Split (1)

train · 60.1k rows

instruction stringlengths 2 23k	output stringlengths 3 23.1k ⌀
White points all over my 6 day old sourdough starter So I posted here 2 days ago asking about some white points on my sourdough. There I wrote that I fed it 100 grams flour 50 Grams water every two days, but actually I just got confused...Ifeed it 50 Grams flour 100 grams water, every two days. And I keep it in a bowl ...	Too bad!! It does look like Too bad!! It does look like mold to me. Does it smell like mold?
When to tell if the sourdough is bad... So, I have done sourdough starters several times before and am definitely an amateur at it. Because of my schedule, plus we tend to eat more rice than bread in my home, I don't make bread often so I tend to store my starter in the fridge often.The starter creates liquid like it u...	It's normal, don't worry, It's normal, don't worry, just with time it gets dark. Try feeding it, it should come back to life :) good luck!
tight texture I had to discard my sourdough due to the long-term trip and restarted the whole thing, so I have a reasonably new sourdough that I made ~15 days ago.The sourdough reaction is excellent, it becomes double as usual, and I use King Arthur Organic Whole Wheat Flour.All looks good, but as you see below, except...	Underfermented Under-fermented which has given the dough a gummy texture. Increase the bulk ferment.
Starter is watery? It's been already 10 days. So my starter is watery it's my first time so i need your advice.I use flour all purpose. Half cup of flour and half cup of water , i do it that every morning. It's summer here and is kind of hot at 30 degrees.I made a video so you can see what's going on , sorry if my star...	Overly hydrated First rule of hydration. 100% hydration is equal parts flour to water by weight, not volume. 1/2 cup water = 118g (ml)1/2 cup AP flour can vary but it's about = 62gSo to work out hydration you divide the water by flour and multiply by 100. 118 / 62 X 100 = 190% hydrated I suggest for the next feed you d...
First attempt at Country Blonde (FWSY recipe) very little rise in final dough Greetings,I am new to baking, however I am a scientist so culturing bacteria, yeast and even mammalian cells isn't new for me.However, sadly my first attempt attempt at KF's Country Blonde was a failure.Background:Levain starter was going wel...	What flour are you using? And where do you live? If you live in Europe and using local flour it could very well be too hydrated. Plus the timings for Forkish recipes tend to be overly generous. I'd say just the opposite. Once your dough is billowy and has noticeable bubbles beneath the surface it is done whether double...
10:100:100 feed timing I've been trying to activate a starter I purchased and have gotten conflicting results with the process.I'm currently using the 10:100:100 method to try to increase the activity of the starter, which seems rather sluggish. I've kept the starter at 80 deg and am feeding it AP from a reputable sour...	I would say taste the starter and take a good whiff of it. Do you smell yeast? What do you taste? If you do not smell yeast, leave it alone covered in a warm spot to further ferment.I need more info. Do you still have the very first feeding of the starter, when you first hydrated it and added a little flour food? Wh...
White dots on my four day old sourdough starter Hello,My sourdough starter has developed some white dots on its surface... is it normal?	It looks like it's drying out to me When it comes to feeding next take from the inside (untouched by those white dots) where the starter is fresher. Now when I store lower hydration starters I keep them in a Tupperware container with a lid that I don't close too tightly. This seems to keep it from drying out. If you've...
Hamelman's 5 grain (make that 6 grain/seed) sourdough Elasquerino inspired bake. Last week Elasquerino posted a lovelybakeof Hamelman's 5 grain sourdough. Inspired, I decided to do my take on the same recipe. The choice of grain/seeds was made by what I had in stock.We have: wheat, oats, buckwheat, pumpkin seeds, sunfl...	Nice one Thats great, so pleased you tried it, I've done another two loaves this weekend, with the retarded proof and no commercial yeast as David suggested. It's awesome stuff.
Levain recipe in FWSY Over the years I've started my own levains with pretty good success. But I've never used as much flour as described in the book Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish. My rough calculations indicate that by day 5, I would have thrown away about 4 lbs of flour. Seems like waste of good flour if I ca...	#1 Criticism of Forkish's method Tony, you've encountered the most common and wholly justified criticism of Ken Forkish's otherwise fantastic book: He instructs home bakers to be as wasteful of flour as one can apparently get away with when one is baking for profit. I even went so far as to develop a formula for a Sp...
Mature starter suddenly weakened Hi, I am new to posting on the forums and hope I am following protocol all right...We are suddenly having a major problem with our established starter. It's about nine months old, and we primarily use it for pizza dough. Up until about 10 days ago it's been wonderful--very resilient and...	I think you need to build up the yeasts within your starter By giving it some jolly good feeds and allowing it to peak at room temperature before repeating a few times. Sounds like these poorer feeds have whittled down the yeasts and made it overly acidic favouring bacteria fermentation. Ideally you wish to find a main...
