So I am blessed with a rather sweet starter and tang normally eludes me. Don't get me wrong, I get lovely tasting loaves and very happy with my starter, but tang it's not its strongest point. I laugh when people tell me they don't eat sourdough because they don't like sour bread. How little do they know that sourdough does not always equate to "sour" but rather the process. You can get all different lovely flavours which don't have to be sour/tangy. And if you have a naturally sweeter starter it can be a right job to get some tang out of it. So this leads me to my sour sourdough quest.
I came across this recipe on the wonderful My Weekend Bakery site for their version of San Francisco "style" Sourdough Bread. I'll post the brif recipe here and i'll give the website address which has a very detailed recipe with explanation...
https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/san-francisco-style-sourdough-bread/
Ingredients for the Starter:
- 126 g bread flour
- 83 g water
- 24 g sourdough culture
Left to mature for 9 hours and then refrigerated for 34 hours!
Ingredients for the SF Style Sourdough
makes 1 loaf (65,2% hydration)
- Starter (233 g total weight)
- 264 g bread flour
- 50 g spelt flour (pref. whole grain)
- 204 g water
- 9 g salt
SF Sourdough Time Table
Day 1 23.00h Make starter let ferment for 9 hours at room temperature
Day 2 08.00h Put the starter in the fridge for approx 34 hours!
Day 3 17.00h – 18.40 h Making the dough
- Starter + water 1 minute stirring
- Add flour + salt 3 minute kneading
- 15 minutes rest
- Stretch and fold
- 15 minutes rest
- Stretch and fold
- 40 minutes rest at room temperature
Day 3 18.40h Put dough in fridge for 15 hours
Day 4 10.00h Take dough from fridge and leave at room temperature for 2 hours
Day 4 12.00h Shape the loaf and leave to proof for about 2,5 – 3 hours
Day 4 14.30 – 15.00 h Bake for 45 minutes at 235 ºC / 455 ºF
SUCCESS! We have a tangy loaf. It's not overpowering but it's tangy and flavourful. More going on than just tang too.
Abe, have you tried Whole Rye grain in your starters? I've tried a lot of things to get sour. I love the taste. But in my experience nothing makes sour better than Rye.
Caution; it will run through the "feed to recede" cycle much faster than bread flour. It's a beast {;-)
Dan --- I really wished we lived next door to each other ---
By-the-way; how would you describe the flavor of this bread?
My oldest starter is the wheat one which has gone through many changes over the past four years. Different flours to different hydrations. It is now 100% hydration 50:50 bread flour and whole wheat. This one has never been a tangy starter. This is the one which I'm using for my experiments in bringing out the sour. I think when a starter is created it is the crucial time for the characteristics the starter will take on. Yes, changes to the starter can be made and different qualities can be coaxed out of but it's not that easy.
I have another younger starter which has always been 100% whole rye. I think it's a bit more tangy but not overly so. And while a starter can be tangy or not there's also the qualities in the flour used in the final bread to take into account. For instance an Einkorn has naturally got a more earthy and tangy taste but that's got nothing to do with the starter.
Here we have a bread flour loaf with some whole wheat (oh, and I also used up a few grams of whole rye flour in this loaf), used my wheat flour starter and tried a different method in the build, maintenance and production of the loaf. With good results.
the ones made with whole grain, fresh milled wheat used for the starter and levain using the Dutch Desem process. Whole grain rye is second though. The wee beasties and enzymes in rye are not at all the same as wheat. There are some wheat based yeast in the laboratory that can also be made to produce as much acid as the LAB in SD under the right conditions and some LAB can be made to produce as much ethanol as yeast too when the fructose runs out.. Fructose can also be used to make the LAB produce more acid buy supplying another electron to the process. The wee beasties are not all the same and we continue to learn more about them through science ..... but the science is very slow on coming since it will not make money or save lives. So we wait impatiently :-)
You said, " I think when a starter is created it is the crucial time for the characteristics the starter will take on. Yes, changes to the starter can be made and different qualities can be coaxed out of but it's not that easy."
I'm no authority, but that has not been my experience. I find starter conversion very easy and straightforward.
