I use a breadmaker most of the time. I have to use a combination of starter and commercial yeast so it rises enough in the time allocated by the machine. I use about one cup of starter to 3 cups of flour and 3/4 cups of water. I add the starter, flour, sugar, and water and let it sit for a few hours before I put in the 3/4 tsp of yeast and the salt and start the machine cycle.
I am wondering if the sour I get in the bread comes just from the starter I put in, or does it generate more sour when it is fermenting during the rise before cooking?
Aloha
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When you add the starter/flour/sugar/water, do they get mixed at all? Or are they just kind of sitting there unmixed for those few hours?
Presumably you mix them, if so I would say that the sour flavour you get is not just from the starter, but from some fermentation of the dough itself prior to adding the yeast. Since "a few hours" at room temperature is what a lot of pure sourdough recipes call for, for the bulk fermentation phase anyway.
Cheers
Mike
THANKS FOR THE ADVICE,
You're welcome!
One suggestion, although it is another step, you may want to consider adding the salt say 30 minutes after mixing the flour/starter/water/sugar together. Then add the yeast as you normally do. A few hours of bulk fermentation without salt may cause the dough to breakdown somewhat because of enzymatic activity that is inhibited by presence of salt.
Alternatively, you could add the salt at the very beginning with everything else, but the gluten structure does benefit from 20-40 minutes of "autolyse" when the flour & water are present without salt or commercial yeast.
What I did, I added it like this - 1/2 cup warm water, 1 cup starter, 1tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp rapadure sugar, 1cup flour, 1tsp salt, 1&1/4 cup flour, 1tsp dried yeast.
Cooked for 4 hours on basic bake. It seemed to rise (and was okay for a small loaf) but I think next time I might cook it on the 3 hour rapid bake just to see how it compares.
Delveen
Hi there. I've recently started making sourdogh loaves and am starting to get the hang of it. So far I've only done it 'baton style' on a pizza stone in the oven, but I am curious to try cooking it in my bread machine to get a square loaf. I am planning to do everything as I would for a normal 'artisan' loaf, except do the final proofing phase in the tin and then just run the bake cycle on the machine.
This would mean that the dough would sit in the tin of the bread machine for 2 - 3 hours, or alternatively all night in the fridge. I'm just wondering if the acidity of the dough could cause any problems for the metal tin (or rather, metal fused with some sort of non-stick marterial). I've read in various places that because of the acidity of the starter, you shouldn't use a metal spoon to stir it, and also that you should clean your knife after slashing the proven dough as the acidity could degrade the cutting edge. If there's any substance behind these warnings, then I can only assume that proofing the dough in a metal tin might also be a bad idea, whether for the tin, the bread, or (most likely) both.
Any advice? Experiences?
Cheers.