Hi JMonkey,
I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to post the above sourdough lesson! I found it extremely informative with lots of great tips and photos...I have read your suggestions for using a stiff starter many times on this site, but I couldn't really grasp exactly how to go about it until now. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us :)

To add a bit of my own experience:

I've found that even if you keep a fairly wet starter - mine's about a poolish - the overnight ferment will still give you a great sour tang. I feed my starter the night before, let it bubble about 4 hours, then refrigerate it overnight. Once I make the dough, if I want a really sour bread, I'll refrigerate it overnight again.

It does make a noticeable difference.

-Joe

Yeah, very nice article, JMonkey. Would you mind if I featured it in one of the two main blocks on top of the front page?

Sure! I'd be tickled pink!

I was delighted when StumbleUpon took me to your sourdough page. I baked with my Alaskan starter for ten years, with lots of fun, both hits and misses. I still use the starter, but only for pancakes and waffles. But after reading your suggestions, I'm inspired to get back into the kitchen and do some more dough play. My loaves, though everybody, including me, loved them, never achieved the sourness that I usually sought. Now perhaps, with your help.... I'll let you know.

Doug

I realized that I didn't add anything about how to convert your 100% starter to 50%. Again, it's not hard to do if you've got a kitchen scale.

Take 2 ounces of your 100% starter. Then add 5 ounces of flour and 2 ounces of water. This should give you 9 ounces of starter. Leave it overnight, and it should be ripened in the morning.

From there on out when you feed it, add 1 unit of water for every 2 units of flour. I'd recommend feeding it 2 or 3 more times before using it, though, so that the yeast and bacteria can acclimate to the new environment.

(I've also added this to the lesson itself)

hi J,

thanks for your blog, very informative indeed.

sorry to ask you a stupid question but once the stiff starter has "matured" and you are ready to bake a loaf, since is stiff, how do you incorporate it into the dough? , do you chop it and mix it in?.

i use a 100% rye starter, can I make a stiff version out of it too?

been baking for a couple of months so just a beginner.

cheers,

w

Basically, W, I just knead the bejeezus out of it.

Well, that's actually only for whole wheat sourdough, which I make most often. But really all I do is tear it up into about a dozen chunks, mix it up with a spoon and then proceed to kneading. It incorporates well just by kneading alone.

You can certainly make a stiff rye starter, though with rye, you probably won't need to do so. Rye is pretty much the perfect food for sourdough cultures, so your rye starter should be plenty sour. I keep my rye at 100%, myself.

Hi everyone, im new to the site and new to bread baking, i made my first sourdough loaf today, roughly following a recipe Floyd posted. Here it is in all its glory!

I used a mix of white bread flour, with 5 grain bread flour and a bit of rye thrown in for good measure. I let it bulk ferment for 3 and a 1/2 hours with 2 folds during that time. a quick knead and then left it to proof for about 45mins. I did slash it, made a bit of a pigs ear of it but it turned out ok.

My starter was quite liquid, so next time im going to follow your suggestions Jmonkey and see if i can change the flavour. Ive never eaten sourdough before, let alone baked it, so im not sure if it tasted as it should! Will try and increase the sour taste and see if im on the right track. It definitely had a nice tang to it. My dad liked it, hes my barometer when it comes to all things edible, so it cant be bad.

Im going to buy a bread book as a present to myself, probably going for The Bread Bakers Apprentice as seen some great comments about it on this site.

Alice x

With your encouragement I divided my Carl Griffin's starter and made part of it very much stiffer than usual. I then used that starter to bake a wholegrain loaf this weekend. It turned out great! I couldn't believe that I was raising bread dough with 10 grain cereal, flax seed, and mostly whole wheat flour as light as it rose in both the bowl and the loaf pan - and absolutely no commercial yeast!

I'd like to post a picture, but the little green tree is not cooperating - or it could be me. If you reply here, please tell me how to post a pic.

Thanks for your expertise and helping all of us along on our sourdough adventures.

