I baked for the first time in months. I had refreshed my starter, stored in the back of the fridge, once during that time, so the starter seemed fine. I scraped a layer of grey off the top and used the nice beige starter underneath. Starter 100% KA WW, flour for dough 1/3 WW, 2/3 KA bread flour. A bit of CY for oomph. Autolyzed, French fold, rise, form, retard in bannetons, bake in cast-iron Dutch ovens. All as before. Great oven spring, nice crumb (not too open, but that's fine with me) but ... the taste was off. The bread didn't have the sourdough tang I remember. Just tasted heavy and whole wheat-ish.
I wonder if spending so much time in the back of the fridge affected the taste of the starter (so much retarding!), or if some bad yeasties had overwhelmed my once-great starter (from Friends of Carl).
I can try baking again soon, to see if I can revive the starter. Or I could restore from backup (dried starter flakes in freezer).
I wanted to be sure that I could bake in case I were quarantined due to covid19. No running to the store to buy bread.
Felila, I recently experienced something that I think was very similar to yours. When using a yeast kicker (Commercial Yeast) with SD a tiny amount goes a long way. Too much CY will hasten the fermentation and rob the dough of that precious sd flavor.g
See this post and notice the comments about CY.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62486/community-bake-approachable-loaf-bread-lab#comment-448872
I noticed that you posted about the “Affordable Bread” that got us interested in featuring it for the Community Bake. Why not give it a shot and join us? If you do, please be sure to post your results.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62416/affordable-whole-wheat-bread
An opinion on sour tasting loaves -
No doubt the starter brings complexity and intense flavor to breads. But it is my opinion that even if you take a super acidic starter and mix it into a dough, it will not necessarily produce sour tasting bread unless the dough ferments for an extended amount of time. Think of a dough exactly as you would a starter or levain. If you feed your starter or levain and don’t allow it to ferment long enough it will lack super acidity. Same thing with your bread doughs. I often take a sweet (non-acidic) starter and make a super sour bread. I’ll use 2% prefermented flour, bulk ferment for 16-17.5 hours at 77-79F. Anyone that tasted that bread would say it is sour. I mentioned the above to point out that the condition of your starter may have nothing to do with the lack of sour taste. When it comes to starter conditioning, the most important consideration for me is it’s ability to raise the dough. It’s yeast must be active.
What was your percentage of Prefermented Flour, and what was the percentage of Commercial Yeast? What kind of Commercial Yeast did you use? How long did the dough bulk ferment and at what temperature (eastimate if you need to)?
Alot of question, I know. But we need to get you up and running just in case they quarantine you :-)
Danny
if it was at the point of grey stuff on top, it would take about 3 discard/feedings to re-balance. You also need several discard/feedings (or discard all but a small amount, and build-up/feedings) to cycle out the old degraded flour.
I used to use Carl's, but switched to Cultures For Health for taste reasons. But man, that 1847 Oregon Trail starter from Carl was very rugged and powerful.
300 g aged starter and 2-1/4 teaspoons CY. I started adding that because just starter was creating hockey pucks. But even with CY I was getting sour bread.
Bulk ferment was only 1 hour. Perhaps too short? I live Honolulu, temps here run in the 80s (F) though lately it's been colder. Was afraid of over-proofing.
I may try reducing the CY, extending bulk ferment, AND renewing my starter a few times.
Did you add any CY to your starter? If you haven’t I recommend you don’t.
I was getting hockey pucks. Something wrong with my starter? My procedure?
CY is a completely different strain to wild yeast. In particular it can directly feed on complex sugars without the need to have them broken down by cooperative lactic acid bacteria - and it's been selectively bred over the years to be super-aggressive and fast growing, so it will just crowd out the wild microbes.
Consequently I think it's the absence of lactic acid bacteria that are the reason you have very little sourness or complexity in the flavour.
On the positive side, I'd be highly confident you can revive your starter... just take a few teaspoons, feed that 1:5:5 with plain water and 50/50 all purpose and organic wholewheat flour. Keep it at room temperature, and then once it's doubled (which it will) start feeding normally 1:1:1. But don't add anything else to it but flour and water.
Despite the sentimental appeal of stories that a particular starter has been handed down over generations for hundreds of years, EVERY starter is a dynamic living 'zoo' of different microorganisms that are constantly jockeying for position, and are constantly refreshed and updated whenever we feed them, If you have kept your starter in the fridge for an extended period it will definitely be a completely different beast from when you put it in... and if you take it out of the fridge for a few days and feed it with wholewheat flour, it will develop in a few days into something different again.