Any sourdough bakers here? Sourdough used to be something that was hit or miss for me - either it didn't get much flavor, or was too sour, and once in a while it would come out just right, but I couldn't figure out what I had done different! lol Now, I use a firm sourdough starter, which works better for me, though with a milder flavor. And the firm starter is much harder to kill - this batch I hadn't used for at least 6 months, yet it only took two "refreshments" to get it back to normal, to use for this recipe. I think that the liquidy starters that I tried, through the years, got so alcoholic during non-use that some types of the organisms would be killed off, while the resistant varieties were all that was left, so the balance was off.This doesn't seem to happen with the firm starters.

This is only 40% whole grain - KAF white WW, plus a small amount of rye, plus some artisan white flour, and the white bread flour in the starter.
2020-01-23_10-50-50 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Firm sourdough levain, after rising 12 hours, overnight. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Dough mix, after autolyse, ready to mix with salt, and levain. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Dough, after kneading 7 min. in mixer, ready to rise for 5 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Turning the dough, after 1 hour. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Dough, after rising 5 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Round loaf, formed with half of the dough. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Loaves ready to rise 4 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Risen loaf, slashed. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Round Loaf, risen and slashed. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Baked loaves, ready to remove from the oven. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished loaves. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Now that's a thing of beauty.

I just made a whole grain sourdough with organic sprouted spelt and kamut. I've played around with sourdough for many years but only made waffles and pancakes. I got into sourdough bread baking a little more seriously after taking a couple of classes from a neighborhood bakery and learning some good basics. I find it meditative to bake sourdough and I always make 2 loaves, one to keep and one to give away to friends.

I don't really worry too much about the starter aside from keeping it clean. I'm lazy so I only feed the starter one or two day before making the dough. Otherwise I feed it once a week. I rather let dough ferments longer, than to need having a very strong starter to ferment quickly.

This is how I do mine which is convenient for my schedule:
-Make the dough at 9pm.
-Let it ferment in the fridge for 24hrs.
-Take it out, do a little folding and shaping, put in banneton, put back in fridge for overnight.
-Next day, take dough out for about 3 hours for it to fully rise. Or how ever long needed, but not so long it's not past the peak rise and become too soft and lose it's shape.

Because my oven temperature is sometimes 100*F less than the actual reading, I use high temperature:
-Preheat oven to 550*F
-Bake first 20 min at 550*F
-Then reduced to 400-450*F for the rest depending on how dark you want the crust.

I put the dough inside the liner cloth that came with the banneton, as the dough doesn't stick to it as much. Meaning you don't have to sprinkle too much flour onto the dough's surface as that can reduce the rising ability and make the crust too hard.

Agghh filled with guilt!! A friend who makes amazing sourdough gave me a bit of his starter. My ambition got sidetracked.... It's been sitting in the fridge for weeks. Am I going to be able to revive it? What to do?

Your bread looks awesome btw.

Bower wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2020 6:00 pm Agghh filled with guilt!! A friend who makes amazing sourdough gave me a bit of his starter. My ambition got sidetracked.... It's been sitting in the fridge for weeks. Am I going to be able to revive it? What to do?

Your bread looks awesome btw.

Just check there is no mold and such. The surface will be grayish though which is normal. Just remove the top half of the contents, add equal weight of water and flour so that after thorough stirring the consistency is like pancake batter. Not too watery, but not too stiff. If it's very weak, you can wait two days before feeding again. Will probably take several feedings to become strong again. I only feed mine once week when I'm not baking.

I just finished baking my two loaves of sourdough bread, around 12:30 am! Hard to tell how those kind are going to make you wait.
Sourdough rye dough, ready for next to last rise. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Late night rye bread. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Here's a delicious aroma to have, when stuck in the house - bread!

3 sourdough rye loaves, that I started 3 days ago.
Sourdough rye loaves by pepperhead212, on Flickr

oh my, those rye loaves look fabulous!

Yes they do.
How is the crumb?

The crumb is fairly fine - it had a lot of very large bubbles in it, after the first rise, so I pressed them out, rose it briefly again, then pressed it flat, before forming the loaves. Here is a photo of a slice.
Slice of the sourdough rye. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Looks nice.

Hard to believe that I baked again, in this heat! It's in my countertop oven, so it's not too bad.

More sourdough rye - using all sourdough starter for the rise. Wasn't sure how well it would rise, but it did better than I thought it would!

I just "refreshed" the firm starter I found in the fridge, behind a lot of stuff, and used some of the extra starter, before putting it away again. I put it in the FP, with rye flour and water, not quite firm, and left it overnight, and it more than doubled. I added the rest of the ingredients, besides the flour, then switched to the KA, and added the flour. It's almost 50% rye, 25% WW, and the rest bread flour, and 1/4 c gluten. Probably the gluten made it rise well.
Sour rye, rising fairly quickly by now. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Sour rye, risen 65 minutes, ready to bake. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished sour rye, risen better than expected. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished sour rye by pepperhead212, on Flickr

More of that fantastic smell tonight - HOMEMADE BREAD! And my favorite again - sourdough rye.

I had a little too much dough for two 2 lb loaves, and not quite enough for three 1 1/2 lb loaves, so I dug out a 1 lb coffee can, I often bake bread in. Great for a slice of D&W Braunschweiger, with a slice of onion!
Sour rye bread, two 1 1/2 lb and one 1 lb loaf. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

1 lb loaf of sour rye, baked in an old coffee can. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Bower wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2020 6:00 pm Agghh filled with guilt!! A friend who makes amazing sourdough gave me a bit of his starter. My ambition got sidetracked.... It's been sitting in the fridge for weeks. Am I going to be able to revive it? What to do?

Your bread looks awesome btw.