Teresa

Sorry to revive this thread after so long of a period of rest. But I have a question. I looked for an email address but didn't fine one. Oh well...

You indicate that when feeding your sriff starter to add 1 unit of water for every 2 units of flour. But you did not indicate how much starter to use. You state early on to use 2 ounces of 100% starter to 5 ounces flour and 2 ounces water giving you 9 ounces of starter. How much of that start is used for the next feeding? All 9 ounces increasing the whole starter to 12 ounces? Or a portion like 2 ounces and discarding the other 7 ounces?

Like I said, sorry to be a pain and revive this thread. Thanks. 

Thanks for taking the time to post this!  Noted.  :)

At almost 88 I am just getting into bread baking----and a week ago mixed my first starter batch in a quart fruit-jar-----3 days ago the bubbles started and it was like watching a baby chick hatch-----maybe this old WW-2 Marine is getting senile-----you have a very good instructional site

Jack Whitesell Prescott Az. 

JMonkey's experiences and findings parallel my own closely.  I use white rye flour as a sour note director when needed.  One interesting point that's beginning to emerge is that low temperature starting aids oven spring.  Clocehing the bread in the beginning retains steam but also lowers the rate at which the dough absorbs heat allowing a longer period of yeast activity and gas expansion.  I had the same experience without cloching when the oven wasn't ready but the bread went in anyway.  The spring was nearly double to what usually occured. Turing the oven up as the bread bakes to obtain the right carmelization of the crust is without question.  It's just the initial conditions that are important.  Come to think of it the old steam injection method injected water which lowered the ambient temperature of the oven.  I believe that this is what we've actually been experiencing.  Below is an example of my standard bake.  The loaf is, by necessity, becoming larger due to the rate at which it disappears!

Wild-Yeast

I keep trying sourdough with not much success. Mostly my sour is not too sour especially since I lost my Ak sourdough. They don't revive well. They're not sour. They will not rise a loaf of bread. When I whip up a no knead recipe which is essentially a preferment with 1/4  tsp of yeast it comes out really nice. Large, flavorful and pretty with holes. I rarely make a fast rising bread anyway. I did once. People liked it. It seems so odd after slow rises. I have a few more things to try. I better get cracking. Oh I just realized something. I use to use Guisto's bakers preference thing. Everything came out great. I am using Pendleton Super Power Bread Flour and Various AP flours. I guess I best be changing back. I love Guisto's. It's so sweet.

mredwood, not sure why your starter is not producing sourdough bread.  Are you saying the starter does not revive well ?

What exactly have you tried in terms of trying to revive it ?

SD starters ferment naturally all by themselves ( with feeding) so I'm puzzled that yours won't revive ?

This may help in some way:  I am currently using my first and only SD starter which started 6 weeks ago with nothing more than flour and water.  Its been working very well producing great SD loaves which take 10 hrs to double at cool room temps, then I cold retard overnight.  Once at room temp again the next day they take a further 4 hours to complete 2 risings and foldings in warm temp.  Thats quite a long time I think but the thing is, it works and the loaves have great crumb and sour flavour.  I am just beginning a three day regime of feeding my SD starter at 4 hourly intervals during the day, then I will leave it overnight at the end of the 3rd day and then use my starter to make SD on the 4th day.

I believe this is going to optimise my starter and I expect very much quicker rise and proof phases.  We'll see if it works... !   I'm not too concerned about hydration levels right now, only that I end up with a fairly dryish starter at the end of this feeding regime.    I will learn more about hydration as I progress in my baking and reading up here in this forum.

My buddy who is a very experienced pro baker says it will work.  In fact he says the starter when treated like this, performs much closer to instant yeast.   I'm not sure about SD flavour though.

Let us know what those steps were to revive your starter.

Paul.

Thanks for your input. You are probably going to want more info than I can give. Here's what I do. Out of the fridge I take the crock. Open it air it out. After an hour or so I add flour & purified water to maintain the batter like consistancy I like. Ok I'm going to take it out now. Ok it's out. The culture always bubbles and smells good or not much at all. When it slows down I add more. Bubbles again. Not bad so far. Then when I am ready to bake it will be bully starter that I add per the recipe I am using. This is where things slow down and possibly change smell.  