Challenge done! My own personal challenge has now been done. Making a starter to baking a sourdough bread in under a week. I'll post the timeline but the formula was off the cuff. No measurements, a variety of flours and going by instinct. Monday Night: initial mixTuesday Night: peaked and bubbling away. Smell was def...	wow. so impressed. Looks terrific. Is there any Durum in there? hester
Starter Hydration Hi,I am trying to calculate percentages for converting a 100% starter to either more liquid or firmer starters, depending on the demands of the recipe. I can do the math, but it's easiest if I hold one of the 2 variables stable (flour or water). My inclination is to keep the ratio of flour to starte...	I'd use both ways If you have a 100% hydration starter and wish to convert to higher hydration I'd keep the flour stable. But vice versa then the water stable. But I'd only do that to convert what I have into the correct hydration then I'd give it a feed with more water and flour making sure the feed is to the same hyd...
need help troubleshooting crumb texture Hello everyone,I am still young in sourdough baking as my starter is.This is the second time my loaf successful going in and out from the oven.Still confused with the term levain and mature starter sometime but here is what i did to produced the outcomes as in the picture: -recip...	First things first Terminology can be flexible and it all depends on how you keep, maintain and use your starter.Starter = Seed. The petri "dish" for your culture.Levain = a preferment made from the starter (an off-shoot starter if you will). The beginning of the recipe!Both are made out of flour and water and contain ...
Bulk Proof Basics - when is "ready"? Right now I am testing some 1-step (no preferment) recipes at room temperature and I wonder how I know when the time is right?I tried a baguette type white dough. Let it proof for about 8 hours and it increased in volume. But I have no idea if it was too soon or too late. I am aware...	https://www.youtube.com/watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yM-gKlGX5Y
Small starter? So this whole idea of throwing so much flour away as I try to build my starter is just really hard for me. I keep trying to use up the discard (I have made and frozen about 35 full size sourdough waffles in the past 36 hours), but this is just getting ridiculous. Is is there a drawback to building up a m...	Starter Size many people on here keep a small amount of mother starter, so there is little waste.I keep about 20-50g of mother starter at any given time when I'm not baking a bread. When I remove the starter from the fridge, I feed it 3 times over about 24 hours, without any throw away, then use the resulting levian fo...
Leaving leaven prepared for bake too long? Last night I made my leaven from my mother starter (1 T starter, 75 g water, 75 g flour) but I got home late and mixed it around midnight. It's 9am where I am and a little chilly (low 60s) so it's not yet ready for me to start the autolyse. However, I'm going to be away from t...	Whack it in the fridge It will slow things down and you should be fine using it from the fridge later just either let it rest for an hour or so to warm back up when you return or allow longer for your bulk ferment.
Bread leavened with three and half day old starter Just as an experiment I started making a new sourdough starter and after three and half days the starter was ready to bake and I am publishing the results here.The procedure used was a standard one with exception that I was using freshly milled wheat which was only 10 ...	Wow, Joze! That fresh flour and your skill is miraculous! I will have to bite my tongue about giving the starter more time.... wish we had a smell button!Well done!Mini
What does a ready preferment look like? Hi! I am making a 100% sour rye and I wanted some advice on my preferment, the recipe says to let the per-ferment ferment for 18 hours. My parent's house is warm and this is what it looks like after 9 hours, what are some signs of a ready preferment?When do I know how to use it?	Looks ready to me what does it smell like?Does the recipe you're following give a temperature for the preferment? And what is the temperature of where you are at the moment?I think it can go for longer to make a really ripe starter but another 9 hours I'm not so sure. Explain the preferment build.
Tartine Rising Issues I cannot get my Tartine loaf to rise. I am following the recipe exactly as it says. The loaf just refuses to rise in the oven. I cannot understand why.	Perhaps the issue is You're following the recipe exactly as it says.You've gotta ask yourself if the gluten has been developed properly and if it hasn't then just doing however many folds the recipe says is not enough. Perhaps the flour you're using isn't suited to the hydration called for in the recipe. All our starte...
Uneven oven spring Hi.I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to master the Tartine basic country bread by making it once per day. To make this fit my schedule, I have made some modifications, which I detail below. First, I will describe a persistent problem that I have been having.At first, my loaves were very fl...	I am not an expert baker but I am not an expert baker but I've made a lot of successful tartine loaves. The thing that strikes me particularly that is different from my process is your very long bulk proof. You don't say how warm your kitchen is overnight but I find around 3 hours at 21/22C is enough for me. Is it pos...
Medieval Peasant Bread Treated myself to this heritage blend of flour from Bakerybits https://www.bakerybits.co.uk/bakery-ingredients/medieval-peasant-s-blend-flour.htmlLammas Fayre's Medieval peasant’s flour is milled from a blend of heritage wheat (Triticum aestivum), rye (Secale cereale), barley (Hordeum vulgare) an...	Woah Are these heritage flours similar to ancient grain flours (einkorn etc). Despite the romantic ideas of using these types of flours at least in my experience, producing a loaf that tastes and feels good in you mouth is very tricky - the dough behaves in weird ways, flavor can seem off and you often feel like you h...
using sourdough and commercial yeast in one bread how do i go about measurung correct amount of sourdough and commercial yeast for a bread...the recipe calls for 7g instant yeast for 500g flour = 1.5% yeast. which is pretty standard.However i wanrt to adapt the rcipe by making a poolish with rye sourdough and then addi...	Yeast and Natural Levain Looking back on some of my formulas I see an average of 0.3% of yeast and 0.3% of starter. Rye may throw this off a bit and I think you are for some experimentation.Good luck.
