On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:35:20 -0600, "Denise Craig"
> wrote:

>just not sour. At all.

>What could be the reason for that? Too little starter? I only used
>about 1/3 of the chef to make the starter (as instructed by the
>recipe).

I have a recipe for making starter from flour that calls for a much
more aggressive feeding schedule. The schedule came from a book
published by the national Baking Center. As with other feeding
provedures you discard half the starter and add back an equal amount
of flour and water at each feeding. I use King Arthur bread flour and
distilled water.

The feeding schedule is 22, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6 hour intervals. When the
starter has ended its last feeding cycle, I store 1/2 cup of it in the
refrigerator for a week, feed it again by halving and adding back, let
it sit at 80F (on top of the water heater), and then put it back in
the refrigerator. Eventually that half of the starter which I would
otherwise discard is placed in a 3 quart plastic container for making
the sponge.

I have tried two techniques for making the sponge, and both come out
the same. One is to feed the sponge in stages by tripling the amount
of flour and water every 3 hours, then let it sit for 8 more hours.
The other is to add the flour and water all at once and let it sit for
8 hours. Either way the sponge will be active enough when fed the
flour to make the dough. You want to have 50% sponge, 50% dough flour.

Since I like a liquid sponge, I use all the water for the dough in the
sponge and add only flour at the dough stage. I adjust the flour to
get a hydration of about 70%, which is when the dough will not stick
to a drinking glass that is pressed into the dough.

Now you want to "age" this dough by causing it to rise very slowly.
Keep it at 70F - do not proof at 80F or it will not have enough time
to make lactic acid. I like at least 4-6 hours but the longer the
better. Some people proof for 8 hours with punchdowns at 4 hours and 8
hours, and then get it to rise again to the final loaf. I do not want
to take the risk that I have wasted all that rising power on the
punchdown proofs, so I just let it rise slowly to final loaf form.

I have read that if you let the sponge age in the refrigerator for 3
or more days, it will develop more of a sour taste. I have a liquid
sponge in there now that I made over the weekend. I will make the
sourdough from it Thursday for the Thanksgiving meal.

When I made commercial yeast poolishes, I found that they would get
more of a sour taste if I aged the sponge in the refrigerator for at
least 3 days. It seems to work for natural starter-based sponge as
well.

HTH,

SOB

(Sweet Ol' Bob)