I guess my rooms are always on the cool side. I will expect that the dough developement will take longer now. But as it continues to rise the smell changes. Sour yes. But not the nice sourdough I like. An odd  sour. Like too sour that you want to add something to mello it out or change it. Not plesant, odd. Not spoiled. 

Usually after a time I give up and add a small amount of instant yeast.

Well another day another loaf. This science is understandabe as I read it but putting it into practice leaves a bit to be desired. I wish there was a simple rule to memorize. Like in planting. Fuzzy but down. Like cold or flu?  Neck up cold. 

Thanks again 

Mariah

It seems to me that you may not be feeding your starter enough and that is why it is not raising your dough.

 This is the method I have used for several years, both for the starters I developed and for others that people have sent me.

FOR FLOUR BASED:

1. Put one teaspoon of starter in a clean container. Add four teaspoons of flour and 3 teaspoons of filtered (non chlorinated) water. Stir well.

 2. Repeat the above at 12-hour intervals, discarding the excess. I do this at 6 am and 6 pm as that suits my work schedule.

If you flush the excess down the drain, use plenty of COLD water. Also wash your utensils and containers with COLD water. Remember, the paste you made as a kid was just flour and water!

3. When the starter is nice and bubbly, you can start building up to the quantity you need for your recipe.

 4. Use this ratio: one portion of starter, 4 portions of flour and 3 portions of water. Example: ¼ cup of starter, one cup of flour and ¾ cup of water will give you more than a cup of starter, which is what a lot of recipes call for.

 Others use the ratio of 1/2/2 or even 1/6/6. But the 1/4/3 works for me.

5. After you remove what you need for your recipe, feed the starter again and refrigerate.

6. I usually start feeding on Thursday evening for a Saturday bake. That way I know my starter is good and healthy. 

Another thing you can do with the excess starter is store it in a large container in the fridge and use it for sourdough biscuits and pancakes. Waste not, want not!!!!

IF YOU USE A SCALE, USE EQUAL WEIGHTS OF STARTER, FLOUR  AND WATER.

Like I said, this has worked for me very successfully.  You might also check my site at www.allthingsbread.bravehost.com to see if there is anything else helpful to you.

Bob

okey dokey I am going to do it. Now, Today. This means it should be good and going in a few days. We shall see. Thanks

Mariah

I had tried sourdough without success until I browsed your site. My sour did not revive well and could not rise a loaf of bread. So I followed your recommendations. I divided my starter much stiffer than usual and I used it to bake a wholegrain loaf. And it worked beautifully.

Thank you so much for helping me with my sordough experimentations,

Grospellier

I too have been baking sourdough only since the beginning of this year and with moderate success. The loaves have not been especially sour. But recently I bought a copy of BBA and tried the Poilane-Style recipe. It does take up to 4 days.

Day 1 - create a barm from standard wet seed culture. let it become active and refrigerate over night.

Day 2 - create firm starter from barm - let it double in size and refrigrerate over night

Day 3 - make final dough - let it prove, shape as required, rise, refrigerate over night.

Day 4 - bake

The result was very sour indeed, probably due to the extended fermentation times. I've never tasted any sourdough (mine or commercial, UK or US) as sour as this.

You can cut out some of the over night refrigeration, for example bake on the 3rd day.

Very interesting thread and history.  I want to go in the other direction -- my starter makes good bread that is excessively sour for my taste.

What I think I have learned from reading this and other threads and comments is that what I need to do is take my starter -- out of the refrigerator and build it / renew it 3 times a day for 3 or 4 days and move to a high hydration starter 125 %.  Then make my bread and do not retard it over night but plan on baking the same day.

We will see how I do.

Dave

God it looks good. Makes me hungry just looking at the final picture right now.

