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GDawson

GDawson

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Looking to get some good sour dough starter. The recipes to start your own aren’t very strong or “sour”. And I refuse to pay for some of the retail ones without tasting them. Some are upwards of 15 or 20 dollars!

-Gregory
 
GDawson said:
Looking to get some good sour dough starter. The recipes to start your own aren’t very strong or “sour”. And I refuse to pay for some of the retail ones without tasting them. Some are upwards of 15 or 20 dollars!

-Gregory
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What are you baking? I have three starters currently Camaldoli from Naples (excellent for pizza), San Francisco (about ready to toss it, only works for hybrid recipes[for me that is]), and the raisin starter (free and easy to whip up with raisins), a volcano, very sour as well.

I can walk you through doing a raisin starter if you'd like, and bring some Camaldoli to a meeting if you're into less sour, downright sweet sourdough.
 
Jeremy, how well do starters "keep" and what is the storage procedure when not in use? I might have to beg some off of you and learn to bake bread in the southwest :p
 
It's for french bread (for now). We really like it sour. The ACME starter is pretty darn good but something darker/mustier/earthier/tangier would be preferred.

Down the line I'd like to learn to make the sour flatbread that you get in Ethiopian restaurants. I like to do north African tagine cooking with lamb, lentils and stews. That flatbread would be perfect!

-Gregory
 
Easy, they can stay in the fridge for over a month without feeding. The key is to have (make) a proofing box and "fire up" the starter once a month or so (that is if you're not baking all the time), by feeding a 50/50 (by weight) mix of flour and water @ around 80º, it takes time to build it up to a froth, sometimes 24hrs, so you need to take that into account when assembling you mis en place.

You need to maintain some level of sanitation in order to keep the culture pure. I've had the Camaldoli for years and it is still the same yeast and Lactobacillus combination that I started with. The longest I've gone without firing up the starter was 6 weeks, I've heard that if you pour off the hooch before activating you can get up to three months of storage, I've never done that though.
 
I tried to make a sourdough starter once... just never got terribly sour for my tastes, it rose, it sunk, I fed it, it ate, but when I baked it had only a smidgen of sour flavor to it, and I like my sourdough to be SOUR none of that Boudin's BS they call sour either! Ended up finding a little bakery that sold to the public for easily half of what it'd cost at supermarkets, along with a coupon in the penny saver for $2 off, day olds were buy one get one free, I was getting 2 - 1pound loafs a week for about $1.50 after all was said and done and decided its not worth the effort to keep a mother dough.

I still will bake bread, but I'll just whip up everything from scratch, and it won't be sour :)
 
If you like sour, raisin starter is the way to go. Take a handful of raisins add them to a sanitized bowl with some spring water, make sure they are submerged even if you have to use a small sanitized plate to keep them submerged (if exposed to air they will grow mold), cover and place somewhere that the median temp is 80º proofing box (if you don't have one you need one to do sourdough properly, so now's the time). Let sit at 80º for at least 5 days, once you see a little foam (or not) start your conventional sourdough starter method with the raisin liquid, it's that easy. Grapes have yeast and lactobacillus on them already that remain through the drying stage and can be awakened, they are both very aggressive strains.

Mike did you do a sponge or biga?

If you're just adding the starter to your dough without letting the lactobacillus do its work (lower temperature), then you're not going to get the sour flavor as that's where it comes from, not to mention there are many different types of starter, many of which can be mild like my camaldoli.
 
I did a poolish sponge , used the 50% I yanked when feeding as "stuff" for the bread, added additional flour, and it was all at room temperature. I didn't have a starter I got from anyplace this from actually trying to create a sour starter from scratch.
 
tuberider said:
If you like sour, raisin starter is the way to go. Take a handful of raisins add them to a sanitized bowl with some spring water, make sure they are submerged even if you have to use a small sanitized plate to keep them submerged (if exposed to air they will grow mold), cover and place somewhere that the median temp is 80º proofing box (if you don't have one you need one to do sourdough properly, so now's the time). Let sit at 80º for at least 5 days, once you see a little foam (or not) start your conventional sourdough starter method with the raisin liquid, it's that easy. Grapes have yeast and lactobacillus on them already that remain through the drying stage and can be awakened, they are both very aggressive strains.

Mike did you do a sponge or biga?

If you're just adding the starter to your dough without letting the lactobacillus do its work (lower temperature), then you're not going to get the sour flavor as that's where it comes from, not to mention there are many different types of starter, many of which can be mild like my camaldoli.
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Sweet! Thanks. No proofing box, but our ovens have a pilot light that keeps them at a nice 78 degrees. I've always used them for "yeast projects". Will that work?

Do you have a nice recipe to go with that starter? I've been fooling around with a few different ones, but none have had the right consistancy yet. I do like what come out of ACME and Grace for their sour dough loafs texture wise. Anything like that?

-Gregory
 
Greg, I do have some recipes, however, to obtain an Acme or Grace (I prefer Semifreddi's but also really enjoy Acme and Grace) you need a steam deck oven to do it right (among other things :D). What does a guy like you or me do?

Go get yourself a 6" hotel pan that tightly covers your baking stone, drill a small hole in it towards the bottom roll (so when the pan is inverted the hole is at the upper side of the pan, but not on top), make it just big enough to be able to use a pressurized spray bottle with water to inject into the hole. Here's where you can burn the living shit out of yourself (I have a nasty scar to prove that). Invert your pan on the stone during preheat to bring it up to temperature, when preheated and ready to bake remove pan (super hot!!!!!!!) and add your uncooked loaves, quickly place the pan back on top of your loaves and squirt water from your pressurized container into the hole. Depending on the bread leave the pan on until the steam cycle is over, then remove the bread and make sure there is no residual steam in the oven in order to dry out the loaves and develop the crust.

If your oven is stable with the light on at 78º for proofing without any work by all means use it, I'm not so lucky, starters are very fussy and I had to DIY a proofing box.

I could post recipes, but in reality I did not make the ones I use, I'm no baking savant, just someone that bakes several times a week and has for many years. I can recommend any book by Peter Reinhardt, Artisan Baking at Home is excellent along with the Bread Baker Apprentice, they are full of invaluable information. Another absolutely amazing book is How to Bake Bread by Michael Kalanty, I've taken some classes from him and can say with confidence that his book is the bible of commercial baking. There's no sourdough recipes or talk even of the craft, but his explanation of how the process works and the cut and dry (it's a cooking school textbook, its really not geared for people that want to see pictures and attempt random recipes) approach has taken things to a new level for me over the last year. AFA sourdough Peter's books are top notch.

As you can tell I'm very passionate about baking (or all cooking for that matter), if you need any advice I'm happy to help :)
 
tuberider said:
Greg, I do have some recipes, however, to obtain an Acme or Grace (I prefer Semifreddi's but also really enjoy Acme and Grace) you need a steam deck oven to do it right (among other things :D). What does a guy like you or me do?

snip...
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Appriciate the info Jeremy. I'll give the TBTSOOYHSB aka Tuberider Burn The Shit Out Of Your Hand Steam Box a try for the next batch....as well as the raisin starter. Mmmmmmmmmm sour.....

Now back to stuffing manicotti for tonight!

-Gregory
 
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