Sourdough Starter Rising

Just a bit of fun today. This is what Sourdough Starter looks like while it's rising. There are many factors that go into cultivating a good sourdough starter, time, temperature, food, water...

As Mike Avery shows on his http://www.sourdoughhome.com/ blog:
Time & Temperature are interdependent.



When I made the time-lapse video above my kitchen was approximately 75 degrees Fahrenheit (next time I'll display a thermometer). You can tell about 4.5 hours in (about 10am) the doubling had completed (the green rubber band is where it started).

I have such a long rise time (12-13 hours) because I can't come home from work in the middle of the day to refresh & feed the starter. So I compensate for the fast doubling time by increasing the ratio of flour & water to starter when feeding.

Most starter feed schedules call for doubling, I actually quadruple to keep the starter at it's fully doubled position for the 12-13 hours I use in my schedule. You can tell at the very end of the video that if I let it go for much longer (4 more hours) it would go 'flat' and eventually return to it's original level.

Go ahead, give it a try - it's not as hard as you think it is, my simple-to-follow instructions and schedule are in this post: http://matts-bread-log.blogspot.com/2008/08/weekly-sourdough-starter-schedule.html

-Matt the Weekend Baker

About My Blog

About 7 years ago some good friends of ours gave me a lump of rising bread dough in a Tupperware container and lent me a book about bread-baking by Beth Hensperger.

After my first experiment with baking bread in my kitchen I was enamored with the experience. Of course that first loaf was just the beginning. Someone else had made it, I just baked it. I wanted more so I opened the book and started on my journey to become a weekend baker.

After reading Beth's book (which unfortunately has gone out of print, but I believe it was: Beth's Basic Bread Book) I decided to try my hand at the most traditional bread recipie - pain ordinaire (we know it as French Bread):

• 1.5 packages (1.5 tablespoons) active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 cups warm water (105-115 degrees Fahrenheit)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 3 cups unbleached all-purprose flour
• Cornmeal for dusting
• Egg Glaze (see page 115)

I was confounded. Her book (an a few others I had checked out from the library) had told me that bread was 4 basic ingredients:

• Flour
• Water
• Yeast
• Salt

What was going on here? Why sugar? Egg Glaze? I was intrigued.

Of course the loaf came out a bit odd. I still did not know what to do or how to do it, but the tasted wonderful and I was committed to try again.

So after 365 weekends and 300+ loaves of bread I think I've hit my stride. I just hope I can share what I've learned here.

-Matt the Weekend Baker

Weekly Sourdough Starter Schedule

Timing is EVERYTHING with sourdough starters & bread. Here's my weekly schedule to produce some great loaves each weekend:

Wed 2100 - Take sourdough out of the refrigerator

Thur 0500 - Feed Sourdough (stir, save 1/4 cup, add 1 cup water, 1 cup AP flour, stir)
Thur 1900 - Feed Sourdough (13h) (save 1/4 cup, add 1 cup water, 1 cup AP)

Fri 0800 - Feed Sourdough (13h) (save 1/4 cup, add 1 cup water, 1 cup AP)
Fri 2100 - Mix dough & Feed Sourdough (13h) - 100g used per loaf

Sat 0940 - Turn on oven to 450 with Dutch-Oven
Sat 1000 - Flour & kneed dough and let rest, Store Sourdough in the refrigerator
Sat 1030 - Transfer dough to Dutch-Oven and score
Sat 1100 - Remove lid from Dutch-Oven
Sat 1115 - Remove loaf from Dutch-Oven and rest on a wire rack
(Let cool completely)
Sat 1400 - Eat! (save any left-overs in a ziplock freezer bag, should be good for 5 days).

Enjoy!
-Matt the Weekend Baker

No-Kneed Bread

The no-kneed bread phenomenon all started with a New York baker named Jim Lahey from the Sullivan Street Bakery. He was discovered by Mark Bittman (the Minimalist) of the New York times and the famous article appeared:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

I wish I could say I found this article on my own, but I had two friends (HangerMike & DragonCoder) send me links to it because they knew my passion for baking.

This requires a 5 quart dutch oven, but a quick search of eBay for "Cast Iron Enamel Dutch Oven" will yield several in the $30-$50 range.

Here is a video of his technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU



-Matt the Weekend Baker

Three Bread Recipes

#1 - Simple

• 3 Cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1 1/4 Tsp Salt
• 1/4 Tsp Yeast
• 1 5/8 Cup Water (will make a wet dough)

Mix & cover, Rest 12-18 hours, Minimally shape (scrape from sides of the bowl and cover with flour and/or cornmeal) - Bake in a pre-heated covered iron pot @ 425 for 27 minutes, remove the lid and bake for an additional 14 minutes.


#2 - Interesting

• 1 Cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1 2/3 Cup Bread Flour
• 1/3 Cup White Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 Tbls Buckwheat Flour (Optional)
• 1 1/4 Tsp Salt
• 1/4 Tsp Yeast
• 1 5/8 Cup Water - or slightly less to make a DRY dough

Mix & cover, Rest 12-14 hours, Take out and kneed lightly, place on a parchment in a pot and cover for 2 hours - Bake in a pre-heated covered iron pot @ 425 for 27 minutes, remove the lid and bake for an additional 14 minutes.


#3 - Sourdough

• 1/2 Cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1 Cup Bread Flour
• 1/4 Cup White Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/4 Cup Rye Flour
• 1 Cup Sourdough Starter
• 1 Tbls Buckwheat Flour (Optional)
• 1 1/2 Tsp Salt
• 1 Cup Water + Additional as needed - the dough should be DRY

Mix & cover, Rest 4-12 hours, Take out and kneed lightly, place on a parchment in a pot and cover for 2 hours - Bake in a pre-heated covered iron pot @ 425 for 26 minutes, remove the lid and bake for an additional 13 minutes.

Occasionally I will put 1/4 cup of Rye into #2, but to do that you have to take out 1/4 cup of one of the other flours to keep the total Flour to about 3 cups.

-Matt the Weekend Baker

Sourdough Starter

Baking bread is rewarding, but ultimately you will ask yourself "what can I do to really challenge myself?"

Ultimately the answer you will come to is - SOURDOUGH!

Bread books are filled with all sorts of starters, and some even describe how to cultivate your own local starter. I've done this, but nothing can beat the original Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.

My friend DragonCoder sent me this link for Free, live pioneer-era sourdough starter and HangerMike pointed me to http://www.sourdoughbreads.com/.

I went ahead and spent $9 to purchase the authentic San Fransisco Sourdough starter I'm currently using. Sourdough is a live culture so it takes a bit of time to get used to it's feeding schedule.

For more information I highly recommend you check out the Sourdough entry on WikiPedia.

If you are in the local area I'll be happy to provide you some starter.

-Matt the Weekend Baker

Fresh Hot Bread

This is what it looks like when you cut into fresh HOT bread right after it's spent 40+ minutes in a 450 degree oven. If you look very closely (and ignore the background noise) you can just barely see the steam coming out of the cut.

Normally I advocate waiting until AFTER it's stopped steaming... but we were hungry :)



-Matt the Weekend Baker