On 2005-08-14, Samartha Deva > wrote:
> Randall Nortman wrote:
>> I've been baking whole-grain sourdough bread for years, but due to
>> requests by friends I have recently been playing with 100% white flour
>> sourdough. I started by converting my whole-wheat starter to white
>> flour, using bread flour to feed it because I intended to use bread
>> flour (KA brand) to make the actual dough, and I figure I ought to
>> feed the starter with the same stuff I intend it to feed on in the
>> dough.
[...]
>> Well, the starter was pretty limp for a few days, but after several
>> refreshments it seemed to adapt to the new environment and became
>> quite active.
>
> This probably depends on your conditions. I had no problem making white
> bread from a small inoculum of a full grain rye starter without going
> through extra stages to get the starter going in a new environment.
[...]

It may have been that the whole-wheat starter I began with was a bit
stale (i.e., not enough live organisms) from sitting in the fridge
without refreshments for too long. (I recently got married, and so
was kept too busy to bake for several months.) I'll try converting a
fresher whole-wheat starter to white flour and see if there's any
noticable adjustment period.


> Another method would be to let your starter get more sour or grow it
> warmer to promote LB's. There are growth curves around for hydration and
> temperature showing optimal growth for LB's or yeasts for a defined
> starter. You (and nobody else here, so it seems) has that. But it's a basis.

Yes, I've seen the curves, and I've played around with different
temperatures. I came to the conclusion that it's too much of a pain
to bother, and so now I do everything either at whatever room
temperature happens to be or in the refrigerator. It's less
consistent, which can be inconvenient, but also means I get built-in
variety. (I actually came very close to building a proofing
"aquarium" such as you describe on your website, but never quite got
that far, perhaps because I made the project too complicated by
planning a microprocessor controlled system so that I could program in
temperature-vs-time curves.)


>> I suppose that might be the holy grail
>> for some sourdough bakers, but when I want that kind of bread (and I
>> often do!) I just use commercial yeast.
>
> I can't imagine a hard core sourhead having yeast as a holey grail.
[...]

It's my understanding that many Old World bakers (at least those of
French heritage) try rather hard to reduce sour flavors in their
naturally leavened bread. I suspect this is a holdover from before
there was commercial yeast, and so sourdough bread without the sour
flavor was a mark of a skilled baker. People always want whatever is
least common or hardest to come by -- these days bland bread is most
common, so gourmets want flavorful bread. (And bread snobs want
flavorful bread made only with flour, salt, and water.)


On another note, the white bread I made yesterday with my new
bread-flour starter, which did not taste sour to me when still warm
(about 45 minutes after coming out of the oven), developed a stronger
sourness once it had cooled completely. This is an effect I've
noticed with whole wheat bread, too. Any idea what causes this
phenomenon? Is it just that I don't taste the sourness due to the
warmth or other masking flavors which evaporate away as the bread
cools, or is more acid still being produced? I would think that if
anything is still evaporating away, it would be acetic acid, which is
what's supposed to have the more sour flavor. Of course, it could
just be a quirk of my taste buds, since my wife thought the bread
tasted sour even when it was still warm.

--
Randall