Hi,

I have been trying to get as 'rustic' as possible crumb structure in
white sourdough bread for a number of years i.e. characteristic large
bubbles mixed with much smaller - without really reaching what I was
looking for. I have tried everything from strongest possible flour to
plain flour and many in between, maximised hydration, tried minimal
knead, no knead, no knock down/make up and a few others things either
by design or mistake without really getting there. So finally the only
thing left to change was my culture.

I have been using for several years a culture captured on a rural
property in Catalonia (near a village called Tivissa) next to an
outdoor oven site probably last used in the 1930s (viz. third gallery
http://www.myplot.org/oven/). For experiment of a culture change I
have brought Sourdough International's San Francisco and Italian
cultures (from island of Ischia off Naples and another) http://www.sourdo.com/.

the results of my first Ischia culture bake are certainly the most
'rustic' I have ever had (including other Sourdough International
cultures I used to have)

last three pics here
http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.p...neous%20baking

and this was with a dough that I had slightly let over rise on main
proof with result that final proof did not rise as much as I am used
to. The Ischia loaf was 74% hydration, a mix of an organic strong
flour 60% and 40% plain organic flour (a formula I have used also with
my other cultures - without the same results)

That different cultures might substantially contribute to different
crumb structure is not something I have heard of before. What the
mechanism might be I could speculate but won't bother just now.

here are some observations on differences between my 3 cultures that I
would be interested if others recognise

San Franisco
This was quite difficult to get going in my relatively cold house.
Initial aroma in poolish mix (110% hydration) was quite sweet, almost
sickly, reminiscent of human milk. When poolish stored in fridge a
layer of froth forms on top above poolish (not sure if this still
happening). Appears very sensitive to temperature only really being
active in a narrow band from about 25C to 30C, more or less stops dead
in terms of rising when put in fridge. At right temperature bread
rises well, better than my Tivissa culture and with a slightly greater
bubble size variation than Tivissa. However not a great amount of
'sourdough' flavour compared to Tivissa and a certain gumminess of
flavour that I don't like at all. This bread tested on a friend who is
allergic to commercial baker's yeast so certainly no contamination of
that.

Ischia
easier to get going than SF culture (though weather has got slightly
warmer) - when properly going rise very dramatic both as poolish and
as 75% hydration starter, positively explosive when peaking. Less
sensitive to heat, starter placed in fridge shortly after mixing
tripled in size over night - I am used to doubling with Tivissa
starter. Initial aromas considerably more earthy than SF or Tivissa.
No indication of hooch in stored poolish yet. Bread I have only had
for 5 hours so hard to tell final taste but distinctly 'sourdough' ish
and 'umami' ish so far. For spreading butter, or worse still honey,
have to say it has too many too big holes.

Tivissa
Generally good even taste with distinct sourdough characteristics.
Much less perceptible peak of rising than the Ischia, just plods so to
speak, but under almost any temperature, which is very useful if you
don't have central heating in winter and are happy to have long
risings. Crumb structure perfectly acceptable for most purposes.

what I am now wondering is whether it might be possible to attempt to
mix/blend, for instance Tivissa and Ischia cultures.

yours
Andy Forbes

"atty" wrote in message ups.com...

I have been trying to get as 'rustic' as possible crumb structure in
white sourdough bread for a number of years i.e. characteristic large
bubbles mixed with much smaller ...

[ ... ]

what I am now wondering is whether it might be possible to attempt to
mix/blend, for instance Tivissa and Ischia cultures.

My humble opinion, for whatever it may be worth, is that you are way over
the left-field fence. The texture of the finished loaf depends a whole lot
more on composition and handling of the dough and the conditions in the
oven than it does on the nicknames of the sourdough cultures used.

That is not to say that your photos and geographic name-drops are not
impressive.

--
Dicky

My humble opinion, for whatever it may be worth, is that you are
way over
the left-field fence. The texture of the finished loaf depends a
whole lot
more on composition and handling of the dough and the conditions in
the
oven than it does on the nicknames of the sourdough cultures used.