One thing to understand about sourdough starters is that it is a community.  As the culture matures in a fementing dough different organizims will take a dominate or passive role based upon the PH on the fermenting body.  The PH changes as the waste of the culture accumilates.  The sour flavor that we hope for is the result of viniger like compounds that build up.

What the culture is after is sugars that it finds in the moist dough.  The less availible these sugars are the harder the culture will work to find them.  This process involves compounds that break complexed elements of the mix into the simple carbs that these critters are after.

Eventually in the later stages of this process as carbs become less availible and protiens are more abundant the yeasts produce a compound called "protiese".  While these compunds have a strong sour flavor and smell.  The otherside of this part of the yeast community is that they use the "protiese" to break down the protiens into more useful componants.  Sugars, water and carbon dioxide the gas that makes our bread expand.  Without well developed protiens our bread has weak body and will often rip from oven spring.  It is even hard to butter with warm butter.

Rye flour starter will give you a headstart on producing a sour flavored sourdough.  But this also compromises the integraty of the crumb.

In 1970 I went down to San Francisco to find out if the Guru's of sourdough would help me make a sour sourdough.  I was told that they used malt viniger to flavor their bread and that the real advantage of sourdoughs is not only the subltle flavors that come from the yeast but also the character of the crumb and crust that comes from the slow development of the bread. 

I have been making sourdoughs for 40+ years and make at least 15 varieties everyday.  I do have some that are more sour that others and the technique used does profoundly impact the result.  But the flour used, the temps maintained, the time fermenting and the dertermine how it will come out in the end.  Strong elastic crumb and great crust usually don't go with powerful sour flavor.  Commercial baskery supply houses offer a number of flavorings for those folks that have devloped their notion of what sourdough is suppoed to taste like from having eaten flavored doughs.

I suggest that we go for the best crumb and crust and the wonderful and subtle sour will be there.

I followed several of your tips, including stiffening the starter, spiking with rye, and increasing my refrigerated phase. Been using the Basic Sourdough recipe from BBA and a starter initialized with Beth Hensperger's recipe from the Bread Bible.

My most recent loaf had a secondary fermentation in the fridge for 48 hours, and the loaf is as sour as anything I had in San Francisco.

Been following this conversation for quite a while now - an amazing amount of great information and testament to the enterprise and collaborative spirit of all levels of baker - home, commercial and academic.

I've been writing about sourdough starters in quite distinct categories, as this subject has popped up for me before in the process of collating my own couple of decades worth of bakery knowledge into something that makes sense to others.

It does occur to me that starters fall into three distinct categories. There may be more, but this is where I'm at with it for what it's worth. I don't have an opinion as to which is best or whatever - they are three entirely different starter maintenance philosophies, leading to three quite different textures of starter. And yes, they definitely do have different flavour characteristics too.

The first one is what I believe could be termed 'liquid starter', which covers everything from about 80 percent hydration, up to 200 percent. As a reference point, though, I've worked on 100 percent as the 'median'.

Here's the link:

http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/starters/liquid-sourdough-starters.html

This type seems to be the way most sourdoughs begin life - anything from a milky to a thick batter, or even thicker. But generally it's pourable. This type of starter is characterised by the fact that it produces mild flavoured sourdough bread. Liquid starter ripens more quickly if maintained in a more liquid state. Thus, some 'runny' liquid starters need to be fed a couple of times a day. These starters produce very delicately flavoured sourdoughs, and are also commonly maintained as 'preferments' for other styles of artisan breads.

On the other hand, there are those liquid starters which are kept at a very thick batter consistency, barely pourable, which only reguire feeding (in a domestic context, at least) on a weekly basis. These are a little punchier in flavour, and once well established can be easily controlled by storage temperature and feeding cycles. Essentially, thicker liquid starters allow a wider bandwidth to produce controlled 'sourness' in the bread made, up to a point.

