/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>4095253
I worked with the dough quite a bit yesterday, but then forgot to upload any of it, my apologies.

After the starter was ready, I threw a dough together using the following percentages: 100% flour, 80% starter, 65% water, 3% salt. I usually shoot for 90% starter, but I shorted it since the dough was going to sit and slow-ferment over night. All the flour was bread flour, since the starter had plenty of whole grain flour in it.

I mixed the dough in the mixer until windowpane (about 8 minutes), then added in pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and walnuts. Then I folded it into a quick boule and placed it in to a greased container for its slow ferment.

>>4094465
Just checking back in about 6 hours later. The starter is rising slowly in the cold environment of my kitchen (about 64 F, ambient).

At this rate, I'll have to mix the dough and let it bulk ferment over night in the cool kitchen.

>>4094301
Fed in a 1:2:2 ratio with 1/2 dark rye flour and 1/2 white bread flour.

It's amazing how quickly you can get starter volume up. It smells pretty wonderful: very fruity and sour.

>>4093625
Here it is this morning. Just about doubled, and you can see all the activity in the starter that is providing that leavening power.

I zapped a bowl of water in my microwave for a couple minutes to make it humid and warm in there, then placed my starter in it for an hour or so to try to bring it up to temp and get it super active.

Next step is another feeding to bring up the volume.

>>4093630
I'm not using whole wheat flower.

>>4093633
Thanks!

>>4093622
The freshly-fed starter will be allowed to mature overnight, then fed again in the morning to increase the quantity of starter.

It's a little cold, so the maturation may take a while. Probably good since I'm going to let it sit overnight.

This ones going to take a while.

Real-time bread baking, from the very, very beginning of my process.

Sourdough starter was pulled out of the fridge earlier today, then fed in a 1:3:3 ratio with whole wheat flour. I always make sure to beat lots of air into the starter to give any aerobic bacteria a shot at survival.

>>4092663

My bread!

Also the sweet savory combo can be nice sometimes. There's a restaurant in Portland called Le Pigeon that would sometimes serve seared foie gras over duck jam, all on a bed of warm trail mix. Sounds really strange, but it was actually pretty wonderful.

>>4088205

For regular sourdough breads, it has been my experience that 30% starter and 2% salt, by weight in the final dough, produces the most consistent product. I think that's fairly well supported by other bread bakers, too.

Doing some quick calculations, assuming 100% = 100 oz:

100+92+65+3.5 = 260.5 total ounces of dough
92/260.5 = 35.3%
3.5/260.5 = 1.3%

So it's not dead on 30% and 2%, but it's pretty close.

The hydration is a little more complicated, since half of the starter is water, so of the 260.5 total ounces of dough, total water is 65 + .5*(92), which is 111 ounces, while total flour is 100 + .5*(92), which is 146 ounces. Therefore, ignoring the salt, the dough is 76% hydrated.

Yes, that is high, but I tend to prefer high hydration doughs in terms of crust and crumb. If you don't have experience with them, then they will be a pain in the ass, so you might want to back off on the water content. With that said, lower hydration takes longer to ferment/proof.

>>4088180

Why are you measuring your starter volumetrically?

Try this:
100% flour
92% starter
65% water
3.5% salt

Measure everything by weight.

>>4088172

Jesus that post is full of spelling errors. I can't believe I used "than" rather than "then", and "weight" rather than "wait". That's embarrassing. Please forgive me for that. I just woke up and haven't had my coffee yet.

>>4088167

In general, I start starters from scratch using a 1:1 mix of rye flour and water. Rye flour and whole wheat flour seem to have more bacteria/yeast in them (which makes sense, since they include the bran where bacteria would likely live), and therefore get things moving at a more rapid rate. If you want a white starter, than you can start feeding white flour after the starter has fully matured on rye/whole wheat. Your starter should probably be doubling reliably in 3-5 hours before you start using it to bake. This means twice daily feedings should be required if you're keeping the starter at room temperature.

In my experience, you can't diagnose starter issues from loaf color, only from performance of the leavener during bulk ferment, proof, and/or bake.

In terms of getting the starter ready for use, you should always feed it to get it up to volume, then weight for it to just under double. The goal is to make sure that the density of bacteria and yeast is high in the starter, but that they haven't started to die of malnutrition yet. In microbiological terms, you want to catch the starter during log phase, and not during stationary or death phases.

I make quite a bit of sourdough bread. Two weeks is probably a little short in terms of starter maturation, and it's likely that you'll experience better leavening performance after a couple more weeks of twice-daily feedings.

