I finally found a book that has a description of making sourdough bread without commercial yeast that answers all of the questions I’d been unable to answer by googling!\’c3\’82\’c2\~ Apparently, my first starter might have been just fine – I just didn’t let the bread rise long enough! It seems that all of the instructions online left out mentioning that it can take 8-12 hours for sourdough bread to rise before you shape it, and then another 8 to 12 hours before you bake it! Seems like a rather important detail to me. This means that if you make the dough on Monday morning, you’ll shape it Monday evening before bed, then bake it in the\’c3\’82\’c2\~morning on Tuesday – a long process, but I don’t mind, just as long as I know what to expect. Maybe buying some organic white flour for 0.89/pound at Fred Meyers wasn’t necessary after all? Oh well, I’ll give it a try anyway. It’s cooler here now, too, so I’m not as afraid to heat up the oven lest we all perish from heat exhaustion! Although who knows what it’ll be like in 4 or 5 days after I’d grown a starter and done all of that long rising.
|
|||
 |
Bread Insight5 comments to Bread Insight |
||
|
Copyright © 2012 Home Despot Elly - All Rights Reserved |
|||
Good job Elly! That’s why I like bread – it’s more of an art than a science. It’s all about method, not necessarily ingredients. I hope I get a taste of that Oregon City Sourdough one of these days!
When you make your sourdough, do you use yeast in addition to the starter? I was kind of surprised that it takes that long to rise…when I make sourdough I use starter, flour, yeast and salt (and any spices, etc. that sound good) and it only needs to rise for an hour or so. Maybe that’s cheating?
oh… “without commercial yeast”…*blush* \par
\par
Please disregard all the above! I’m going to get another cup of coffee…!
Matt doesn’t care for sourdough, so I haven’t tried it myself. Although I do like it now and again, I prefer to just buy it, so I don’t have to think about it being bread that has… gone….sour….and I don’t have to watch it grow things, be reminded that yeast is alive, and that it is interacting with mold in the air…!
It’s just something I’d rather not think about…I never was into science experiments. 
I LOVE sourdough. There’s not much chance that my sourdough will taste like the classic San Francisco Sourdough though because the “sour” taste which is identified with that is caused by the particular yeasts that grow in that region. I guess the yeasts or encourage certain types of bacteria, however which make the sourdough environment more acidic – and hopefully discourage unwanted yeasts and bacteria and mold, etc. I think the whole yeast/air/bacteria thing is the most interesting part of the process!!\par
Alice – when my bread is worth eating, I’ll make sure you get some!
\par
Kate/Sally – enjoy your coffee.