I am quite prepared to find I may have done something strange and
unforeseen/unrecorded in creating this Ischia #1 loaf, in fact I am
dreading finding it was a one off for which I can't subsequently find
the missing ingredient, maybe something to do with building up new
culture to a crescendo? but I don't think that composition and
handling
of dough so different from many other bakes. I am fairly consistent
recently in weighing things and mixing doughs in Artofex mixer to
similar times and windowpane test.

The proof of course will be in the pudding tasting, over time, if I
can
maintain distinct cultures with distinctly different crumb but with
the
same composition and handling of dough ...

but after all you would hardly expect to set out with commercial
baker's
yeast and a sourdough regime and expect to get the same result as with
a
sourdough culture (including crumb texture) so why should you expect
one
regime (handling & composition) with different sourdough cultures to
produce the same result when even SF pro-bakers have identifiably
different cultures, numbers of yeasts within them etc?

yours
atty

ps I am currently baking with flour Doves Farm organic Biobake
white,the Biobake apparently representing some kind if non-GMO enzime
'flour improver' for which Doves Farm gives no info online, and very
little available elsewhere - suffice to say the difference is
noticeable compared to Doves Farm normal strong white flour, maybe
adds another 5% hydration whilst maintaining the same handling and
gluten formation.So if anyone is disbelieving my figure of 75%
hydration in dough that may be the explanation.

this

http://www.sourdoughhome.com/pics/threestage7.gif

would not pass muster at a French supermarket for any kind of bread,
its a given of current French bread industry out-of-packet pain-au-
levain that the crumb structure must be variegated in size - let alone
for the actual real thing.

so what is the difference? maybe flour? maybe culture? composition?
handling?

maybe we should have a bake off for the wildest most 'rusctic'
structure?

yours
atty

atty wrote:
this

http://www.sourdoughhome.com/pics/threestage7.gif

would not pass muster at a French supermarket for any kind of bread,
its a given of current French bread industry out-of-packet pain-au-
levain that the crumb structure must be variegated in size - let alone
for the actual real thing.

so what is the difference? maybe flour? maybe culture? composition?
handling?

Sometimes it's a bit embarrassing to have things I did five, or more,
years ago pop up again. Of course, feeling that way, I suppose I could
have re-made the bread and taken new pictures.

While the hydration of the dough was "correct" in that I used the
hydration level suggested by the original recipe, the hydration wasn't
optimum for American flour. French flour is VERY different from
American flour.

In the http://www.sourdoughhome.com/threestagerevisited.html page, I
look at changing the hydration. Also, at the time I did the first test,
I tended to over crowd the bread pan, or banneton in this case. When
you overcrowd the pan, the dough doesn't have enough room to rise
fully. As a result, the baker tends to bake the dough when the banneton
is full. This leads to incredible oven spring (as evidenced by the loaf
tearing itself apart, and which also means the loaf didn't develop its
full flavor), and a very uniform crumb structure.

Yeah, I'd do things differently today. I should probably revisit that page.

Mike

--
Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day:
If you don't practice -
- you don't deserve to dream!

atty wrote:
what I am now wondering is whether it might be possible to attempt to
mix/blend, for instance Tivissa and Ischia cultures.



Your bread is very nice. It most likely is a result of slack dough,
good mechanical development, a vigorous starter, extended final rise,
and a hot oven. I do not believe that the results you achieved are
restricted to any one name brand starter. The key starter
characteristic needed is vigor. That is not to say that there can't be
differences between various starters in terms of speed and possibly
flavor potential.

Starters are not like coffee beans or whiskey where blending can achieve
flavor gains or consistency of taste. There is no reason to expect any
predictable outcome from blending different strains of starter.

Regards,

Charles

must admit I posted comments re http://www.sourdoughhome.com/pics/threestage7.gif
late at night etc and rather dreading the fall out, so instead very
nice and quite humbling to have Mike sticking his hand up and doing
'mea culpa' on this subject - not quite sure I would have reacted to
so honourably in the circumstances myself.

yours
atty

On Apr 15, 5:15 am, Charles Perry wrote:
atty wrote:
what I am now wondering is whether it might be possible to attempt to
mix/blend, for instance Tivissa and Ischia cultures.