How to cope with wet and sticky dough in hot weather? Hello peer bakers, I would like to ask for your help! My starter "goose" is too active lately, probably because of the scorchy and humid weather (32°C) in Taiwan. This morning I baked Longan Walnut bread. The flavor was great, but the look and texture were off. Does...	The fridge is your friend Why not try bulk fermenting in the fridge? Develop the gluten then pop it into the fridge for the remainder of the bulk ferment. Not knowing what your recipe is I'd give it a few stretch and folds with rests in-between and give it some room temp time so the bulk ferment is under way then I'd r...
Sourdough croissants...hooray Croissants are right at the top of things I love to bake, and while I have made sourdoughs and commercial yeased croissants for years, I have never made a sourdough version of croissants until very recently. But oh what a joy!Main dough: 450g strong plain flour, 50g caster sugar, 10g fine ...	Exceptional Croissants Wow!You should be very pleased.
Ratio for Rye Starter Refresh Most of the sources I've read suggest a 1:1:1 refresh for starters, wheat or rye. They consensus seems to be a weekly refresh for start in the fridge, or 3 feedings at room temp 12 hrs apart before building the levain or mixing the final dough.The Bread Code guy recommends 1:5:5 and in th...	None of them are wrong It all depends on how quickly you want it and what the temperature is. Sometimes I need larger amount quickly and do 1:1:1. Sometimes I don't, and do 1:4:4 or leaner. Also, forget about tripling, it's a crock of bull, particularly with rye.
Sourdough advice hi, I would love any advice on sourdough starters. Mainly caring for it. I've done reading and it's mentioned feeding it once a week with sugar, washing it, throwing half away ( why?!). It is starting to intimidate me. I've got the starter done and want to treat it right, so any insight would be apprec...	Well... There's no one way too keep a starter. Ask two bakers and get three answers. You can get lots of advice out there (here) and it can get confusing. Best to treat all the advice as ideas and find your own way to suit your needs. So how often do you bake?
durum flour My first post so hello to all !If I mill # 1 durum flour in a coffee grinder, what will be the effect on the rise ?While my dough is OK it does NOT look or handle like the ll Pane di Altamura video.How can I order the durum flour from Italy and should I expect different results ? ( needing and proofing )I a...	What is #1 Durum flour? Tell me a bit more about the flour you're currently using and the recipe.
Refrigerated starter to loaf in a day? Hi all,I baked my first two successful sourdough loaves on Monday and, thinking I would not be baking for a week or two, fed and then refrigerated my starter. Lo and behold, I've been asked to bring bread to a dinner party tomorrow night (Friday) and would like to have my loaves b...	Should be fine If you are only building a levain with a little of your refrigerated starter, and that starter is healthy, I can't see any problem. I generally follow roughly your procedure anyway without issue. Obviously in an ideal world you would give an extra booster feed but unless your starter has been refrigerate...
My starter has seperated again I am trying to create my first ever starter. The first time i tried it I used equal parts flour (organic unbleached) and water and the first couple of days it was growing nicely. I then threw away half of it and adding equal parts flour and water again. This time the starter "split" and i...	Temp and container? Hi Hellbell22,I experienced similar issues with my first (unsuccessful) starter and found a couple of simple adjustments made all the difference. What's the temperature like in the room? What sort of container are you growing your starter in? Also, what has your feeding schedule looked like until no...
Recalculate Recipe with Soaker I am in the process of making a spreadsheet that will recalculate ingredient weights after changing the final dough weight. So if a recipe calls for 3 pounds of dough and I want to make 4.8 pounds the sheet will give me the grams of each ingredient according to the total weight and the pe...	I don't have the book in front of me right now But percentage wise, whatever you do to the other ingredients do to the soaker. Once you calculated the percentage change of flour then workout the percentage change of dry ingredients within the soaker and keep the hydration percentage the same.
Do the living organisms in the Levain multiply Do the living organisms in the Levain multiply? I always thought they did, but when I think about it I'm not sure.Only a few grams of culture are added to flour and water to make a levain. How can they multiply so quickly in such a short time?I'm curious to know.Dan	When you first make a starter It's very slow. As you know! Can take up to two weeks for a starter to become fully viable. But once your starter is viable the organisms are strong enough to multiply far quicker.
Dough Splitting After Bulk? Hi guys! I'm hoping for some help troubleshooting this odd issue I'm having where my dough kind of...splits apart after bulk. You can see some photos here: http://imgur.com/a/EbZgO. I didn't include the final loaf photos but it ended up being one of the worst I've ever baked — really flat an...	Rye has little gluten and APF Rye has little gluten and APF is not a high gluten flour. You might need more gluten and think about if you used a different grind or brand of rye for this loaf. Did you knead it differently so you may not have developed the gluten enough? More flour with gluten and less rye flour and m...
The Return of the Tartine Been a while since I've done the Tartine Country Bread. A simple recipe but very satisfying. It's also nice to return to a relatively high hydration dough (well high for me anyway and using European flour to boot) and see how well I can manage it. Usually one should drop the hydration a tad wh...	Nice Crumb! and your shaping skills and proofing times shine through on this one.Very nice.
Bulk fermentation ain't happening Hi breadlovers,I'm a home baker from Belgium. I'm having trouble with my sourdough bread.The facts:my starter is very active (no problem there)I'm using the recipe from The perfect loaf (https://www.theperfectloaf.com/best-sourdough-recipe/)The picture is from my dough 3 hours and 4 st...	only 3 hours? Hi Tom, It's just getting started. I can see it starting to puff up. Give it more time. With this recipe I wouldn't even bother to look at it for the first 3 hours, then start my folding and then once an hour if it needed it. Lowering hydration may also slow down the fermentation so relax and just ...