The next distinct category of starter I would classify as the 'Old Dough' Sourdough method. This is where a piece of the dough made from a sourdough, either before or after the addition of salt, is reserved and stored as the 'starter' for the next batch of bread. Obviously, the original leaven for this must come from somewhere - and often it originally comes from a liquid sourdough starter which is then 'turned' into a chunk of old dough.

I would say that the hydration percentage of this type of starter would be in the vicinity of 55 percent to 75 percent, but is dictated by the liquid ratio within the actual dough recipe.

Here's the link for more information on this type of starter method:

http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/starters/old-dough-technique.html

This technique produces a more cultured flavour of bread, as there is a slower, more consistent micro environment for the sourdough 'community of organisms' to live in.

The old dough technique is used in many commercial bakeries worldwide, as it is simple and consistent. It doesn't allow the same flexibility of use that the liquid method is blessed with, but it can be used domestically very well, particularly if the home baker makes similar breads each week or fortnight.

The third distinct category of sourdough starter would be what I'll call the 'dry dough' method. This is what jmonkey and others are working with in this blog. It also includes, I think,  'desem' starter, and 'cowboy' starter, to name a few I've come across. These all tend to be characterised by the use of less than 50 percent hydration in the recipe. They use a very 'tough' starter, one which has used the actual fermentation process of the sourdough culture to forcibly 'dry' the dough out to a biscuit or cake like consistency.

As starter matures, it consumes the carbohydrate, making it softer and more 'liquid' (though actually the liquid component hasn't changed). The dry dough technique utilises this 'softening' to thicken the starter beyond the point of 'dough'. When it's really thick, a whole different enzyme balance happens in the 'community of organisms', as I like to call them. Please remember, I'm a baker, not a scientist.

Anyway, they become very sour over time. There is a much deeper level of fermentation going on in the dry dough style.

Here's the link:

http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/starters/desem-sourdough-starter.html

This type of sourdough method is characterised by the intensely sour flavour in the bread it makes, especially if used at 'typical' levels in a sourdough recipe - say 20 to 30 % against the flour weight. However, dry dough is powerful and balanced, so it can also be used at much lower levels in a recipe. This produces a rather more subtle flavour in the bread, but rather like an old wine, it is simply a little more understated, rather than any less sour. I use my dry dough at 10% against the flour weight in a recipe, and it is very deeply a part of the flavour of the bread, even at this level.

It is also possible to make dry dough, even in a commercial bakery, on a weekly basis, as it usually takes a good few days to return to useability after a feed. Again, while it takes a bit of doing to get one of these going, and there is a whole lot of discussion I know in this forum already on this subject, they are also amazingly low maintenance once established.

I think it's amazing that this forum exists, and I just felt inspired to contribute. Hope it makes sense!

Cheers.

Yes, that's right. Every time you take a ferment through a range of temperatures, it increases in sourness, as the lactic acid builds up in the ferment. This also applies to dough - each time it passes below about 15 degrees celsius, it increases in sourness slightly.

Here's a link with more info:

http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/starters/liquid-sourdough-starters/starting-the-sourdough-starter.html

Cheers!

Hi Anne,

Great questions! I see the ambiguity in what I wrote. You can still use dry dough a day after a feed - but in bakeries we tend to work with set volumes, and customers have completely unpredictable demands. Thus, you can find yourself pushing out more bread, and leaving yourself less of the dry dough than you would like to rebuild. For example, if you used 90% of a particular dry dough for orders, and had to rebuild your set volume, you might find it will take 3 days to become active again. 

On the other hand, if you managed to retain, say, 50% of the dry dough, it would be ready in a day or less.

That's why, in a bakery at least, I would keep two desems, and rotate between them each week. Another way would be to simply feed it a small amount (a top up) each day, though this tends to defeat the purpose a bit.

I just keep mine with different flours feeding it - I'll swing it white for a while, then give it a feed of whole rye or spelt every now and again. I find it doesn't effect the look of the bread made from it all that much. If, however, you are a fully commercial bakery, I would definitely keep a number of different grades for different products. The difficulties of doing this, though, can come to the fore when staff mess things up (and they tend to!)..