Your bread is very nice. It most likely is a result of slack dough,
good mechanical development, a vigorous starter, extended final rise,
and a hot oven. I do not believe that the results you achieved are
restricted to any one name brand starter. The key starter
characteristic needed is vigor.

quite spot on analysis Charles, indeed I had clearly built up this
starter from Sourdough Internationals to a crescendo of vigour over a
period of 3 days and at the moment generally am mixing in my Artofex
to a point of slight loss of elasticity BUT the same could have been
said of the SF culture I received (excepting that the weather got
considerably warmer in the interim).

Nonetheless given that we know that different strains of SF culture
can contain 2 yeasts but some one, Italian rural typically at least 2
or more and Eastern European up to 5 I don't see any reason to limit
the possible variation between strains to flavour and/or rising speed.
There could be significant differences between 'strains/brans' in
reaction to anaerobic conditions for instance, speed and nature of
signalling within yeast colonies, chemical signalling between colonies
etc all of which might explain why one strain tended towards a certain
crumb structure, and another something else.

Proof for me will be as I wrote before if this Ischia culture
consistently continues to produce a highly variegated crumb structure
compared to my Tivissa culture despite living on the same regime over
a period of time. Apparently one does have this phenomena of yeasts
passing each other 'cassettes' of DNA information how to adapt to new
conditions, I will see ...

I do continue to think there might be some value in having a bake off
where people try to produce the maximum 'wild'/'rustic' look crumb
within a period of say a month and then the winner has to divulge
their stratagem (and 'strain').

yours
atty




That is not to say that there can't be
differences between various starters in terms of speed and possibly
flavor potential.

Starters are not like coffee beans or whiskey where blending can achieve
flavor gains or consistency of taste. There is no reason to expect any
predictable outcome from blending different strains of starter.

Regards,

Charles

I do continue to think there might be some value in having a bake off
where people try to produce the maximum 'wild'/'rustic' look crumb
within a period of say a month and then the winner has to divulge
their stratagem (and 'strain').


I would also propose that the pic on page 54 of Joe Oritz's "The
Village Baker" also show in colour opposite page 146 is the standard
for this class of 'rustic' bread. I will upload copy of image when I
can

yours
atty

atty wrote:

I would also propose that the pic on page 54 of Joe Oritz's "The
Village Baker" also show in colour opposite page 146 is the standard
for this class of 'rustic' bread.


I think this is a good standard for those who do not have the book.

http://www.prettycolors.com/bread_culture/iggys.htm

Regards,

Charles

atty wrote:

Nonetheless given that we know that different strains of SF culture
can contain 2 yeasts but some one, Italian rural typically at least 2
or more and Eastern European up to 5

How would anyone outside of a lab environment know and why would a home
baker, other than for the sake of curiosity, care?


I don't see any reason to limit
the possible variation between strains to flavour and/or rising speed.
There could be significant differences between 'strains/brans' in
reaction to anaerobic conditions for instance, speed and nature of
signalling within yeast colonies, chemical signalling between colonies
etc all of which might explain why one strain tended towards a certain
crumb structure, and another something else.

Well, sure, if you can identify and measure a characteristic - you can
find variations in different populations. The question is does it
matter. Vigor matters, other things maybe not so much. Commercial
yeast producers go to lengths to provide consistent culture yet you can
make a great variety of breads and crumb structures with the same
commercial yeast. It is a reasonable deduction to say that things other
than a particular yeast culture have the most influence on crumb structure.

Proof for me will be as I wrote before if this Ischia culture
consistently continues to produce a highly variegated crumb structure
compared to my Tivissa culture despite living on the same regime over
a period of time. Apparently one does have this phenomena of yeasts
passing each other 'cassettes' of DNA information how to adapt to new
conditions, I will see ...

Just for argument, say the only difference between two sourdough
cultures is vigor or speed of progress through the fermentation process.
To make a fair comparison you would have to put the dough from the two
cultures in the oven when they were at the same point on the line
between mixing and collapse. You can't just use the same elapsed time.
How do you propose to scientifically measure where the dough is on
that continuum?

