Hello, This is my first post here. I've been using a bread machine for a very long time, and have also experimented making bread manually with baker's yeast, but I decided recently to move to sourdough. I baked my first loaf yesterday. It turned out quite fine, with a thin but hard and chewy crust, excellently elastic texture (much better than I ever had with the bread machine), it looked very pretty. However I must say that even though it tastes good, it is a little bland... and lacks this real bread taste that you get when biting in a fresh loaf made by a good baker. Here is how I made the loaf - perhaps you have comments on the technique or ingredients! 1. starter. I used 1 cup of white wheat flour and 1 cup of fresh kefir (having kefir grains I brew it at home). I waited two days until it became very bubbly, almost frothy, with a very pleasant yeasty-sour smell. 2. sponge. I mixed the whole of my starter with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of white wheat flour and mixed thoroughly. It had the texture of a sticky paste. I left it in peace for 24 hours, until it's volume doubled and it was very bubbly and yeasty-smelling. 3. dough. I added ~ 1.75 cups of white wheat flour to the sponge, along with a sprinkle of sugar, a dash of olive oil, a spot of grated nutmeg, tarragon, and ~ 3/4 tsp salt. I mixed everything together then kneaded vigorously for ~ 10 minutes. I then formed a loaf, placed in on a flour-sprinkled baking sheet and on a tray, and left it alone for 2-3 hours until its volume had doubled. 4. baking. ~ 45 minutes at 200 C, until the crust on the top was brown and hard. I slashed the loaf twice before putting it in the oven, sprinkled the top with water and poured a bit of water in an empty tray I had put in the oven prior to warming it up, so that a bit of steam was created. As I wrote the loaf turned out very pretty and good but something is missing, the bread-y taste you expect from, say, baguette (being French I know what it should taste like ;) ). I don't think I should add more salt, it's something else. I'm thinking perhaps I didn't let the sponge sour enough - but it was tasting sour enough to me... Any pieces of advice, tricks, or secrets you'd like to share? Thanks, Cheerio!
PS. I know that it takes bakers years to achieve a perfect taste... and this is my first try. Nevertheless I'm always open to ideas :)Category:
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My first good loaf was not much to eat by itself, but not in the least bad bread. It was fantastic with a little butter spread. I froze half of it, and a week later I made a tomato, red onion, Feta cheese, and minced cilantro salad. It had good seasons Zesty Italian dressing on it. I heated the sliced sour dough bread in foil for this. It was heaven on earth. It was so good, we had it for our dinner, and then got tomatoes to do it again the next day.
While bread that is so delicious to eat by itself is nice, I put more weight in how it goes with other foods, like a sandwich, or sopping up tomato sauce with my spaghetti, and more importantly toast with butter. There isn't much better toast than sour dough toast.
Sourdoughs acquire their flavour during proofing, and the nature of the flavour depends upon the proofing temperatures used.
If you want to favour the yeast, a lower proofing temp is best - room temperature up to maybe 76-78 degrees. If you want to favour the bacteria, and enhance the sour flavour over the yeast flavour, higher temps, up to 90 degrees F, are needed.
I usually proof my dough at 84 degrees F and use a proofing box to control the process as well as speed it up.
Another factor: Some sourdough cultures just don't get along well with heavy grains - my SF culture, for instance (from sourdo.com), produces tasty but dense, flat whole wheats.
Cheers,
Ken
http://www.squidoo.com/cooking-with-sourdough
Forgot to mention that different cultures produce different flavours, so you might want to try other cultures as well as experimenting with proofing temps. I have 4 cultures from sourdo.com, and they all taste and behave differently than the others - particularly the South African whole wheat culture, which produces a unique taste.
The sourdough bread that most people on this forum bake consists of water, bread and salt. Using a dairy brings a whole dimension to the bread. Never having used any dairy products in my bread I realy can't comment on the impact.
Your crust might benefit from a higher temperature. I bake at 450 F (232 C) for the first 10 min and then turn it down to 425 F (218 C). I use 1 cup of hot water in a cast iron skillet on the bottom rack which produces a lot of steam.
Happy baking!
Patty
I do not make kefir, but I do make yogurt for my family. We love strained or greek style yogurt. I am left with a great deal of whey. After some research, I discovered that it is a great replacement for the water in my bread. I use the following recipe from this site sourdough.com/recipes/home-bread and have great results. I do no know exactly how kefir works, but I use starter in addition to my whey (I love to use the leftover whey as it is high in nutrients). So, I use one part starter, twice as much in weight of whey (If I do not have enough I do part water part whey), and then flour amount is 3 times the amount of starter. I tend to do about 100 grams of wheat flour for every 300-400 grams of white bread flour. Honestly, I have never used white wheat as I worry about products such as this and just how natural they are, but I do not have any knowledge about how they are produced, so I am a neophite. I love using my scale to weigh ingredients due to better accuracy and less mess. Clean up is one bowl and I use it for my proofing too. Unlike the linked recipe, I like to bulk proof in my fridge, but my fridge is really cold and really slow on the rise. You will have to get used to yours through trial and error, but very worth it for the genuine flavor you are looking for. After I mix it all up, I let it autolaze or sit there for 30 minutes. Then, I do 30 or 40 kneads in the bowl because it is high hydration for good crust and chewy crumb. then , I cover and sit for one hour. A double letter fold on oiled counter and back in oiled bowl for 30 minutes. Then in fridge for anywhere from 8-12 hours, depending on my time frame. Get it out, let sit 2 hours, do double letter fold. In about an hour another double letter fold, followed by shaping. Let sit in floured banneton for about 30 minutes (you can skip this part if your fridge is not slow like mine). In refrigerator for anywhere from 4-10 hours, again depending on my day. Bake directly from refrigerator, doing the normal invert on peel, slash, and bake on hot pizza stone with a pan of water for steam. It is amazing, crust so good it is hard to eat the rest of the slice, open holes, chewy crumb, and we leave the bread cut side down on cutting board and I swear it is better each day. I think the bulk proofing and final proofing at lower temp, simplicity of the recipe, and good ingredients is the trick. I bake at least weekly for my family and friends. :)
Yes, whey is very lively indeed. I'll try to grow a classic starter in parallel, with just flour and water, so I can compare. For the moment I managed to increase sourness simply by adding twice as much starter to the dough. The crust got better with ice cubes thrown in the oven on a metal pan - it's now a bit thicker, but I'll try with higher temperatures too! The crumb is a bit dense and maybe not as chewy as I'd like but I'll get to it ;) cheers!