I also have an almost unripe (freshly fed) frozen liquid starter for a backup, which can be used immediately after thawing just in case everything turns to poo - but it never has (touch wood) in recent years...

(see http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/stories/the-day-the-starter-died.html for the story about this)

And yes, 10% is about ideal for this type of starter. 25% and above is, for my taste, just too strong to be palateable. 

This is such an amazing thread! Cheers to all - I'm learning so much, and I'm also learning what detailed scientists us home bakers can be! What a great thing this forum is. Thanks to those who keep it all running!

HI I have been doing this about 2 weeks. I made my first sourdough loaf it was really great so I have just started 2 more . Please keep the info comming as I am learning to do all of this for the first time. I am so thrilled that I have a place to share. I will have to learn how to do pictures next . Thanks  deb

Hi everyone. This forum topic just keeps ticking over. There's a bit of an article I wrote earlier here where I put links to specific articles regarding classifying sourdough starters.

Due to a recent hosting error with my site, a lot of these links will no longer work.

Here are new ones:

Re: Liquid sourdough starter: http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=76

Re; Old Dough Technique: http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=31

Re: Desem Starter: http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65&Itemid=77

Re: 'The day the starter died': http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32&Itemid=37

Re; Starting the starter':http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=21

My apologies for any inconvenience!

Warwick

I'm fairly new at baking and glad to see there are several on this site, just like me.  But, I'm even more happy to read the pearls of wisdom from the more experienced bakers out there.  A special thanks to "The Sourdoug Baker", your website is fantastic--a bloody goldmine with huge, priceless nuggets that would take me many years to learn on my own.  My approach to making a sourdough starter has certainly been less scientific than most who've published their baking histories.  Living in Oklahoma, a lot of the pre-San Francisco sourdough started here before it made its way out west.  Being blest with a gregarious and engaging spirit--some, hopefully few, might call it being a pain in the arse---I've been able to talk with the simple, country folk who enjoy baking bread from sourdough starters that have been passed down from one generation to the next for well-over 70 years.  What I've learned is what I like to consider just common sense.  I start with the premise that wild yeast is what these hardy types had to use, not so much because it wasn't made at the time, which it probably was, it's just that most of these people were so poor they couldn't afford to buy it.  I'm thinking here of a historical visit to a place on the western side of the state called "The Sod House" which was typical of the early settlers in Oklahoma and in my review of the possessions on hand, I could find many Mason and Ball jars, but not a single thermometer or digital scale or convection oven or steam injected oven, either.  But, I know from eating at many a home out that way over the last 60 plus years, that these people could make a terriffic tasting loaf of sourdough bread.

        From what I can tell, their starters were almost exclusively made from wild yeast by either leaving their jars exposed to the natural air-borne yeast that is everywhere around us, to adding the peels of fruit to induce the yeast to grow and then removed. Water was typically from well water which was full of taste imparting minerals and usually had to be left on the kitchen counter to warm to room temperature. The grains were wheat, maise, rye, millet, sorghum, buckwheat and the like. Those grains with "tooth" as I call it---meaning a strong taste when eaten raw were used more often than not. Also, since very few of these people had a/c, since it wasn't invented yet, it wasn't always possible to find a place that had exactly this warm place or that cool place to let the yeast do its best to ferment the grain with the aid of the liquid. But, one thing is certain, these simple, not particularly scientific methods worked. Sourdough has been around for a long, long time. So, I'm grateful for all of the wisdom that are contained in these many posts that go back for 3 or 4 years, I think. I like to think that maybe a great loaf of sourdough can be achieved fairly simply as well as with all the modern high tech that modern bakeries can muster.

