On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 10:06:43 -0400, EJM wrote:

I have not insulted anyone trying to aid me. As I said, there is some
kind of psychopathology going on here.

Oh what nonsense.

See what I mean - denial of reality is a form of psychopathology. :-)

[snip]

So is excessive snipping. I believe it is called the "Lorena Bobbitt
Syndrome".

People are merely expressing their annoyance if they
feel their time is being wasted.

If people feel their time is being wasted, then why do they
participate in the first place? Don't they know how to use the DEL
key?

[For those who are not schooled in the proper use of the DEL key, send
a SASE for instructions.]

I believe that you mentioned you had only ever made one recipe - the KA
recipe "Breads From The Hearth: Baguettes and Ciabatta with Sue Gray &
P.J. Hamel". It is not a sourdough recipe even if you call it one.

Then I am totally confused. I thought that any bread recipe that used
a poolish was classified as a sourdough.

I trust that you scaled the whole recipe? One has to be careful with
scaling because the amount of yeast required for the approximate 4 cups
of flour in the KA recipe will be different from the amount of yeast
required for 6 cups of flour.

I scaled the original recipe exactly.

I can't understand why you would expect a more pronounced sourdough
effect. The KA recipe is not a sourdough recipe.

In the past I make a poolish in much the same manner as that recipe.
In those instances the recipe was labeled "sourdough". I assumed that
if I did essentially the same thing, namely employed a poolish, then I
was making a sourdough.

Authentic sourdough does not use commercial yeast at all.

I realize that there is authentic sourdough and pretend sourdough.
This is all part of the confusion caused by sloppy writing in books
and on the Internet.

maybe I can make a sourdough with no commercial yeast
whatsoever - from scratch.

Yes, of course it can be done but I gather for the inexperienced, it
isn't a simple operation. (Read the Steingarten.)

I read the Samartha and he makes it look rather straightforward. He
even gives you approximate fluid volumes in case you can't weigh the
ingredients, which is rather decent of him.

Now I am using rye flour to get a starter going on its own, albeit I
am not using whole grain rye like he specifies. I am using "medium
rye". I should know if it is going to ferment sometime later today.

Here is a review of what sourdough is:

... from www.baking911.com/bread_starters101howto.htm ...

I will have a look.

There is also a carefully outlined day to day chart on making a
sourdough starter in "The Village Baker" by Joe Ortiz. I have not tried
making it but I have made non sourdough recipes in Ortiz's book and they
turned out very well.

Samartha's recipe is quite detailed, complete with progress photos.

Water spray alone is sufficient or perhaps leaving them in
the oven with no water spray will work.

Certainly, try both to see which you prefer. It's my suspicion that
spraying alone will do the trick.

That's what I used in the past. I even bought a dedicated spray bottle
from the dollar store for this one application.