2009/5/22 Mike >:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I use liquid sour (50/50 flour to water) to make my white bread. The sour
> itself tastes as sour as hell, the dough is sour but the taste of the baked
> bread is very neutral, very similar to ordinary commercial yeasted bread.
>
> I use liquid sour since the stiff one is less sour than the liquid one,
> hardly any acid in it.
>
> At the same time some artesian bakery in my locality produce beautiful
> sourdough breads with various degrees of sourness - from mild to a very
> strong , San Francisco type. Any ideas about what is happening to my bread?
> I have tryed a few different starters but to no avail.
>

This depends on several factors - not necessarily narrowed down due to
lack of information of factors involved.

If the starter is "very" sour, it could be too old and lacks active
organisms. Why it still rises would be another question in a better
known context.

- Ratio of starter/final dough plays a role.
- Fermentation temperature.
- Fermentation length
- flour type - here probably white wheat flour with low ash content
All this would be very much determined by the starter growing procedure used.

The fermentation times of 12 hours at room temperature mentioned here
- 21 C (70 F)... can well be - sounds long though.

My current fermentation time with 60/40 Rye/wheat mix and 34 % starter
flour, 67 % hydration, 2 % salt is 2 + 2 1/2 hours at 30 C (86 F)
fermentation (bulk and 2. rise) makes mildly sour bread. Fermenting 1
hour longer makes noticeably more sour bread and affects bread shape
(loafs are getting wider).

With white refined flour which you are probably using, it's hard to say.

It's always interesting to see posts asking questions lacking
information to determine the actual cause of the problem and then -
when asked for more relevant information, nothing comes back.

Is it too complex to deal with the issues at hand or are the comments
here getting too silly to encourage a relevant response with more
information?

It's like: My car doesn't run right. I put gas in the tank but it
just doesn't run right. My neighbor's car runs just fine. What could
be wrong?

S.