Alternative Approach for Float Test? The float test has been discussed several times, but it occurred to me that an alternative approach (still pertaining to floatation) could be used by noting the volume of the levain.Suppose, for example, that you combine some starter, flour, and water in an aggregate weight of 400 g...	If never used the float test If never used the float test myself. I've always found it obvious when a starter is good to use. But, ya did say all insights, so - liking to keep things simple, I couldn't think of anything easier than doing a float test. Materials needed for the test are readily available, cheap, and the ...
EAR, I lost my EAR My first few loafs, I got wonderful ear I thought this is the norm, you bake a loaf, and you get big nice ear, but suddenly I lost I am trying now my tenth loaf with tiny ear, what am I doing wrong now, what is the secret for an EAR? Please help	Too much water For the flour or maybe with time the fermenting time has gotten longer?
Going from two feedings a day to a single feeding? After having some problems with my starter staying in the fridge for a periods and getting some off smell and flavours, I started a new starter (using Hamelman's method) which has been making great bread. I feed it twice daily, with 15g old starter and 50g flour (half ...	Going from two feedings a day to a single feeding? It's possible to delay feedings by using cold water. if you are using room temp water, I'm not sure that this would cut the feeding times in half. However, if you are using slightly warmer water, this could solve that problem.You can use less flour by only keeping a ...
Dutch Oven Baking I just finished baking my first Tartine Bread. I followed the directions and preheated to 500°. Placed the dough into the pot and lowered oven to 450°. Baked 20 minutes with top on and 20 minutes with top off. The bread registered 209° when I removed it from the oven. I placed on a cooling rack for an...	Was it better after another Was it better after another half to 1 hour? That just may have been a little early to cut.
How much starter? I want to starter a levan and then ferment at room temperature for 12 hours before mixing it in the the dough.The recipe including the levan will have a total of 1100 grams of flour. I've read on the forum that 5% of total flour is on the low side for starting a levan. I figure 55 grams would be the a...	10g at 24°C
Beginners luck or low standards? After a critique of my first loaf Hello! Two weeks ago I started a (rye / AP) starter and today I baked my first ever sourdough loaf using the San Francisco country sourdough formul	http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/37897/san-francisco-country-sourdough I found it to be very a challenge as I have never baked with natural yeast before or used the stretch and fold technique, but am pretty pleased with the result. I would really appreciate some thoughts on where and how this can be improved, and am k...
Starter instead of production leaven As a beginner, I am experiencing considerable confusion, in spite of a veritable library of breadmaking books! If I have a generous supply of recently-fed active starter in the fridge, can I use this to make the bread dough for bulk fermentation? (As opposed to using only a tablespo...	Absolutely fine Whether you call it starter or levain all depends on how you keep, maintain and use it.If you bake often, feed it everyday and use it straight in the dough then you're using starter. If you keep a little starter in the fridge, take a little off to build a preferment (an off shoot starter) then you call ...
Help!!! Sourdough smells like "Nail polish remover" Good Morning: My confession: I am not new to sourdough baking but I did not bake with sourdough much this year. I also get some sourdough starter from a baker friend when I wanted to bake..Since I want to start a new sourdough starter anew, I follow one successful s...	acetone Acetone (the active ingredient of nail polish remover) is usually a sign of underfeeding. I would just keep feeding in the ratio of 1:1:1 (by weight) = starter:water:flour . Things should improve shortly.I, personally, prefer the pine juice solution for preparing the starter by Debra Wink.Ford
Wrong flour added to my starter Ive just realised I've added strong white flour to my wholemeal starter. Have I ruined it, or will it survive? The starter was given to me after going to a bread making class about two weeks ago. I kept it in the fridge for week but then refreshed with wholemeal flour it and made two ...	your starter is fine Anything in strong white flour is also found in wholemeal flour. Your starter is fine. Just switch back to wholemeal at the next refreshment if you want to maintain a wholemeal starter. Some people have found a white flour starter easier to maintain. YMMV.
Quick answer needed I'm following this recipe https://www.shipton-mill.com/baking/recipes/spelt-flour-bread-with-biga.htm and it's only been a few hours yet the biga has peaked (quadrupled) and begun to flatten out. Now this may be strange but I'm more familiar with sourdough nowadays. To me it seems a bit much to leav...	Per Bob's Red Mill site: "You’ll know your biga is ripe and ready when the dough is domed and just beginning to recede in the center."KAF's Professional Baker's Reference says "Once mixed, it is left to ripen for at least several hours, and for as much as 12 to 16 hours." Not as helpful, since it doesn't talk about si...
Sourdough Starter Stopping - Help Hey Loafers...New to TFL and this is my first post. So I have more questions than there are electrons to carry them at the moment. :)A little bread background: I have been baking bread at home from commercial flour and yeast for about 15+ years, have worked in professional kitchens (ma...	Very normal You aren't the first person to panic at day 3-4 and you won't be the last. The initial bubbling up happens quite quickly but it's not coming from the same yeasts and good bacteria in a viable starter. It is leuconostoc - bad bacteria. Quick and short lived. Then all goes quiet but things are still happening...
