Newest Passion

An update on my newest passion – bread. I started a sourdough starter on May 2 with whole wheat flour (from Winco) and water and fed it every 24 hours, except when I was at my parents this weekend. I’ve made biscuits with it (OK, but nothing special) and pancakes with it (pretty good – although not as good as blueberry pancakes – especially since they had so much whole-wheat in them and were therefore not as smooth textured as regular pancakes). Today I actually tried making bread with it. My thinking was that, if by now my starter will not leaven\’c3\’82\’c2\~bread, then it is time to try a new starter. Well, it sort of leavened the bread – when I let it rise for 2 hours before I shaped it, it really didn’t rise much at all (definitely not to twice it’s bulk!), and it rose some during baking, but it still ended up pretty dense. And… I forgot to add salt. So it’s quite bland. If I hadn’t done that, it might be reasonably good, if nothing special. It even tasted a little sour! Next step – try making a starter with organic flour – someone online suggested that normal commercial flour has been treated to prevent unwanted bacterial growth – which could prevent wanted bacterial and yeast growth.\par
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Incidentally, I have to say that the online community is NOT particularly helpful when it comes to sourdough baking – apparently every single point to making good sourdough bread is debated. What kind of flour to use is a subject of debate. How long to let it sit is a subject of debate, as is when and how often to feed it, whether to keep it in the refrigerator or not, whether the natural yeasts come from the air or are already on the flour, and even what a healthy active starter looks like and at what stage to use it!!! In this last case, I did what I normally do in these kinds of debatable situations – whatever is easiest and most convenient! Which could explain my lack of success. Oh well – I knew it was a trial-and-error process!