I think what you can find is which culture makes bread that makes you
happy. And, that may be the culture that works best in the environment
that you create rather than any inherent predisposition for a certain
crumb structure.

On DNA transfer, I continue to be Darwinian. Those sourdough critters
that are best adapted to the environment multiply faster and therefore
pass on more DNA than those critters that divide slower. That is a
simpler explanation than yeast conversations and DNA CARE packages.
And, being a simple person....


I do continue to think there might be some value in having a bake off
where people try to produce the maximum 'wild'/'rustic' look crumb
within a period of say a month and then the winner has to divulge
their stratagem (and 'strain').


Of course I use Carl's. My strategy is to keep good Karma in the
kitchen so the Bread Faeries will be happy to dance for joy in the
dough. If I let them dance longer in a slack dough they will have the
time to open up the crumb with their efforts.

Regards,

Charles

On Apr 16, 10:28 pm, Charles Perry wrote:
atty wrote:

Nonetheless given that we know that different strains of SF culture
can contain 2 yeasts but some one, Italian rural typically at least 2
or more and Eastern European up to 5

How would anyone outside of a lab environment know and why would a home
baker, other than for the sake of curiosity, care?

I didn't say that I had discovered this myself, I know it as result of
reading scientific information. Classically in the case of SF strain
work of T F Suguira and Kline and others, check Discussion at end of
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/21/3/459 as just one of their articles
on the subject.

Why would a sourdough baker want to know more? I am not exactly
proposing something new - that different 'generational' strains of
sourdough culture facilitate different styles of bread - for which
there are no plenty of other advocates. Clearly Ed Wood for one, e.g.
his Russian strain that he claims is particularly good for raising
heavy rye loaves at low temperature - hardly surprising one. On a
visit to a baker friend at Baker & Spice of London (where Dan Leppard
originally worked) I found their approach is to both capture and keep
different strains for most loaves with different capture agent which
is subsequently also diet/regime for each. In his Baker & Spice
'Baking with Passion' book Dan Leppard details 4 starter cultures for
different loaves, variously fed on honey, yoghurt, Apple juice,
currants and orange juice.

Of course I am not suggesting handling and composition of dough is not
also important to create for instance a 'rustic' crumb. But I do think
that in 2 decades of sourdough baking, probably on average once a
week, a lot of which time I have been aiming at a 'rustic' crumb, I
would have at least stumbled once on the 100% result if handling and
composition were the only factors. The essence of 'rustic' I think is
not volume but variety of bubble size, including the super large but
also the micro size (indeed http://www.prettycolors.com/bread_culture/iggys.htm
is a good example) and also a certain translucency of the structure
itself (compared for instance to some French baker's yeast breads
which might have same structure or similar but not this translucence).
Consider for instance my single rise (no knock down) experiment at
http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.p...baking&ctrl=20
with my Tivissa strain, lots of volume but little siginificant
variegation of bubble size.

Recently its been suggested that no knead method results in 'rustic'
style crumb structure, maybe on basis that lack of mixing results in
uneven spread of culture in the dough, yet Charles' analysis of my
Ischia loaf correctly observed I did the opposite, it was mechanically
mixed to the to the point of lowering elasticity. Although I am
prepared to do the same again if it gets the result I actually doubt
that this slack dough is key since rural French bakers compared to
more mechanized urban bakers are unlikely traditionally to have
expended extra time and energy on dough development. I am more of the
opinion that 'rustic' bakers would tend to have been using softer more
locally sourced wheat than their Parisian counterparts who would have
the pick of French and international flours to use and this would
result in a dough that had less elasticity.

Proof for me will be as I wrote before if this Ischia culture
consistently continues to produce a highly variegated crumb structure
compared to my Tivissa culture despite living on the same regime over
a period of time. Apparently one does have this phenomena of yeasts
passing each other 'cassettes' of DNA information how to adapt to new
conditions, I will see ...