Does it make any difference to refresh a starter out of fridge before building the levain? I have seen in some recipes it's mentioned that we should refresh a mature starter after removing it from the fridge at least twice before building the levain. I'm curious if this is really makes any difference? I find that my st...	Well, my rye based culture .... ...sits in the fridge for weeks. I just remove about 8g and mix it with flour and water to form my starter and leave it overnight on the worktop. By morning it has almost tripped in volume and going like the clappers! So, no - I don't think that it's necessary to refresh it.
Inexpensive, homemade starter fermenter Just wanted to show off the inexpensive fermentation chamber for sourdough starters I made. It has gone through a few upgrades, but this is the final version (probably).This started with a small Igloo Legend 12 cooler. I chose to heat it by attaching a small reptile heating pad t...	Very cool! Very cool! It never even occurred to me, I built an enclosure with an STC-1000 a while back to control the temperature of a fermentation chamber I used to use to make lager. It has a two outlets, one that switches on to cool and one that switches on to heat. I could easily put a light bulb in a small cooler ...
Starting yet again :) Hello, I am starting a starter again, attempt #6... I have read the forums, gotten help from the experts in the past (dabrownman, minioven, lechem, and more). My last starter seemed to be going fine until it made bread that smelled very strongly of cheese, yuck! I had given up because a friend sai...	Day 5 and no quiet!? Sounds like you've hit the jackpot and just going from strength to strength. Nice!Young starters can go through a series of smells, some of which are funky, but a mature starter should smell good. Never had a bread made from a rye starter smell like cheese but I have had a young starter while matur...
Starter Got Weak. Why? Hello,I've been making most everything with sourdough starter lately, and I'd been making that starter progressively stiffer. It worked really well until I dropped from 60% hydration to 50%. The first few loaves from the 50% starter were fine, and the noticeable extra-sourness encouraged me to...	The stiffer the starter the The stiffer the starter the longer it takes to repopulate the yeast, so if you are using it often higher hydration is probably better suited for your needs.Gerhard
Is my new starter behaving normally? I started a brand new starter on Monday night with 40g water 20g Rye and 20g white flour. Tuesday night it was almost double in size with lots of bubbles. The smell was a bit strange, but not horrid. I discarded half and fed 40g water + 40g flour mix again, and by this morning (Wed...	Well, I'm not overwhelmingly experienced, but it sounds perfectly "normal" for a new starter in warm temps like that to be somewhat enthusiastic! The activity isn't yet from the LAB and yeasts that you want, but it won't be an issue for you so long as you don't try using it until the LAB and yeasts are well establishe...
Pushing bulk fermentation Hi everyone! Quick question, should I be letting my dough ferment until this stage? https://instagram.com/p/BVo-oiRhgFT/ It looks so billowy and airy and almost fluffy?? My dough never looks like that (I've always been ultra cautious with stopping fermentation - I usually pre shape the dough o...	Picture Link I am unable to access your picture. When clicking on the link it says the picture link is broken.
At last... a Pane di Altamura breakthrough 500g durum flour330g warm water12.5g salt100g starter @ 66% hydration Convert your starter by taking off a little and feeding it durum flour + 66% water. After a few feeds continue onto the following final feed...12g starter + 40g warm water + 60g durum flourAllow to mature fo...	mmmm looks very good Abe wish we could do more than look at the pictures.!Well done and much more happy bakingLeslie
Another "how to make a sourdough starter" video Just come across this video. Very well explained and good method. So here it is for anyone who wishes to go down the sourdough route. Enjoy! How to make a sourdough starter - full demonstration of an easy, low waste method. Video of How to make a sourdough starter -...	good one but the spanish one good one but the spanish one is still my favourite :)
A raisin water question ive been fermenting raisins over past 4 days and they're looking pretty active; have all floated to top of jar, lots of bubbles and a wonderful smell. So I reckon I'm good to make hamelmans Swiss farmhouse bread. My problem is I can't start the build for another 36 hours (I thought the raisins w...	Refrigerate And it'll last a few days. And if you're not sure of it's potency you can refresh and it'll be ready to go in 24 hours. There are a few ways to use yeast water. I like to make a Pre-Ferment by mixing flour with yeast water and allowing that to mature before using but I believe you may just swap the water in...
Still Having some Doubts on my Fermenting and/or Proofing Been a bit dismayed at my last several bakes as my loaves have been getting more and more dense lately, so I'm rebuilding my process and starting back at the basics.Just completed a bake with my new levain build (3-stage) with my new experimental recipe - 70% hy...	Basics "Even at 40% levain, these loaves took around 9 hours to proof."Tell us about the starter and how it is maintained. Maybe we can find something to help boost the yeast numbers back up. :)
Need Help -No Noticeable Oven Spring Hi all, I'm new to sourdough baking. I'm really looking for advice as to how to improve my crumbs & to experience a wonderful oven spring. Instead of rising, my bread spreads out in the oven. The water content is not too high at all. The dough is pretty firm & not too sticky. Is it ...	Sorry but I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. Maybe you can tell us more about the picture and bread. What part of the loaf it is? Recipe? A crumb shot showing a complete slice of bread would be helpful and what do you desire in the crumb? Is the fruit on the bottom of the picture an ingredient in the crumb?...
