Hi all forum people.
I am going to get my hands back into the dough again after years away from regular baking.
It occured that this could be a good opportunity to help others who are starting out in sourdough. A Sourdough Diary Page will document my efforts over the next two weeks. The diary will be shown as notes and photos in a new Beginners Section (link from here soon).
(Diary begins on Monday 24 April, 2006)
Forum members are encouraged to offer feedback and advice in this topic. Your advice could be added to the Diary Page, with full credit of course. I think I have quite a lot to offer, but input is needed from current practitioners of the art.
- credit is due already to the forum members who have already posted mini-diaries of their own process. Thank you!
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Graham
Replies
[quote="Graham"]
Hi all forum people.
I am going to get my hands back into the dough again after years away from regular baking.
It occured that this could be a good opportunity to help others who are starting out in sourdough. A Sourdough Diary Page will document my efforts over the next two weeks. The diary will be shown as notes and photos in a new Beginners Section (link from here soon).
(Diary begins on Monday 24 April, 2006)
Forum members are encouraged to offer feedback and advice in this topic. Your advice could be added to the Diary Page, with full credit of course. I think I have quite a lot to offer, but input is needed from current practitioners of the art.
- credit is due already to the forum members who have already posted mini-diaries of their own process. Thank you!
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Graham
[/quote]
I'm looking forward to receiving this help from you in Australian speak, not American speak. Great idea. I'm sure we'll all learn heaps from it!
Graham,
it may sound sacrilegious in this forum, however I think that I learned a lot about how to make sourdough from making non-sourdough breads (or at least not very authentic ones!).
I know that when I made my first starter I was very impatient to get on and bake with it - but early results were disappointing.
I wonder whether it would be worthwhile posting some simple recipes for yeasted breads, that could help beginners out there to get a hang of some basic techniques, - while their starter is getting going.
I would recommend having a go at
1. A simple white loaf with a preferment phase
eg [url]http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=80140&view=findpost&p=1091247[/url]
2. An italian style bread using a biga
(for those who haven't met this term before, this is kind of a cheat's starter, made with a very small amount of yeast, and allowed to ferment for at least 12-24 hours. It is used in a similar way to leaven/sourdough starter, but the timings are shorter).
what do you think?
Dom
[quote]
I wonder whether it would be worthwhile posting some simple recipes for yeasted breads, that could help beginners out there to get a hang of some basic techniques, - while their starter is getting going.
[/quote]
Dom, it would help beginners to get baking. I originally trained as a yeast baker and know that there is a clarity of process that takes longer to find in sourdough. However on another level it could be a bit confusing, mixing the two fermentatin types. Though it would be good to know more about the biga process. The bakeries that use this process often have a strong European infuence and the skill level is high.
I know that you were concerned about the conflict of baker's yeast on a sourdough site as you wrote the suggestion. The conflict is too strong for me in regards to actually posting yeast recipes. But we are starting a Blog area soon and in your own blog there is room for innovative sourdough training techniques like your yeast to sourdough idea. We would have started a blog sooner but it has taken ages to find a blog program which is reasonably friendly to use.
Thanks for the suggestion. It is wild enough to work (on your blog ).
Graham