - still too stinky to measure the temp!
Barometric Pressure 31.5 mb and rising
Humidity 225% (Houston)
I think he continues to get stronger each day. Each day he improves his rise percentage at the 12 hour mark. By last night he had risen by about 65 to 70% in 12 hours. I fed him the 1:4:4 yesterday morning thinking he just needed "more food" to play around in and it didn't really impress him too much. He only rose to about 60%. What I'm seeing is that with each feeding he improved about somewhere between 5-10% on strength of his 12 hour rise.
So thinking he just needed to increase his sample meaning going from 1oz to 2oz, there would be more yeast in the remnant to reproduce quicker...makes sense. More yeast to bud and propogate, the quicker the numbers increase and the more CO2 they give off causing a bigger rise. Which is indeed what happened.
After talking to TattoedTonka last night, he suggested also going to the 2:4:4 feeding and to also stir General Chaos at the 10 hour mark then let him rise again until the 12 hours are up. He was looking for an increase in "runniness" of the starter which is an indication of fermentation activity.
So following his advice I stirred GC this morning at 9am and will let it go till about 11.
Wonderful, bluezebra! You'll be baking by the weekend, I know it!
I made some english muffins using some of my starter this morning--delicious. Check my blog entry if you'd like to try the recipe. It's a good use of starter that you'd otherwise throw out.
Katie in SC
Wow homemade english muffins sound great! I will go read about it. I sure hope you are taking piccys of everything!
Well I bit the bullet this morning and made the decision that although General Chaos may not be the strongest starter in the world, that he wouldn't kill us at least, if we used his extra parts up! :D So after mixing his 2oz of self up with the new feeding this morning I took his "remains" and mixed up a batch of Bill's Sourdough Pagnotta since I know that has worked for me in the past in a yeasted version. I'm going to use half of it as pizza dough tonight and the rest will take as long as it takes in order to get a loaf of bread out of it!
If I have to I can always add yeast to the little bugger! :D It took every smidgeon of starter I had to make up the 1 cup of starter. I added 1 cup of starter or 8oz (which is almost 400 grams) to 800grams or 1.75lbs of flour (a mix of 100g of WW and 700g of AP flour). I have him in the oven right now with the light on and am using the helpful tip about removing the oven knob so I don't spaz and turn on the oven accidentally! :D I'm anticipating that I will have to yeast him in order to give him a boost but we'll see how it goest by about 4 this afternoon! :D Maybe he'll surprise us all! His siamese twin is already bubbling in it's new home of a real bonified quart sized mason jar. So I think they may be "feeling their oats" a bit!
Maybe I will have enough starter to make the english muffins with tomorrows leftover after the feed!
Katie it sure has been fun doing this kinda together! The moral support has sure helped me out no end! :D
Happy baking girl!
BZ
Well, I have enjoyed it tremendously. It really does help to do it with someone else, so you can compare notes. I was surprised at how simple it really was, feeding ratios and related maths notwithstanding. I don't care for the maths too much. =)
I will be waiting with bated breath (where does that expression come from, anyway?) to see how the pagnotta comes out! I just slid two pugliese loaves into the oven (BBA recipe). I am almost as excited about yours as I am about mine. We really are baking geeks.
Keep us posted...
Katie in SC
you can walk just fine immediately following the birth! :eek: <who said that? did you say that Katie! For shame!> hahaha!
One of my little problems is that I haven't been able to afford buying baking books yet. So I don't have those and am going by recipes here and also at sourdoughhome.com. I did buy Mike Avery's two online books and they are very helpful with beautiful recipes and a steal for the price doing the online versions! You should look at them. www.sourdoughhome.com
Ha, BZ. I couldn't walk at all after my two were born--I had c-sections (they wouldn't turn, stubborn little animals). So there.
I will check out Mike's recipe books. I have the BBA and a few others, but none of the other "esteemed" books like the BBA is.
Katie
Shakespeare was the first writer we know of to use bated breath, in 1596 in The Merchant of Venice, I.iii.125:
Susan from San Diego
Wonderful to know, Susan! Thanks!