Building Water for your Starter? Ok, among other "issues" that I'm working through with my starters, NOW I find that my WATER might be an issue...?!Maybe I'm looking too far into this thing. Wait, no; I definitely AM looking too far into this thing! I'm actually considering building my own water for my sourdough starte...	your pH is high I would suggest using unsweetened pineapple juice to get started. Site search: Wink pineapple juice solution #2 and also part #1
Struggling trying to get "explosive" peel-back oven spring I have Oven Spring Envy. I admit it. It is rare that I get that huge, head back, laughing face on my bread, more of a gentle smile. I see a lot of loaves where the top layer is peeled back all the way to the top with the bulge of risen bread forming a basketbal...	That loaf is nothing to scoff That loaf is nothing to scoff at! It looks beautiful. But I understand what you’re after. Have you tried bulk fermenting to 30-40%? If that doesn’t help, I would try strengthening your starter. There is a thread a few posts down called “sourdough in cold temperature”. There are before and ...
Success!! Finally got a respectable loaf!This was a strange one, though. I named this bake "What the Heck" because I just tossed all of the ingredients into the mixing bowl and put the KitchenAid on speed two for a few minutes until it all came together, then transferred to a plastic container with a lid, let it sit on...	perfect! that's a beautiful crumb. Awesome job!
Dough Fermented Too Fast I used JMonkey's recipe (link below) http://www.thefreshloaf.com/handbook/overnight-whole-grain-sourdough-wheat-spelt-amp-ryeRecipe says - Dough development and the first rise - the dough "needs to rise at room temperature for 8-10 hours."I used 50 grams of healthy wet starter but by 5 hours it...	The 8-10 hours Is the bulk ferment and not the final proofing. At 8% starter you should be able to get a long bulk ferment. Of course temperature depending and it does have a high percentage of spelt and rye which does ferment quicker. But unless it's really warm I don't think it'll over ferment. So when you say over...
Black top layer on starter Hello! I'm very new to sourdough and am unsure if my starter is salvageable. I pulled it from the refrigerator and it has a blackish layer on top. I read blackish liquid is fine and can be poured off. Can someone tell me if this looks like just a drier variation of hooch or if this is some ki...	Hooch is liquid It's alcohol produced as a by product and is harmless. It may be poured off to maintain a less tangy starter or stirred in to promote more tang. Normally it's clear or can have a tinge to it. This is not hooch and I'd be careful if I were you. Venturing a guess at contamination but get a second opinion....
Sourdough brioche crumbs First of all, very sorry for posting several threads on bread crumbs. Not sure how I could upload multiple pictures from mobile phone, hence I decided to post on separate threads. Very sorry for any inconvenience caused. I would highly appreciate if anyone could let me know if the picture shows...	Sourdough Brioche Crumb Literally here in Paris looking at the crumb from a loaf of sourdough brioche from Utopie - among the finest bakeries in the city. Yours looks spot-on. Photo below, if the upload works properly.That said, brioche is classically a yeast-leavened bread. Centuries ago, Parisian bakers fought for th...
How do I make my starter dough manageable, not lose and sticky Today I baked with my new whey starter for the first time. I made 2 pizzas. The taste of the crust was wow!.. so complex and delicious, unlike the one-dimensional taste we're used to with IDY. My kids were amazed at the rich amazing taste.However, one probl...	Over-proofed dough? It sounds to me like the dough has over proofed... has all the typical signs. The "nice set of strands" after the bulking could be taken as over proofing also. Got a photo?Try using less sourdough starter, perhaps half of what you already used (adding in more flour and water to the dough) and see ...
Low hydration starter I keep my starter at 100%. But I'm trying to learn about lower hydration cultures. I have mixed them to 50 or 60%, but I have no idea what to expect in terms of rise between feeding. I'm getting a dough ball and they don't seem to get larger. I have noticed then getting lighter in weight and less ...	My low hydration starter Or Levain build will expand as much, if not more, than a liquid starter. Are you leaving it for long enough?
What to feed my 60% hydration starter? This is super embarrassing to ask but I cannot for the life of me figure this out, I might be over thinking this whole thing.I converted some of my 100% hydration rye starter to 60% hydration. I wanted a 150 grams of starter for which I took 30 grams (100% starter) and fed it 79 g...	Who knew bread making would require math? 150 g of 60% hydration starter is 150 divided by 1.6 1 for the flour and .6 for the water so it is 94 g for the flour and 56 for the water. If you take 20 g of your exiting starter it has 20/1.6 = 12.5 g of flour and 7.5 g of water in it. So deduct the flour and water in yo...
Abnormal black dots on the surface of my half-day old sour dough starter hello, My half-day old sour dough starter seems to have developed some black dots on its surface (as shown in the attached picture). I can't tell if this is any bacteria developing or if this naturally occurring. Would the flour be a fa...	oh I forgot to mention that oh I forgot to mention that my another 3 sourdough starter never had this issue, although they were both prepared using whole wheat flour.liming
Finally a sourdough starter that works: Whey Starter Greetings everyoneI'm so exited because, finally I made a successful starter. I had many tries before, but they always suffered the same problem: too much lab and too little yeast, even though I keep feeding for 14+ days.This time it worked, probably due to a factor ...	All yeast slows down in cooler conditions It would just need fewer feedings in the refrigerator than room temp I think the statistic is that it doubles its population every 100 minutes at roughly room temp, as a result food supply is exhausted faster as well. Working with yeast is all about getting dough to rise based...
Does tea affect sourdough? So I recently bought some delicious roasted brown rice tea and I was wondering if using tea (cooled of course) instead of water in the dough would affect the final product in any way. Thanks!	I have used tea to soak fruit and then added the drained liquid to my dough. No adverse effects.
