After making sourdough breads with varying success since 1968 I finally came to the realization that with all the variations in amount of sour to use and the time for the leavin to mature and the sponge to rest and the autolysis to occur I just did what the dough told me to do in terms of texture and rise and I went with that. I ended up with a bread that rose beautifully, baked in it's own steam in the closed clay cloche had a wonderful crumb, not very sour, but, still it was 100% sourdough starter made. I'm happy.
Lovely! and give it a day or two for the flavour to really come out.
Glad you're back into baking sourdough Stuart.
I love your name. I say it every Friday evening as do the 5 grandchildren.
I hope to have some bread left in a couple days. My kids want pieces. A friend who bakes bread drove over and asked for a quarter of it. We are going out to dinner with friends tonight and one of them told me to bring him and his wife a good size quarter of it too.
I just fed the sour. Maybe I'll actually be able to duplicate it this week.
You got a great crumb there too. It looks very tender. Good job!
out the best in the baker! Very nice in deed. Well done and happy baking Stu.
Thank you for your kind words.
I just refreshed my sour so I can make another one. It's fun to be creative.
Since you've just refreshed your starter for another bake...
Recently I've taken a more relaxed approach to my bread baking taking on board the view that bread is very forgiving. Whereas when I first started to make bread I was very strict about catching the starter at the given time I have lately been allowing it to mature more so and have been getting much more tang. So when I build a Levain for a recipe which advises a 12 hour build I have been letting it go for a few hours more. The difference is more than subtle.
for 24-48 hours for the same reason - to bring out the tang, acetic acid that is promoted with cool temperatures. Great SD bread, in my book, is a balance of sour (lactic acid) and tang (acetic acid).
Not sure if it tastes more acetic or lactic but definitely not mellow anymore. Thanks for the idea of further retarding the levain to coax out more depth of flavour. My weekend bake is going to have to start being planned midweek.
I did not understand the chemistry of the sour. I happen to have a large bottle/jar of acetic acid in my spice pantry at all times. I use it to sour my Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup/Borcht or my cold beet soup. I had thought of sprinkling a little into the dough of a sourdough bread to bring out the sour a little more, but hesitated doing it. Why not try?????
If I tried to manipulate the starter to get all the flavour out of the natural ferment.
your sourdough looks wonderful. i'm sure the taste was fantastic.
claudia
It was a pretty good tasting loaf. I'll attempt it once again, soon, before I forget the techniques.