Sourdough, in general, is a patient-man's game. Because commercial yeast is specifically selected for it's leavening power, it rises much more consistently and powerfully than sourdough, to be sure. I've found that fermentation and proofing temperature is fundamental in rising time. I can ferment at room temp and it will take a dough that is made with 30% starter by weight approximately 6-8 hours to finish. If I do it at 78-82F with humidity, then it takes 2-3 hours. You can try bulk fermenting and proofing in a microwave after blasting a container of water for a few minutes, and I can almost guarantee you will be amazed at how much it changes things. With that said, a faster ferment or proofing period generally means less sour flavor, so it's a balance, to be sure.

Your bread looks nice.

Pic is a 30% dark rye sourdough from a couple months back.

>>4064637

Start by baking by weight, not by volume. Then give this recipe a shot: 100% flour, 78% water, 2.8% salt, 0.3% yeast. Let the mixer work on the dough until somewhere around windowpane. Bulk retard the dough in the fridge for 48 hours. Portion, proof, and bake.

As to the WW/rye dough issue, it's true, they do often require more water. Truth be told, though, I bake such high hydration loaves (usually 75+%) that things almost never come out underhydrated.

>>4064644

Very cool! I'd love to have steam on demand for my oven, but the cast iron/boiling water combo works pretty well. When I pour 2 cups of water into the pan, it turns into prodigious quantities of steam for about 20 seconds, and evaporates completely during that time frame.

>>4064414
>>4064486
>>4064490

Steam serves two primary purposes. First, it moistens the surface of the crust, which prevents it from prematurely browning before the center cooks. Second, it solubilizes some of the available sugars on the surface of the dough, resulting in a more consistent and smooth brown coloration.

>>4064531

Sourdough starter really just takes a lot of patience. Otherwise, it's not too bad. The problem is that novice bakers don't tend to have much in the way of patience, and so their sourdough loaves frequently turn out less-than-ideal. Try this for a SUPER simple sourdough bread: 100% flour, 70% starter (1:1 hydration), 62% water, and 3.5% salt. Just make sure to let it take its time bulk fermenting until almost doubled, or you'll miss out on a lot of the sour flavor. Thanks for the link.

>>4063776
>>4063788

I'm the gayest stupidest guy in the thread. There, problem solved.

>>4064097

I have a normal home oven. It is true that it is the first oven I can get up to 550F, or that has convection (which raises effective temp to 575F), but it's not a fancy model by any means. For steam, I use a cast iron pan that sits on the floor of the oven for the entirety of the bake cycle (including preheat) and boiling water. Generates at least 20-30 seconds of steam, no problem.

>>4063709

Looks delicious!

>>4063703

I use baker's percentages. They are weight ratios. Infinitely scalable, which makes them nice when you have a limiting ingredient and want to use all of it.

>>4063686

I think many people conflate the flavor of rye with the flavor of caraway seed. The deli rye that is available here in the US is always a rye/caraway loaf. In reality, rye has a very nice, balanced whole wheat flavor.

As to the sourdough starter, do you have much experience baking bread without it? It's a fairly advanced step in bread baking, so it's good to get the fundamentals down first.

>>4063695

That's a negative. Because of the whole wheat content, it came out light, but consistent.

>>4063091

Sorry, friend. No baguette photos. It's very rare that I make baguettes. I suppose the beauty and the downfall of the baguette is that its shape and nature makes it wonderfully short-lived. Therefore, it's hard to justify doing all that work at home when enjoying them over multiple days just isn't feasible. For the most part, I bake loaves. They just last longer.

>>4062936

Try: 100% flour (10% rye, 90% bread), 50% water, 15% buttermilk, 10% egg yolk, 3% salt, 0.4% yeast. Brush with egg wash before baking.

>>4062944

The artisan loaf was proofed in a banneton, then baked at 550F with steam for the first 2 minutes, dropped to 475F until finished. The two sandwich loaves were proofed in a loaf pan that was greased, then baked at 400F until done.

Came out pretty nice. Exact same dough between the three loaves. Just goes to show how big of a difference post-mixing conditions make in the final loaf.

>>4062890

Are you actually gluten intolerant or just wheat intolerant? Only something like 2% of the US population actually has Coeliac's Disease, the rest who experience adverse effects after eating bread are actually just wheat intolerant.

>>4062783

Thanks for the constructive criticism. The intelligence with which you voiced your concerns tells me that it's a comment worth listening to.

>>4062787
>>4062791

Sandwich bread always threw me until recent years. To be honest, I cut the fat out of all of my sandwich loaves, and suddenly they became these big, billowy, consistent, beautiful loaves that are a pleasure to make into sandwiches. Maybe try it completely fat-free?

>>4062724

Probably too much fat and not enough gluten. Either spend more time working the dough by hand, or cut back a bit on the fat. Is it also super dense?

>>4062729

I made raisin bread last weekend! Sadly, I didn't take any pictures because it was just too damn ugly

>>4062731
It's only 20% rye and 40% whole wheat. 60% of the total flour being whole wheat is uncharacteristic of me. I tend to stick to 20% or less.