Confused about The Rye Baker Sour Culture Maintenance I’m reading through Stanley Ginsberg’s The Rye Baker and I have a question about the Sour Culture Maintenance Refresh instructions:70 g Rye flour70 g Warm water7 g Rye sour cultureMix the ingredients, cover, and ferment at room temperature overnight. Store refrigera...	Hi, it would be useful to know the condition and behavior of the 210g 7 day old rye culture. If it is ready to switch gears to maintenance feeding or still in the later stages of becoming a viable starter. The maintenance feeding with only 7g culture is correct. (Can also be used to make a "sponge.") But if your cu...
Tartine Confusion There seems to be some confusion when making tartine loaves. Namely 'Autolyse'. The books seem to suggest that a long Autolyse with the leaven is fine. Not so! I think this confusion has led to much misunderstanding and many disastrous bakes. Please read the following article where Chad himself walks ...	Excellent information! Thanks so much for researching and posting this, Lechem. It certainly clarifies a lot of things (and gets one all excited again about high hydration bread!).
Need Help to Read My Sourdough Crumbs Hi, I'm looking for your advice since I'm super new to bread baking & particularly sourdough bread. Recently I tried a recipe from The Fresh Loaf & ended up with pretty dense crumb (I think). As I'm not really familiar with sourdough bread, I really am not sure if this is the suppo...	Comments Hi Eonawi, The bread looks great for one of your first sourdough's. You don't mention the fruit that is in the loaf, how much ?, was it soaked ?. Assuming the hydration of the starter is 100%, your over all hydration is 89%. That is a bit high for a free form loaf, you were lucky to get it to rise as high as i...
Can I Retard my Levain During a Build to Increase Flavor? If, during the process of a multi-day levain build, I decide to slow one of those days down a bit to develop more flavor in my levain, can I put it in the fridge for 12 hours and take it back out with no ill effect? Will there be any positive effect?Not sure whe...	Dabrownman has advised me That to retard the Levain after maturity will further increase flavour. Whether retarding at any stage will produce the same results I'm not sure. Using a levain at different stages of maturity will also bring out different levels of tang. So just like bakers use a young starter for a mild fla...
Baker's Math I need to change the hydration of my culture. It is now 87%. How would I figure out the flour and water needed to decrease the hydration to 75%?So if I took 10g of 87% starter and I wanted to triple the new starter to 30g @ 75% how much flour and water would I use?I'm not only looking for the answer, I'd l...	Hope this helps OK. You've got 10g of 87% starter. If you let "x" equal the amount of flour in that 10g, and 0.87x is the amount of water in that 10g, then ...1.87x = 10g so x=5.35g (which is your flour weight) and 0.87x=4.65g (which is your water weight). So you have 5.35g of flour and 4.65g of water.You want 30g...
seeking a tested (and simple) recipe for a sourdough sandwich bread I love my sour dough bread, but my youngest often has difficulty with the crust . My other adult child like my bread for toasting or making grilled sandwiches, but also find the crust a challenge when making sandwiches for work. Does anyone have a trie...	Try different flours.. I just posted about using rye and spelt flour, blended with unbleached bread flour. The impact on the crumb and crust of adding spelt instead of rye was significant. Both loaves I made toast incredibly well - it's silly how good they are. So much so I was thinking of making grilled cheese for bre...
Cold Proof Question I've decided to take Lechem's suggestion to cold proof in a couche instead of cold bulk retard. I like the idea of shaping the loaves and then allowing them to cold proof overnight.Question --- Should I bake straight for the refrigerator, or let them sit out on the counter to bench rest for a while?...	As long as you had plenty of As long as you had plenty of time to ferment, and you're getting good shape, I don't think you need to bench rest from the fridge.My kitchen is very humid and warm. If I let the dough sit out, I risk it losing shape (probably has more to do with high hydration dough, tbh), and I worry about...
Bulk Ferment - Cold and Long, or Warm and Short? Presently I bulk ferment on the counter for 4 hours, two of those hours contain periodic stretch-n-folds. I've never done differently, and it yielded good results once (the first time) and not so good results from there on out. I suppose I just never suspected that part ...	Retarding Fermentation and Proof It varies for different flours and different intended results. Time, temperatures and the strength of you leavening agent play a big part in the bulk fermentation and proofing.4 hours has been a fairly general time for bulk ferments. My baguettes have a bulk ferment of around 1.5 hours ...
Sourdough starter just starting!! Now what!? Hello all! New baker here. Yesterday I received a small jar of King Arthur sourdough starter. I followed the directions meticulously--feed, wait 8 hrs. Remove a cup, feed, wait twelve hours. All is good, but that is where the directions end! Now I have a giant bowl of lovely...	If that is all the instructions say to activate the starter and your starter is healthy and bubbly then bake with it. 10 cups is a lot! of starter. Ideally you want to only keep 1/2 - 1 cup in the fridge from which you'll take some off to build a levain (an off shoot starter by another name) and when your mother starte...
FWSY levain starter stops rising after day two Hello all, I've been trying to make Forkish's levain starter. I've scaled quantity back to 150g flour/water. Days 1 and 2 go great, the starter doubles in size. However, day's 3 and 4 there is little to no starter growth. This is the second starter I've tried that has ...	Don't know that method, but Don't know that method, but what your seeing is in most cases normal early in the creation phase as unwanted bugs get established. Keep going and things will balance out on their own. Search for leucs for more details.