I literally only feed my starter the day before I bake. Sometimes. It'll often go 3 weeks without feeding, but perks right back up when I do. I keep it in the fridge unless I'm going to bake later in the day or the next day. Then, I'll feed and leave it out to rise before use, and sometimes (and sometimes not) feed again before putting it back in the fridge after use. Sometimes I don't feed it at all. It'll be fine.

I do not bake very often, but I do have a sour rye started in the refrigerator. I have to admit that I forgot it there for a year and thought it to be ruined, but couple of weeks ago I found it again and scraped off the top and used the bottom to start a sour rye cracker dough. To my surprise it took just 24 h to the starter dough to be bubbly and sour. Sour rye bread is a staple here and I can buy really good loaves in the stores, so I have used my starter just for crackers. When living in US, I used to bake sour rye bread quite often, because we like the rye breads which are mostly rye and are denser and heavier.

Couple of years ago I started to look what else can I do with the pasta machine than just pasta. I found that some people are using it to make crackers. I decided to try to make some with a sour rye dough. First I tried to make those without addition of wheat flour, but plain rye is difficult to get through the pasta machine without breaking. Before I start thinning the dough with the machine I do several rounds folding and rolling it with the thickest setting which make the crackers to have small pockets of air when baked. I usually thin them to setting 4 on my Marcato Atlas, because any thinner brakes easily when handled. Before baking I brush the crackers slightly with olive oil and sprinkle a bit of salt from the mill with coarse setting.

Now I made them smaller like chips and I am planning to make dip from smoked moose and red onions in sour cream. I should also test of adding crushed garlic to the oil, which I use for basting, but these taste already addictively good without any additional seasoning than salt.

Sari

I have some starter I made myself and haven't fed in well over a year or more.
Just pour off the liquor on top and add flour and a little water maybe.
The last time I did it the darn thing got too active.

Three days ago, I dug out (while getting something else that was buried in my fridge) my firm sourdough starter - not used for about 7 or 8 months, and it's amazing how good that stuff keeps! I refreshed a small amount of it overnight, then yesterday I refreshed a little more, and in 6 hours that was ready to use - liquid starters would take much longer to reactivate. I took the usual 10 g, to refresh before putting back in the fridge, and used the approx. 70 g of starter to make the sour rye starter, with 170 g filtered water and 190 g (about 1 1/2 c). I set that to rise the rest of yesterday, and part of today - about 36 hours.

Late last night, using a recipe from Peter Reinhart's WHOLE GRAIN BREADS - the Whole Wheat Mash Bread as a reference. I made what he terms a "mash", using 300 g water, 120 g WW flour, and 1 g (1/2 tsp) diastatic malt powder. 165° water is whisked with the flour in a small, lidded saucepan, along with the malt powder - temp drops to about 150°, then it is covered, and put a 150° oven for 3 hours, to let the enzymes go to work. It is cooled covered, overnight.

In late morning on bake day, the sour starter was getting a generous aroma, and this was put in the KA bowl, with the mash, 4 tsp salt, 1 tb caraway seed, 1 tsp nigella seed, 1 tb (20 g) honey, 21 g neutral oil, 3 tb essential wheat gluten (optional, but helps with the rye) and 255 g, or about 2 c WW flour, with about a cup more to add. I use the flat beater to totally mix all this, then switch to the dough hook, then process it on medium, about 6-7 min, adding just enough WW flour to make it clear the sides, but still slightly stuck to the very bottom. The model recipe was all WW, and had some instant yeast added with the final ingredients, but I used the rye starter, and left the yeast out.

This turned out a 51.6 oz (1463 g) ball of dough, which I sprayed with oil, and set to rise - took about 2 1/2 hrs to double, which is fast, for just the sourdough starter! I split it into 2 loaves, shaped them, and placed in sprayed, NS loaf pans, then covered, for final rise - started with 45 minutes, then after another 30 minutes, it was ready to bake - again, fast for sourdough!

The smell was incredible after about 20 minutes! It cooled about 1½ hrs, and I couldn't wait any longer! Only slightly warm still, and the flavor is great - sour, but not too sour, and good texture. Will be making a sandwich on it, with some Seltzer's Lebanon Bologna, which I have unopened in the fridge.

I'll definitely make this again, after tweaking the recipe.
Really old firm starter, refreshed twice, starter already rising. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Rye starter, after about 36 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

finished sour rye dough, just started rising. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Fully risen sour rye dough, after about 150 minutes. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Two sour rye loaves rising, 25.8 oz each. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Risen sour rye dough, ready to go into the oven. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished sourdough rye/WW bread. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Sliced sourdough rye bread by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Yeast is an amazing organism! I used to make sourdough often and have several different cultures in my fridge. I think my starter used to be 100% hydration. I am sure I tried a lower hydration starter at some point. I think you could be right about the shifting ecosystem within the starter. It makes sense that selection of specific species would occur over time. I used to try everything in order to learn. I think the best methods are to use a poolish or biga. I also highly recommend laminating your dough.




I haven't made bread in quite some time though. I love eating bread, but try not to. I recently purchased an oven steel to replace my stone and have yet to use it. I really need to get moving on making some bread! It has been far too long.

Why don't you have cotton liners for your bannetons? I can't imagine not using liners.

I rarely use the sourdough - I just did this on a whim, when I saw the starter in there! I usually use a preferment of some sort, using the instant yeast. I do layer most of the breads by doing the "folding" of the dough, 2 or 3 times in the first rise - 10, 20, and 30 minutes into the rise, and it's amazing how more much this develops the gluten! And I rarely use the bannetons or baking stone - usually, only for a dinner bread, for more than me. Most bread I make is loaf bread, for sandwiches, but works with soups, too, and is mostly whole grain bread.