I'm not understanding why so many recipes online are using bakers yeast in their recipe? Won't the acid levels in sourdough just kill the bakers yeast anyways?
My thoughts are that perhaps so many don't have a sourdough starter, that they add that in "just in case"???
Jeff.
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I ignore instructions that advise putting baker's yeast into a sourdough bread dough. That said, the dough will either need more time to develop or more starter than the recipe calls for. Also remember to adjust the ingredients if you are adding more starter to the mix.
I mix sourdough starter with bakers yeast. That's because during the week I often just don't have the time to do a proper sourdough loaf. I use the starter to add some of the depth of flavour that I like. I much prefer to do proper sourdough on the weekend. It also means I get to refresh my starter and keep it happy. Since the starter is in the loaf for flavour and quality, not for the raising power, I am happy to use fairly tired looking starter.
Having said that, Jeff, may be you need to use recipes from people who want what you want from their bread, real slow sourdough. Have you looked at Richard Bertinet's books?
R
I usually make my bread with a sourdough poolish with its flour content around 30% of the total flour. This I leave overnight to ferment and then in the morning I add the remainder of the flour, the water, the salt and a small amount of instant yeast - usually only around a quarter teaspoonful (less than 1 gram). So, the ratio of instant yeast to flour is less than 0.1% but this has a significant effect on proving time and volume. Instead of 5 hours proving with the sourdough alone, it is only about 1h 45min and the oven spring is tremendous. The taste and texture of the loaf is not affected by the yeast as that is fixed by the overnight poolish. I understand that this is quite the accepted practice for artisan bakers in France and it is still called sourdough if the added yeast is less than 0.2% of the flour. It works well!!
Cheers