A nice short video from Wayne Caddy (well known Brit baker) on maintaining his stiff wholemeal (aka wholewheat) starter.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DGlOIKgsK9X/
I don't currently run such a starter, but it looks good!
Lance
A nice short video from Wayne Caddy (well known Brit baker) on maintaining his stiff wholemeal (aka wholewheat) starter.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DGlOIKgsK9X/
I don't currently run such a starter, but it looks good!
Lance
I like his spiral mixer. Alas, it needs a breaker bar.
Agreed - and well spotted, Will.
I asked him about that once, and he said it worked OK. A Wilfa, I think it's called.
I used to maintain whole wheat starter, but after several trials, I ended up with fine-bran starter, and still going.
The reason is simple, bran doesn't form dough, which means feeding 30% hydration starter is basically just stirring.
but it took me weeks to get the culture established, a lot slower than using starchy flour. But once it's ready, the flavor is nothing like I've ever tasted before
I've never tasted authentic Desem bread, but I imagine the taste of my pain au son (bran bread) is what Desem would taste like.
Jay
Interesting, Jay; I seem to recall seeing a bran starter creation process from Professor Calvel a while ago.
Do you make your own bran by sifting or do you buy it in?
Lance
I use store bought fine-bran, I have multiple baking interests, so I try my best to keep things simple
It all started when I encountered a problem. I always make my bread by putting weakest flours in the levain (oat, rice, beans, potato, etc) and strongest flour during final mixing. I used black rice starter back then
But the starter couldn't ferment bran and whole wheat levain. So I converted the starter into bran starter aiming for specificity, and never looking back ever since. The starter turned out to be so versatile, it can even ferment soybean levain, which is not even starchy to begin with!
But the creation process prolly hard to assess, as we can only rely on smell (mine smell sweet and alcoholic when ripe. And warm too when touched!). And if we want to do Desem-like approach, we may need refrigeration after every feeding. If room temperature starter-making takes days, the Desem-like way, at least in that manner, would take weeks. I wouldn't even think about starting over, or miss feeding schedule
I might make lean pain au son as baguettes soon. I'll make a post about it and the starter
Jay
Here is an article by Jennifer Lapidus on how to make and maintain a desem starter.