Maybe DAB will comment. HIs NMNF is outstanding after 6 weeks or so. Yes, when I rebuild the starter it does loose that sour taste. So, in order to have a constant supply of sour, I build 3 of them, separated by 4 - 6 weeks apart. Since the dough balls are so small, they store incredibly easy.
Dan
There are ways to bring out different characteristics of a starter but at the same time all our starters are different. So the wee beasties in my starter have the capabilities to make a sour or sweeter loaf the same as your starter. But the wee beasties in my starter will either be different or different yeasts might be dominant to your starter. Changing the composition of a starter once it is mature and the yeasts/bacteria which have taken up home has been decided I think would be more difficult. What I do from time to time is make other starters and combine them into my main starter. Therefore I'm introducing other cultures and possible it can change.
Nice one Dan. Looks like a good idea.
Detmolder process of levain building, (not starter building - you are building a levain using a bit of starter) is low hydration and cold to get the LAB to produce acetic instead of lactic acid that it normally makes. The process of slow though since wee beasties do not act fast in the cod just like us:-) So the longer the better - 34 hours. in this case but a NMNF starter could be weeks, and weeks with the same idea in mind. Lactic acid is the base sour but it is the acetc acid that produces the 'Tang'. SFSD without both is not quite right and lactic acid only SD is lacking in flavor. But it is true that most people do not ike sour bread and one reason why it is tiny in production when compared to yeast breads.
The retard of the dough for 15 hours, also at low hydration, helps the LAB to continue to produce acetic acid. This kind of bread is my favorite white bread by far and away. Adding some whole grains to the mix will also bring out mire sour overall in the finished bread as the bran acts as 'buffer' that allows the LAB to continue to produce acid at lower pH;s than normal and this more sour. Getting all the whole grains, especially the bran, in the starter and levain as early as possible is the way to do this the best.
Science has made SD baking so much easier to control in every respect. We are so lucky that it is no longer a bunch of old wives tales and myths that previous SD bakers lived by.
Happy sour baking Abe
I think the reason why I got good flavour is that I did a warm starter maintenance/feed on Sunday and Tuesday. On Thursday I built the levain and matured it for 9 hours at 78.6°F then I refrigerated it for 36 hours. So I think I'm getting both lactic and acetic acid. That's where the good flavour comes from. It's not just sour. It's got more depth then that.
I'm pleased because this has proven that my starter is capable atleast of more than a milder sweeter flavour. It's in the method!
I can buy a bag of wheat bran which is what I'm going to do for my starter/levain builds from now on.
With your NMNF starter am I to understand that once it runs low you build it up again but then the flavour will be more mellow, no? And then the sour builds up over time. So your breads will be different over the coming months?
are reproducing like crazy but the yeast reproduction is being restricted for the first (2) 4 hour stages and the 1 hour or so 3rd stage till it rises 25% . Then into the fridge for up to half a year where the sour becomes more pronounced and acetic and the yeast is being restricted further still. But the cold makes everything very, very slow and it takes 8 - 12 weeks to really taste the difference. That is why I have two that are at least 8 weeks apart, usually 12, in age in the fridge. As I use one up and refresh it the other one is ready to go. Using 10 g a week gets me to 120 g in 12 weeks so I usually build 130 g so that I have 10 g to refresh with at the end.
Happy No Muss No Fussing
one apple and one fig, the past 2 days, that were un-maintained in t he fridge for about half a year. They came back easily enough so they must be NMNF too! I have a 100% hydration, 200 g total weight,AP levain going with 50 g of each YW for the liquid. Will be making some Hokkaido Milk bread rolls with it ....like the ones posted earlier this past week - maybe a 3 sectioned bread using the tall oriental pullaman sans ldi
Probably like cold storage in a lab. I've dabbled in YW but never kept one going. Do you when you take some off to use (I used to do a preferment with flour and YW) do you simply top up the water or do you replace the fruit as well? And do you leave it to activate before refrigerating again?
Also on another note I have noticed that my starter is stronger. Normally it takes a good few hours to activate and peak. 6-8 if it's been in the fridge for a little while. When it came to last weekend I found my starter had hooch on it. I stirred it back in before feeding as it's good for tang and within 2-3 hours it was more than double. Now that was a surprise.