         With my own sourdough starter, which some how instinctively I knew to grab for the rye flour because the sourdough's I've tasted had been rye---made sense to me. Although I didn't measure proportions, my digital scale hadn't been delivered for many days later, I somehow lucked out and used "about" a 50/50 liquid to flour mix. When I put this together initially, I even added a tsp of commercial yeast because I thought that might kick start the fermentation and added a 1/2 tsp of honey to help the yeast on its way; yet another time I added barley malt. Yes, until I discovered that the yeast works fairly quickly generating its gas by-product, I had my fair share of overflowing experiences. But, I noticed that a nice, pleasant and earthy aroma was eminating from the ceramic yellow beehive container that formerly housed honey on my parent's table when I was growing up. I didn't realize this was supposed to be a tight fitting lid. But, I've kept it in there for the last 2 or 3 weeks and it goes from fridge to kitchen counter to sitting outside with the lid off to catch some of the natural yeast. If the top skims over because of the wind, I just spoon it into the mix.  It works quite well, at least it works for me. Also, I haven't stuck exactly to rye flour, either. I've added whole wheat, white bread flour, spelt, and am now back to rye because that seems to produce the pungency of my recollection of what sourdough is supposed to taste like. Also, I've added buttermilk, beer, distilled water and tap water and they all seem to work quite well. The buttermilk probably provided the best fermentation thus far; but, the Guiness added the best aroma. But, I do not keep records and I grab what seems good to me at the moment. So far its worked.

                My biggest problems were in trying to determine how much of the starter I should use to start making bread. One source very wrongfully said to use 1/3 of a cup; and my dough just seemed to sit there for the longest time before anything rise. I now use a cup of my very sticky and somewhat liquid starter which I always add to a cup and one-half of flour, usually whole wheat. I think all of you refer to this as the "preferment". This works really well for me and I simply add my starter to the 3/4 cup of water that I use to make the preferment-starter; the flour goes next and I stir by hand until its all incorporated into a nice consistency. (Once my starter was quite thick and I found that I could actually divide it into several little cubes and mixed those with my standard 3/4 cup of water--usually warm from the tap, but not hot.) Next, I let this prefirment sit on the counter where I can occasionally watch it to make certain that the fermentation process is working. After a couple of hours, or so, everything goes back in the fridge to slow the fermenting process down which I believe is necessary to build the taste and structure that is the heart of sourdough bread. I might leave it for a day or a couple of days--the longer the better if you want a stronger taste.

               When I think the preferment has developed the taste that I would enjoy, I take it out of the fridge and let it reach room temp. When this happens it's time to add the remainder of my bread flour which today was some red hard winter wheat berries that I milled up in a new Nutrimill and the same wheat I got from the state wide co-op annual meeting yesterday. I mixed that flour with some KA bread flour and some salt (1 tbs) and stirred it in till finally I opted to use the Professional 6 qt. KitchenAid that was sitting on the counter next to me. Watching the dough knead, I decided add some olive oil and honey to the mix which also required some extra flour. I finished kneading while the dough was still tacky, not dry and not sticky. I was guided by the principle that whole grain wheat bread needed more liquid to break down the cellular composition of the wheat berry, especially since this was hard red winter wheat. I then did a little hand kneading, just for the fun of playing with the dough---I'm sure all bakers must do this because it's such a pleasurable experience--when living in Santa Rosa, CA, I think my friends would call it a "Zen thing".

                 Next the dough sat for two hours, proofed or rose beautifully; I cut it in two fairly equal pieces and made a french loaf of one and a large boule of the other. I put the french in a clouche (is that spelled correctly?) which I got at the end of last week; and the boule went into an enormous cast iron dutch oven which was sprayed with olive oil-lightly. The clouche or ceramic baker, I simply put a 1/16 inch layer of cornmeal. After letting the dough rise till it was slight less than double, about an hour, I put both cooking utensils in the oven. 

