Diane wrote:
[...]
you have to be. My first loaf took almost 8 hours for the first rise.
That would show some weakness, wouldn't it?
So, how did you get your starter and how do you grow it to make bread?
If you would explain this, maybe something can be learned from it.
Thank you,
Samartha
I don't ever use commercial yeasts in my sourdough bread. I am using
the King Arthur Starter and according to the book by Ed Wood, the
temperature in my home (60°) assured me of a slow rise with time for
the sourness to develop.
Ok, so you were not growing a newborn starter from scratch, which I
assumed from your subject, but bought a package which contained
organisms from a previously established sourdough culture and used that
as a seed to grow more. Thanks for clarifying.
According to most of the stuff I have read, it is just fine to use
sourdough starter as an ingredient in other bread.
You can do anything if you just read the right material and use this as
justification.
It will add taste
and also allow the bread to stay fresh longer. But to make sourdough
bread assumes that you are using the starter to flavor and rise the
bread.
That's a question of definition. I'd say, bread made from flour, water,
salt and culture - all organic, of cause;-) would pass the qualification
pretty well and from there, one can deviate until it starts getting
nebulous - is the supermarket sourdough bread which uses chemicals to
simulate the taste still sourdough bread as it says on the label? Is a
bread which uses a dead sourdough extract/concentrate as flavor
ingredient and baker's yeast to quick rise the dough a sourdough bread?
Maybe the term "natural sourdough bread leavened without baker's yeast"
would be a more clear definition of what is the main type of bread of
discussion here.
"Starters made with commercial bakers' yeast are not natural leavens.
They are yeasted starters. They do not produce the same results in
terms of flavor, texture and keeping qualities as natural leaven
starters do. You will never obtain true sourdough bread from a starter
that contains commercial bakers yeast.
Not that I promote baker's yeast for sourdough breads, but there are
several descriptions to grow a starter which starts with yeast or "just
a grain of yeast" and develop into stable cultures after a while.
However, it is possible that a
yeasted starter might be taken over by natural yeasts and converted
into a natural leaven. " from
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/bethsbre...Sourdough.html
There you go - why would this happen, if the yeast would kill the
"natural" one's?
Now that my starter is established it takes about 2-3 hours for the
first rise and 1 1/2 - 2hours for the second rise.
I feed my starter stone ground whole wheat flour. It is very healthy
and even continues to grow in the refrigerator.
The information about the wild yeast and bacteria being killed isn't
an opinion. It is a fact.
Where did you learn this fact?
Did it actually happen to you that you had an established starter, fed
it some yeast and then it either died or did not get sour anymore?
That would be interesting.
The information on your site:
(460 And to the margin note right next (CONCERNING THE ABILITY OF
BACTERIAL
461 FERMENTATION TO RAISE A LOAF OF BREAD, WITHOUT YEAST): Wešve done
the
462 experiments, it works quite well without yeast. ) Is confusing to
me.
Since sourdough has wild yeast in it aren't you referring to
without commercial yeast?
First of all, the text can also be found in Dan Wing/Alan Scott's great
book "The Bread Builders" on page 230 - if you get a chance to take a
peek at that book, it's really worth it.
The section you find confusing talks about LB's being able to rise a
dough without yeasts - they've checked this out, and that's what they
are talking about.
You assume that a sourdough needs to have yeast - well, it's a question
of definition.
The one's I found define sourdough, see the
http://samartha.net/SD/SourdoughDefinition.html
don't limit their definition to certain organisms as you do if you say
that it needs to have wild yeast.
If you find another good sourdough definition, please post it.
Thank you,
Samartha
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