Katie in SC
Specifically to the zebra pen at the zoo! Things are always poppin and colorful round these part so set a spell and I invite you to explore your inner blue!
Thanks for the literary reference I will be sure to file this away with my other treasures in my little book borrowed from Cliff Claven from Cheers: "Cliff Claven's Book of Archane Facts". I am known in my family to start sentences with, "Well you know, Naaaahhhhhhmmmy, it's a little known fact that..."
But what do you think "bated" means in this reference? :D
"Waiting with bated breath" to me means "I'll be holding my breath until you return." Have you ever found yourself anticipating something so much that you hold your breath until it happens? My favorite scene in The Rocky Horror Picture Show is where Tim Curry is on the elevator and beautifully delivers the line "I see you shiver with antici...pation." Sorry, got off-topic there!!!
Susan from San Diego
Love the show Rocky Horror! And great line too!
And yes, "I'm holding my breath until...fill in blank!" is commonly used in our family! I never knew that bated was short for abated. That's cool to know. So thanks!!
I've noticed your absence and I would like to know if you have a note from your doctor for this? In order for it to be an excused absence we MUST have a note from your doc!
I don't know about entertaining lol but I know the three stooges are funny! And since I'm pretty close to a stooge maybe? I know my follies here sure should help reassure other newbies that dough is more forgiving than previously thought! :D
Glad you're back and don't be gone so long next time! Work should NEVER interfere with your posting and community responsibilities you know! ;)
Bluezebra and Katie,
I just wanted to thank the two of you (and Bill and TT etc) for all this! I've been checking this blog sporadically, but finally sat down and read it all today, and what a lesson! I've had two starters going, one revived from near death by chlorination, the other a brand new one, but was getting very depressed at how slow it was all going.
I jumped the gun and tried baking with one the other day, and produced an exceedingly tasty paving stone. I went back to regular feedings and realized it was taking both almost 12 hours to double after a 1:2:2 feeding.
Of course, things are so crazy-busy here that I'm too spaced out to even remember when they were both started (no really, I can't remember if it's two weeks or three!), but along with everything else, I suddenly noticed what kind of temperatures you all were talking about. 70's? Wow, I had to light off the woodstove this morning. My kitchen is still in the lower 60's.
Having had that moment of blinding insight, I moved both starters over next to the stove which was on to roast a chicken and then bake a couple of yeasted loaves, and voila! Doubling in something less than 9 hours, stirred down, and rose up again inside the hour. Hooray!
So thank you for a great blog; between this and the JMonkey/TT escapade, my hope of a sourdough starter springs once again eternal!
Have a great evening!
edh
in bread baking or I fear I will lead you down the primrose path and leave you lost in your own private idaho somewhere, looking down countless oak streets trying to find home! :eek:
Thanks for your kindness though because it makes me feel comfort to know there are others out there as clueless as myself! ;) NOT! I'm the queen of clueless!!!! :D bwahahaha!
Sorry you have been having starter woes! :( And glad to hear you have worked them out. Wow 60's! You da man! It's already hotter n hell down here and I'm drivin' the bus! I'll trade ya ok? :D
BTW, never underestimate the power of sacrificing a chicken to the sourdough gods ok? :D As long as you promise the Big Kahuna it's only in jest and you KNOW he's the only one, you shouldn't get in any trouble with the guy upstairs. :D Hope your starter continues to strengthen! Hope you will come back and keep us informed! We will also add you to our starter prayer list.
Isn't this a wonderful resource for sourdough, among everything else? I'm totally new to it, and yet with BZ and bwraith's help (plus the countless other posts from other people that I have read), I have a new, rip-roaring starter that has already baked bread and english muffins, no commercial yeast added. I hope you'll update us with your progress! Hey, why not start your own blog here?
Happy weekend,
Katie in SC
No, no--on the sourdougn front, I am as clueless as the next newbie. Really. Don't let my good luck with this one fool you.
Pizza at 10? Did you have awful heartburn? =)
Katie
COMMENTARY: This is a brief account posted in retrospect since Day 10 was yesterday. The little guy had a good day. He wasn't quite so happy cuz I put him into a bonafide canning jar. I think he preferred being in the pickle jar (the land of his own people). It was quite an eventful day for him. I fed him in the morning and used his remains to make the charter run or maiden voyage although he's a guy not a maiden.
