jeff higgins wrote:
I've have tried several times over the past couple of months or so to
make genuine sourdough bread but have only met with limited success.
.... looooong story ...
Apparently recipes don't do the trick for you.
You were successful when you used a yeast recipe and you tried several
pure sourdough recipes which more or less failed. Of the books you
mention, I have only the Village Baker and the recipe you did is fairly
complex over a very long period of time.
Also, it appears that you are trying several recipes, one after the
other instead of sticking with one, fairly simple and get this going
first.
If you do one and change one or two things at a time, you can see the
effect better.
Maybe it would be worth considering this approach?
To me it looks you have a starter issue. There are two main
possibilities - either over or under (not enough developed or too much),
but you probably don't know which way it is going. I think it is helpful
to know about the phases a starter goes through and be able to recognize
them. With white flour starters it is easily possible to be too quick
and have it overdeveloped and then it's a drag.
You mention that it's fairly warm where you live. When you feed your
starter, can you tell in which phase it was, how it is taking it, when
it peaks?
My approach to bread is not by following other recipes to every detail,
but to get the idea and then make it fit to my environment. I follow
formulas. One way for white bread, it's about 20 % of starter to full
dough weight (which is about 17 % starter flour in baker's %), 2 % salt,
between 60 % and 68 % hydration and fermenting time is 2 + 2 - 3 + 3
hours with punch down at half time.
Starter is grown in three steps to target weight by tripling (or
doubling the last step to get target weight) always before stage 5 at
100 % hydration. This approach lets the starter determine the next step.
I don't know if this approach helps, but sourdough works, that's a fact.
If you haven't, you may look at may web page (URL in footer), under
References, SD-Definition, there is the sourdough growth curve with
phases and under Playing Around, there is the No-Mind White bread, which
is showing a somewhat alternative way of doing this.
Samartha
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SD page is the
http://samartha.net/SD/