Real Sourdough Not Poilâne style

I reactivated some starter that had been in the refrigerator since July 2019.

I'm pleased with the results. FWSY Overnight Country Brown. I used commercial WW flour, rather than the home-milled wheat berries. Next batch I'll use home-milled WW.

Much better crust and crumb than the 'pseudo' sourdough starter from the Poilâne book.

Your bread does look great. I have never read any Poilâne book, so I'm intrigued to know what the starter method they advocate is. I see nothing but praise heaped on Poilâne; I think this is the first time I have ever seen anything negative.

See: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62690/poil%C3%A2ne-sourdough-attempt

The yogurt + commercial dry yeast jump-starts things for the beginning baker, and avoids cultivating a starter from scratch, which can be discouraging to some.

If leftover Yogurt/ADY starter/pre-ferment is kept and fed, it eventually becomes sourdough.

The Poilane bakery doesn't really want to give out their secrets, because they ship thousands of loaves/day all over France, EU, and the US.

according to one Amazon reviewer, the book allows an approximation, but not a real imitation.

I may pick up a copy at $20, which is current Amazon price (MSRP $35 US), as an homage to the family.

https://www.amazon.com/Poil%C3%A2ne-Secrets-World-Famous-Bread-Bakery/dp/132881078X?tag=froglallabout-20

Many thanks. So the first couple of fermentations are yoghurt only? That's seems a bit odd to me, I agree, and I wouldn't expect it to be that sour. I've made a supposed SF sourdough (can't remember whether it was Hamelman or Dan Lepard, I think the latter) that contained yoghurt in the dough. It was OK, but not worth the extra fuss, to me.

I posted my experience with making the Poilâne-style starter in this post: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62690/poil%C3%A2ne-sourdough-attempt

I included photos of the recipe for both the starter and the bread.

In my opinion, both the starter and the resulting bread were pretty meh.

I did this follow-up post to show the contrast between the Poilâne loaf and a 'regular' SD starter loaf from the same kitchen and baker.