Now some of you might be gasping at doing this thinking you're messing up your culture - it's too soon! But I contest. GC was rising 75% although it was in 12 hours not in 4 hours...Sigh. The events of the first baking can be followed in a separate blog posting. Here's yesterdays feeding method.
METHOD: (this is an effort to fix a screw up. not the original recipe.)
2:4:4 at the a.m. feeding
2 oz General Chaos: 4 oz AP flour: 4 oz bottled water
2:4:4 at the p.m. feeding
2 oz General Chaos: 4 oz AP flour: 4 oz bottled water
12 hours apart at a 10:30/10:30 schedule
Elevation Right above Hell (at or below sea level)
Ambiant Temp 74.7(before refilling the ice water glasses for the morning)
Starter Temp - still too stinky to measure the temp!
Barometric Pressure 29 and falling (I've been informed the units are NOT mb - millibars and if we were at 29 milibars we'd be dead. That's why I'm Pinky the Blue Zebra and my hubby is the Brain Blue Zebra.
Humidity 225% (Houston)
I think he continues to get stronger each day. He rose to 75% yesterday morning. I knocked him back with a stir a couple of hours prior to feeding then let him sit and ruminate on who's boss in this kitchen! Then I fed him. He was more runny than gooey at the feed thanks to TT's tip on the stirring!
Yesterday he didn't rise a full 75% for some reason. Maybe he doesn't like having a lid screwed on? I had been covering only with plastic wrap that was kinda loose. Who knows? Maybe he was missing his fellow yeasties?
So I fed him last night and put him in yet another home. This time a plastic measuring cup. He rose to about 60%. Not sure he's happy yet.
Well, keep on keeping on, BZ! Mine is now faithfully rising to double at 6 hours, doing 1:4:4 feedings (not ounces but by ratio--if I start with 40 g of starter, I then add 160 g water and 160 g flour--I've been increasing my amounts so I have a full cup to make with). I have been feeding it every 12 hours and it seems to be happy. It never does fall back between feedings.
I'd like to do a pizza crust tonight with it--what recipe did you use? (Or did I just imagine you saying you were going to do a sourdough pizza?)
Katie
You two are becoming a serious lifeline for me at the moment! I know I should start my own blog (as well as learn to post photos), but could I continue to kibbitz here for a couple of days?
My two little dears are snoring away next to the stove, with bubbles, but not a whole lot of height goin' on, 6 hours after a 1:2:2 feeding. Of course, it's only 64 in there, and I never lit the woodstove today as we had to drive 3 hours inland (to where it was 20 degrees warmer; 79! I so wasn't ready for that...) to pick up a new hive of bees. Ours all died over the winter :-(
I think I'm just going to feed them (the starters, not the bees) for a bit, and try to make myself bake with yeast for a while. The other day my husband said, rather plaintively, "The sourdough was nice when it worked, but couldn't we just have some plain bread again?" Guilt! So yesterday I tried Hammelman's country bread. Very nice, though it would have been nicer if I hadn't gotten distracted at work and forgotten the dough for several hours. Comes out kinda dense without folding...
thank you both for all the information (and humor) here. Your recording of your processes is inspiring! Maybe someday soon I'll pull myself together and start writing down what I'm doing...
edh
Kibbitzing is the most fun of all! As for your temperature situation do you only have a wood stove for cooking? Or do you have an electric oven?
One thing BillWraith suggested to me was to make an incubator out of an igloo cooler. I think ehanner or someone uses it very successfully? I'm about to try it for my starter too. I would put a cup of water or two in there along with a thermometer and get it so it's about 80 degrees. Then put your starter container in there. Then just check the temp every few hours. When I did it yesterday with my bread I put it in the oven with the oven light on and a cup of hot tap water. It raised the temp from 73 in the kitchen to 82 degrees. So I know that works but I had to refill the hot tap water (from the faucet) every couple of hours.
Hope that helps and we know you can do it!!! Just don't give up. I just bet it's your room temperature!