Does anybody make their own sourdough bread from "scratch"?
I'm trying and i've been pretty successful making and keeping my own starter but I seem to need to add yeast. Some online recipes say to add yeast, some not to and to rely 100% on the atmospheric/ambient yeast.
Any tips of how to do it properly??
(Maybe Swiss air is too clean to contain enough yeast to make it rise )
Oh Gawd!! Thankd for making me miss the Bay Area CA again! LOL
Sour mmmmmmmmmmmmm
Much as I know little about baking I did over hear mother dearest and my aunt stating that Swiss flours contained no raising agent and one must use yeast and bicarb... sound right?
It was featured on Channel four's River Cottage a couple of weeks ago. It didn't look that difficult to make the starter. I remember he stuck a stick of rhubarb in it to help get things started. You could try searching Channel four's site. Don't forget to search Youtube.
I remember seeing a program last year where the baker had some starter which was started over a hundred years ago.
Well,sort of, but not really - in the UK you can get self - raising flour which contains those things and plain flour, which doesn't - i think the same in the US too. But here, they don't sell SR flour.
BUT - sourdough shouldn't need any raising agents other than the natural yeast in the flour and the air...thats what makes it special. But I have never managed to get it to work properly without adding the yeast too
water and flour and a little sugar at room temperature in a large bowl. Walk around (even outside) holding up your bowl and hoping. Return home and cover with a damp tea towel and plastic on top. Wait 24 hours. Smell for yeast and look for bubbles. Remove a cup etc etc.
I get as far at the etc etc myself ...... but then what?? Just flour, salt and water, or yeast as well?? And does it take long to rise when you only add one cup of the starter??
Stir, add water and flour to double the volume, put in fridge. When the bubbling stops, feed again. Look, listen, smell and understand. This is your baby, totally unique in the world and theres no recipe, no standard. You need to learn about your yeast yourself!
No yeast as it gets that from the flour. I swear by peter reinhart ( "Artisan Breads Every Day" is the bomb) and found a copy of his starter recipe online for you - http://www.squidoo.com/sour-dough-starter though the seed starter recipe of his that I usually use calls for unsweetened pineapple juice on days 1 and 2 rather than water. If you like to bake bread, this is a really good cookbook as I have loved just about everything I've made.
I was sad that I had to part with my starter when we moved and haven't made a new one yet. You do get kind of attached to them after a while.
No...that's a bit of urban legend. Grains have lots of yeast and bacteria hanging around. Especially when you consider that often starter recipes call for spring water/filtered water and plastic wrap on the top, there's really only one source left. Unless you live next to a farm, there's probably not a lot of yeast floating around in the air.
Also, when using pineapple juice (sugar with low pH), discourages the growth of undesirable bacteria/microbes that come with the flour and encourages the growth of the yeast. Sometimes this takes a bit more time than recipes suggest, but it's not due to a lack of yeast in the air.
An interesting tidbit I ran across while looking for wheat gluten after I made really fine bagels with the flour I picked up in Germany, but still requires a bit more gluten. Apparently, it's not my imagination that the flours here are really not up for baking...at least not the kind of baking I'm used to (including the Swiss) - http://oventv.wordpress.com/2009/07/...n-switzerland/ The bread I've baked here using the Swiss flour really have been anywhere between disastrous and merely ok. The German flours seem to be a big improvement though you have to know which number is which so you might want to check them out if your project fails/disappoints using the local flours.
OK, made my first attempt at sourdough bread at the weekend and it turned out relatively well so I thought I'd update the thread.
I made and fed the starter every 24 hours over one week using nothing other than plain Zurich tap-water and Zopfmehl (simply because that's what I had in the cupboard) in equal volumes. Stored in a glass jar on the kitchen work-surface. Seemed to froth up easily and 24 hours after feeding it would be more or less the consistency of pancake batter. No rhubarb or pinapple juice required.
Rather than use a particular recipe for the actual bread (as I hadn't used one for the starter) I kind of improvised, after getting ideas about the general proportions from reading recipes online. Just mixed it until I got a dough that seemed like the righ kind of consistency to kneed.
Finished bread had a great flavour and was not too dry, very crunchy crust. It was quite dense as it didn't rise massively during the proving period. It did take several hours to prove (and I also think I slightly over-proved it) but it was snowing and cold outside so I guess it might go faster when it's warmer.
So, very easy and quite fun to make, just needs a little patience.
Looking forward to experimenting with different recipes now.
Ahem ... how far from home should one walk carrying this bowl? Is there any specific chant one should make while doing this? Any specific direction to face if/when bowing/kneeling? Any specific time of day/night?