Hi everybody, I have a 4 month old,non yeasted levain and had been baking sourdough bread ever since. It was cultured from the scratech with organic rye flour. Though of late,my loaves are getting fluffier and on some occasion,they looked like yeasted bread? What gives? Appreciate some pointers,thank you!
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...did you make a change to your feeding routine? Perhaps frequency? As starters mature they come monocultures - not a bad thing - but this can take years.
Rather than focusing on your starter, might it be worth investigating factors like changes to your flour types, flour ratios, bakers' percentages, your fermentation times, dough temperature etc? Are you certain you have made no changes to any of these?
BTW, what is so bad about a loaf looking like yeasted bread? :)
Thanks for your reply. Yeah,I forgot to mention that I live in a tropical country and it's humid all the time. The average indoor temperature would range from 28-30 degree Celsius. Am sure you can imagine how fast the proving can happen here. We have a small household too, so I only bake once a week,maximum twice but I made it a habit to feed the starter before and after I used some. Whatever remaining that I have would be kept in the fridge. I've been in France many times as my husband is a Frenchman, so I longed for those artisanal bread from time to time whenever we are not there. I bet there's nothing wrong with having a 'yeasted like' loaf but am into the authentic looking final product. thanks for sharing your thoughts!
During the hot, humid summers here, I use a tiny amount of starter for doughs I want to rise overnight. I am talking five to 10 grams. This way, even a dough in a hot place can take several hours to rise.
Hi 108 breads, thanks for the pointer. I got the recipe from Paul Hollywood actually and his directive called for 250gm of starter. Using the amount suggested would be like cutting out the hydration or leavening agent a great deal. I shall do more research and experiments on this though. I welcome all the comments or even criticism as I am a novice when it comes to baking bread. Still have lots to learn. Thanks everybody and hope people like us will one day be able to influence the public to eat some whole foods and most importantly,what real breads are. HAPPY BAKING!
by adjusting the amounts of flour and water so your dough has the hydration % you want. For instance, if your starter is 100% and you use 10 gm starter instead of 250 gm, add 120 gm flour and 120 gm water to "replace" the 240 gm starter you don't use.
thanks Arjon.....shall try it soon.
I wouldn't call myself FrugalBaker for no reason and here's why. I don't like to throw my starter away and prefer keeping it alive even though I have a few of them sitting in the fridge now. Every now and then,I would make some new ones but not all of them turned out to be successful. With my frugal instinct, I incorporated a tiny amount my 'good starter',say 2-3 tbsp for revival. I wonder if this a good Practice? Bcos the baking ingredients here in my country are quite generic. Bread flour being bread flour and not Type 45 / 55 or superior like in France. So I can only rely on the organic stuff to make my starter and they are really expensive. Just over the weekend,I stumbled upon a pack of 1kg of organic spelt flour and it costs £10. I just gave up and sticked with the rye flour.