Just for argument, say the only difference between two sourdough
cultures is vigor or speed of progress through the fermentation process.
To make a fair comparison you would have to put the dough from the two
cultures in the oven when they were at the same point on the line
between mixing and collapse. You can't just use the same elapsed time.
How do you propose to scientifically measure where the dough is on
that continuum?

I roughly agree (though elapsed time must also be important to the
commercial baker), but also as well as speed and vigour you would want
to know what other tasks, such as production of different volatile
alcohols etc had been done whilst rising the loaf. You also quite
right that even the best equipped labs have very few tools or options
currently to see what is actually happening within a dough (as opposed
to on a petri dish or in solution) as it rises in terms of individual
yeasts, their life cycle, colony formation etc - and people have gone
to some strange lengths to find new ways, for instance ultra sound
scanning to watch bubbles develop (as well as ultra sound as a method
of mixing). However partly as a result of baker's yeast DNA being one
of the organisms whose code has been completely read so far, there is
a lot more work and literature out there than there was a few years
ago that might be relevant.

To quote a section of the Discussion portion from the paper I already
listed at beginning, which is referring to 4 different strains of SF
culture

"Slight differences were observed among the four strains (L, B, C, and
T) studied in some detail. (P strain appeared the same as the L strain
and was not examined further.) The differences were evident in colony
appearance, degree of nutritional fastidiousness, i.e., how they grew
in the SDB medium, tendency to form elongated or swollen forms,
tendency to clump in broth culture, ability to adapt to glucose, and
proportions of lactic and acetic acid produced. Thus, nutritionally,
the T strain appeared to be the least fastidious and the L strain the
most. The latter also exhibited the maximum tendency for clumping in
broth and produced the lowest proportion of acetic acid."

does this not give the impression that strain L would tend to produce
a more variegated crumb structure than strain T (but with less
sourness)?

I think what you can find is which culture makes bread that makes you
happy. And, that may be the culture that works best in the environment
that you create rather than any inherent predisposition for a certain
crumb structure.

On DNA transfer, I continue to be Darwinian. Those sourdough critters
that are best adapted to the environment multiply faster and therefore
pass on more DNA than those critters that divide slower. That is a
simpler explanation than yeast conversations and DNA CARE packages.
And, being a simple person....

simple 'common sense' explanations have rather often turned out not to
be true, and the truth then becomes the simple common sense
explanation ...

yours
andy f

The following article may be of interest, to those interested -
reasonably easy to understand at least the basic results

"Occurrence and dominance of yeast species in sourdough"
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...X.2003.01454.x

it is a study of the dominant yeasts (as opposed simply to those
present - determined by when a yeast has a cell count equal to the sum
of others) in samples from 35 traditional small sourdough bakeries
from four regions of Sicily. It concludes Saccharomyces cerevisiae was
the most popular dominant yeast but with examples of four others in
dominant positons, 80% of cultures had a single dominant yeast, 17%
had 2 and 3% had 3. It makes no remarks as to how the dominance of
different yeasts might affect dough/bread - its not the subject of
this paper - but simply that there are these observable differences
implies a lot IMHO. Part of their conclusions do in a sense support
Charles observation about 'survival of the fittest', but more in the
context of how a starter is rebuilt/refreshed then how it is used for
dough production

quote

"The explanation of this is beyond the aims of this work, but it is
conceivable that the method of sourdough rebuilding exerts a strong
selective pressure on the yeasts present, thereby determining the
dominance of one species over others."

I would have to add to this though that surely the presence of any or
all of the listed yeasts, as (airborne) spores, at the time of the
starters creation (however many generations ago), must surely be
necessary.

incidentally the following article researches how different sourdough
cultures may have different qualities in the production of anti-
biotics and other mechanisms in relation to inhibiting of growth of
mould/bread spoiling.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/kdhbtwu84ln2elrl/

yours
andy f

atty wrote:

snip

I think Atty likes to write more then he likes to bake.

Joe Umstead

Joe Umstead wrote:
atty wrote:

snip

I think Atty likes to write more then he likes to bake.

Joe Umstead

Joe - what else do you expect from "a teletype" (atty) ;-)


S.