If you are looking for a complex flavor with no sourness, then perhaps a
yeast poolish would work for you (since you state that you are not a
purist). You can use a small amount of yeast in a mixture of water and flour
(equal parts each) and let it ferment for about 12 hours. Make your dough
using about 20% poolish by total dough weight. You can add a small amount of
yeast, in addition to the poolish, in your dough if you want it to proof
faster. This gives a complex flavor (to some) with zero sourness.

However, if you wish to use a sourdough starter to raise the bread then, in
general, the younger the starter and the quicker the bread rises the less
sour it will be. Of course, you want a starter that is active enough to
raise the bread fairly quickly. Depending on the culture, if the starter can
triple in volume in 8 hours or less then it is very active and can give you
a fairly quick rise for your loaf. By keeping the starter and the bread at
room temp or higher you can expect a quicker rise than you would get had
either been refigerated.

Starters differ in their characteristics, but if you can get an active
starter that's 8 or less hours old and use it as about 10% of the total
dough weight then you are well on your way to making a complex, yet mild
loaf. If your final loaf is ready for baking in under 2 hours then there's a
good chance you'll produce the kind of bread you desire.

Trevor


"Randall Nortman" wrote in message
ink.net...
On 2004-11-22, Roy Basan wrote:
I love sour bread, but sometimes I want to bake a loaf without that
sour flavor. And yet, I hate bland bread, and I love the idea of
using natural leavening just because it's fun and interesting. I
want
to get my culture to give my bread complex, interesting flavors --
like those found in fermented products like beer or wine -- without
yielding much if any sourness.
Wine and beer are made with specific types of yeasts. And what ever
complexity it produces is due to microbial contaminants in form of
bacteria or other strains of yeasts. And there is a slight difference
in the biochemical mechanism that occurs in beverage fermentation if
compared to bread fermentation.

I was not clear in what I meant to say -- perhaps it is better to say
that I'm looking for something analogous to the flavors that develop
in wine and beer. If you taste a wine grape and then taste wine made
from it, you'll be able to taste the grape in the wine, but you'll
taste much more as well. These are flavors that appear in the final
product as a result of fermentation. This is the sort of thing I
assume that the artisan bread baking books are talking about with
bread. Certainly, the flavors are not the same as the wine and beer
flavors, but they are the result of the fermentation. So what I'm
trying to do is figure out how to develop fermentation flavors other
than sourness, and indeed without any sourness to the extent
possible.


The chemistry of sourdough flavor is complex being made of hundreds
of flavor chemicals in the form of acids ,aldehydes, esters, ketones,
lactones, pyrazines, and other heterocyclic compounds.

Ah, this is what I'm talking about. How well have these processes
been studied scientifically? Is it possible to get these other
compounds without getting lactic acid?


Your questions how to reduce sourness, well many people have different
opinions about it, but to my experience the faster the dough is
allowed to rise the lesser is the sourness perceived such as what is
being used in hybrid sourdoughs where the incorporate bakers yeast to
hasten the proofing time. But if the dough is made with a higher ratio
of natural starter with respect to the dough flour it tends to result
in a distinctive sour tasting bread.

I am not a purist -- I'm certainly willing to use a combination of
commercial yeast and natural culture. So far, I have not found this
necessary for producing adequate leavening, though in the past I have
also been satisfied with fairly sour flavors.

However the nature of the starter culture could influence that also.
Different starters strains have varying effect on sourness.Some
strains are really mild and even if you use high amount of starter
the flavor is still mild.Others tends to produce a distinct tang in
the bread even if the usage rate of the starter is lesser.

Any suggestions on sources for more mild cultures? I'm using a
homegrown culture, which has worked surprisingly well for me in terms
of leavening power for quite a while now. I see that Sourdough
International has a "French" culture which they say has a very mild
flavor -- does anybody have experience with this particular culture?

A firmer starter tends to result in less sourness than a more fluid
starter.

I wonder if that simply has to do with the motility of the organisms
in the starter slowing down their metabolism, similar to the effect of
low temperatres.


I should also mention that I bake almost exclusively whole-grain
breads, for both flavor and health. (I do love white bread, but I
firmly believe it will send me to an early grave.) I use King Arthur
whole red wheat and also whole "white" wheat (the latter to mellow
the
flavor a bit), sometimes with small percentages (15% or so) of whole
rye flour. Unless I'm baking for a special event or by special
request, I don't use any white flour at all.

I do not see any problem using white flour as long as its straight run
and the ash content is in the vicinity of 0.6-0.7%
Thinking that is unhealthy is not absolutely true as long as your diet
is balanced. What is the point of eating whole grain breads and you
omit other nutrients as your mind is focused on bread alone' how about
the accompaniments that is part of your meal?

As long as the diet is balanced, then it's pretty much healthy by
definition. But if refined grains (white bread, white rice, sugar)
form the foundation of the diet (as is the case with a typical
American diet), then the diet is not balanced. (By "foundation of the
diet", I mean that a substantial portion of total calories comes from
refined grains -- perhaps 50% or more.) Moderate servings of refined
grains paired with ample fruits and vegetables are fine, and this is
probably what you mean by a balanced diet (though whole grains paired
with fruits and veggies are even better!).

Also note that no matter what the ash content of the white flour is
(which indicates some mineral content), it does not have the fiber
content of whole grain flour. There are also numerous micronutrients
which are removed along with the bran and germ which are not fully
replenished in "enriched" white flour.

Still, I do eat white bread. I just rarely bake it, because when I
bake bread I end up eating a lot of it, and white bread in that
quantity (and that frequency) would be unhealthy for me, given other
aspects of my lifestyle (e.g., sitting at a desk all day). YMMV.