Shake it and let it sit out or about 4 hours thane into the fridge. When half the the apples sink to the bottom in about a month or so, I use a re-purposed 14 oz peanut butter plastic jar, I take off 6 pieces of still floating fruit and 3 tablespoons of the YW after shaking it up to get some of the crud on the bottom. Then put the 6 pieces of fruit, 1/2 a small apples worth of new skinless and seedless choped apple pieces and 3 T of YW back in the jar *after cleaning it). Fill 3/4 full with water and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. Shake it up and keep at 78-80 F for 24 hours shaking every 2 hours or so except when your sleeping. Then back in the fridge.
These had been in there so long that all of the fruit was on the bottom of the jar so I strained put all the fruit, reserving the liquid, cleaned the jar and put half and chopped skinned apple in the jar, 6 T of the reserved old YW and filled to the 3/4 mark with water and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and shook it to dissolved the sugar and left it on the heating pad for about 24 hours shaking occasionally and hen added another 1/4 tsp of sugar ans shook to dissolve it and leaving it on the pad for another 12 hours until it was foaming after being shaken then I took of 50 g of it for the levain, re-filled it and put it in the fridge. Same for the figs only I used figs for the fruit. Now I have the levain on the heating pad and the YW are back in the fridge.
The entire bottom shelf of the fridge is totally full of 2 YW and 2 NMNF starters plus some pineapple vinagre Daisy Martinez style, a bunch of different home made pickles and jams / marmalades and a couple of Mexican special, secret, dried pepper vinegar, oil, garlic, spice, meat marinade concoctions of Lucy design in quart jars. It does frighten the weak especially when I get them to smell a 20 week old NMNF starter:-) There might be a couple of different curry pastes down there too.
Here is a pic of the YW's and YW levain on the heating pad before the YW's went into the fridge and a link to the YW Primer
YW Primer
in your YW are skinless? I have avoided apples so far but do wonder about using them to keep YW going over winter. you are using sugar rather than honey. is this better?
sorry Abe, getting off topic. I saw Teresa’s recipe and wondered, your bread looks great and it is good to know you could increase the tang this way.
happy baking
Leslie
the skins on because that is where the yeast is. Once your YW is establish like mine then you want to use skinless apples because I 'm not buying organic to feed these wee beasties and there is all kinds of stuff on the skins of all produce like bird poop and insecticide and fungicide that you do not want in the YW so I peel them. Tough to do with raisins and figs though, so I just chuck them in. I'm out of honey so i used sugar. - normally honey but these wee beasties liked sugar too. The levain is already up 25% in a couple of hours and YW is notoriously slow!
I had checked your primer and wanted to clarify. all good. I agree about the fruit skins and this is really why I asked.
happy baking
Leslie
I'm focused on sweet tasting sourdough now because that is what my parents want and I love it too. Could be because of my feeding schedules or it's just I was blessed with a naturally sweet tasting starter like you. Personally, I want a tangier bread because I love its combination with peanut butter. :) I learned many lessons from Lucy about this subject but they're a bit complicated and I still cannot try them in my situation now. I'll try this simpler lesson first to make what I want. Thanks for sharing!
and balanced according to taste. Don't get me wrong a sweet tasting levain is nice but I would like the option to choose a more tang taste. Each kind can be appreciated.
Let me know how it works for you Pal.
I like a sweet levain but there are times where I want a tangier loaf. There are combinations that work better with a sweet levain and others that work better with a levain with more tang. For me, I want a super sour loaf with peanut butter because the flavours just work. As you said, it's cool to know how to manipulate the flavors of sourdough and bread in general.
I'll post it in my blog with my modifications. It's sure to be a for-me-only loaf because it's only me in the house who likes a tangy loaf.
never thought to refrigerate a levain before adding it to final dough....i..must try it. Personally im much more interested in the texture and deeper flavours that sourdough brings to bread - im also a fa of using wholegrains which will always bring something to the party. Not a big fan of very sour bread....
There is tang but it's more complex then that. I do like the sweet levain too but I like the option of a more tang taste. Both have their place. This was a lesson on how to balance flavours and how to manage the starter and incorporate this in my future bakes.
for sure....i also like the differences in flavours of starters - my rye starter smells of crab apples which is quite extraordinary...reminds me of my grandfathers garden