                    The dough was not dumped into a hot cooking utensil--mainly because I tried it once before but found the cornmeal or oil had burned up by the time the utensil reached 500 deg. Maybe I should have added the corn meal just before adding the bread dough. However, by the time I would have gotten the cornmeal and the dough into the clouche, my oven would have cooled off and I probably would have burned the hell out of my arm or hand. I let the dough proof in their cooking vessels at room temp and preheated the gas oven to 500. I cooked the bread at 500 for 40 minutes. This may seem long, but remember, I started with a cool oven. At about 37 minutes I could first start to smell the bread baking, Ahhhhhh, and then turned the oven down to 350 and took the lids off both utensils and let cook for another 15 minutes. I forgot to score the loaves but that didn't seem to bother them as they both rose quite a bit more in the oven while cooking, but did not split open.

                  One loaf went to my neighbors with a newborn and I kept one. I have pix on my camera, but I haven't downloaded them to my computer and I'm not certain how to upload them to this thread anyway. I just want to add one last thing. I'm not a professional baker, that's obvious. I bake bread for a couple of reasons, to eat and the fun of it--that's it. I like variety in what I eat, so I may make a sourdough whole grain rye one day and a few days later make a cibatta or a levain the next. I always, always, always throw in different grains or whatever just to see how it turns out. It might be a cinnamon raisin, a honey-whole wheat. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm not looking for consistency as I'm sure the commercial bakers are trying to do. I refuse to agonize over a loaf if it isn't perfection--but less than perfection has always tasted good, at least to me. And that is where the second reason I bake comes to play---I do it for the sheer fun of it. I like to cook, baking is part of that process. Perhaps a better way is to say its part of that journey that I'm making. It's neat for me to know that I'm using, at least with my sourdough, processes that my great grandmother used when I was but an infant--and I'm 64 now. So the historical and ancestral thing is kind of a kick for me. Plus, I get some neighborhood kudos which is nice because they always reciprocate with something tasty. Anyway thanks for letting me add my musings. BerniePiel

Hi, I am so glad to see these posts, I've learned so much and am so excited! I can't wait to get loaf #5 rising...

Just for fun, I decided to keep a second starter going (to keep Ralph company on the counter) which I am feeding as per usual except with buttermilk instead of water. I wanted to see if I could get it to work, and whether there would be any additional sourness.

Am I about to commit total heresy? If so please say; do not send the sourdough police after me tho, please!

Gabrielle

HI GABRIELLE,

I USED BUTTERMILK IN MY STARTER, AS WELL AS, GUINESS AND DISTILLED WATER.  I DID NOT FIND ANY THING HARMFUL ABOUT USIING ANY OF THOSE.  INDEED, IT WAS MY GRANDMOTHER'S RECIPE FROM AT LEAST 70+YEARS THAT WAS USING THE BUTTERMILK.  THE GUINESS WAS MY IDEA AND IT PRODUCED A REALLY WONDERFULLY AROMA ON THE SECOND DAY--NOT SURE WHETHER THE MALT, HOPS OR WHATEVER CAUSED IT.  BUT, IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS SITE, YOU WILL FIND MOST OF THE PARTICIPANTS ARE EXTREME IN THEIR MEASURING AND RECORD KEEPING AND GADGETS.  I JUST WANT TO MAKE VERY TASTY BREAD AND DON'T MIND MAKIING A MISTAKE IN MY EXPERIMENTS.  HOWEVER, THAT SAID, I DO SEEM TO HAVE READ THAT THERE ARE NUMEROUS SOURCES FOR YOUR LIQUID, INCLUDING VARIOUS ACIDIC FRUIT JUICES, E.G. PINEAPPLE.  SO ENJOY THE BREADMAKING JOURNEY AND EXPERIMENT THEN LET THE REST OF US KNOW WHICH WORKED AND WHICH DIDN'T.  HAPPY FLOUR TRAILS. 

BERNIE PIEL

Thanks, Bernie. While I wait for my kitchen scale to arrive (I'm in Canada and had trouble getting the one I want), I have been getting familiar with adjusting volumes by the look/feel and judging the amount of oven time. I'v been unable to work for 5 years, so this is the perfect 'pre-occupation' for me - I can wait for proofs, it's not physically demanding and a hot oven chases away the chill. Oh, and the end result is so exciting!

Thanks for the open arms...

Gabrielle