Acetone Starter Odor I've read previous posts by people with the same problem, but mine has a unique twist:My 100% hydration starter was thriving in a one-pint, wide-mouth mason jar covered with a paper towel and rubberband (once/day feeding, 1:2:2 starter:water:flour, using 50/50 whole wheat and rye flour), but it reg...	Usually, acetone smell means its hungry, so feed it more.I don't move containers though so not much use there, but since day 1 I've been using 1 litre kilner jars WITH the rubber seal and with the lids latched closed. My starters live in the fridge and are used 5 days a week. I don't top-up/refresh when I don't use the...
Gashes along bottom sides. For a French friend who has had trouble with this for a long time. Can you help me diagnose?(I said to him It would be helpful to see a couple photos - one from the top, and one showing the crumb). Underproofed?Forming too tightly?Inadequate steaming? - it looks like he's using some sort of...	What did the dough consist of?
Percentage of dough mix ins Hi All, So I am modifying a sour dough loaf to include chorizo. I was wondering if there was a steadfast rule for what the maximum amount of mix ins/ add ins ( meats, cheeses, nuts, fruit, etc....) you can add to a mixed dough before it starts to effect the structure/ crumb of the loaf. It w...	0% I think that regardless of the nature of the add-in the structure of the crumb will be affected. I think the fineness of your chop on the chorizo will determine the percentage at which you can add it in without destroying the crumb. Chorizo is pretty strong, so you probably wouldn't need that much to get a good pron...
Help! My cold ferment is rising too fast Help! My cold ferment is rising too fast. I am making Hamelman's Five Grain with Levain. I'm using the version that does not include any yeast. He says that if you want to retard the ferment, then don't use the additional yeast and place in refrigerator for 12 - 16 hours.My doug...	Not much more you can do If you have retarded the dough at the bulk ferment stage then I wouldn't worry. Just carry on with shaping and final proofing at the recommended time. If you have retarded the dough at the final proofing stage then it might need to be reshaped and proofed again. I don't think it'll over ferment...
Need Help with Starter Build I need help understanding the "Build" process. Here is where the confusion comes in.I want to make Hamelman's Five-Grain Levain. It instructs me to build the levian using 1.6 oz mature culture, 8 oz flour and 10 oz water. Should I use a 3 stage build and if so how do I do this? The total am...	A 3 stage build will be benefical If your starter has been sitting in the fridge unfed for a while. If you're baking regularly and your starter is never too far away from its last feed then don't worry and just follow the Levain build.
Is there any advantage (or disadvantage even) too... Having barley malt syrup in ones sourdough starter?I say 'having' (and not feeding ones starter with malt syrup) as I want to put some in my dough and my starter, at the moment, is just a little piece of dough taken after the bulk ferment for the next bake. Thank yo...	Hi Abe.Malt syrup (malt sugar Hi Abe.Malt syrup (malt sugar) will accelerate fermentation and promote lactic acid production. As you well know durum ferments fast already and adding malt might make it even faster! Be careful... Your dough could break.
Convert Yeasted Recipe to Levain How would I convert a yeasted bread recipe to a starter/Levain?	Take away the yeast Pre-Ferment some of the flour and water with some of your starter. Then carry on as normal watching the dough and not the clock. It won't be the same bread. It'll be a sourdough. So there is no steadfast rule as to how much to Pre-Ferment. Depending on what you're aiming for you'll choose a ratio an...
Tartine recipe fail, after success? I've been using the Tartine country bread recipe for awhile now with my 2012-created sourdough starter... I had a couple of beautiful loaves and really tried to be loose with the baking process, so as to find a way to work baking into my daily/weekly routine. However, my recent effor...	Overproofed? "... and then it deflates as I put it into the cast iron pan".A sure sign. Perhaps your current weather is speeding things up. Watch the dough and not the clock.
Crust goes soft Hello all,I've been baking my daily bread for over 6 years using the sourdough starter I've made then. I've had 3 kitchens (and 3 different ovens) since I started baking my breads.1 - Bought house - existing kitchen, 2 - Remodelled house - brand new kitchen3 - Moved to a rental house - basic kitchenIn t...	Toast I find that my loaves, too, go soft after a little while from coming out of the oven. I imagine it's the steam from the inside of the bread trying to escape through the crust, and saturating it along the way.You could bake the bread a little longer to harden the outer shell. Alternatively, turn to your good ol' t...
Tartine Bakery's bread so sour So after weeks of baking breads using the Tartine book as my guide, I finally visited Tartine bakery & took home a country loaf + a porridge ancient grain loaf. I expected to taste the best bread I'd ever had but alas, the country loaf was a MASSIVE disappointment -- so sour. In fact, unl...	I have not had a chance to I have not had a chance to taste Tartine bread so can't help you there. But like a lot of people I consider sour bread a fermentation mistake unless you are actively trying to achieve that. Everyone has their own tastes and as long as you are using quality ingredients and proper technique I w...
Bread Scaling calculator I've made a calculator for scaling recipes, mainly for use by myself. It's simply a google sheet, you need a Google account to access, and then you can copy to your own drive and edit to use as your own. I thought maybe somebody might find it useful? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kgXn...	Very useful Thank you so much for sharing. It's just what I need. Happy baking!
Saving Starter by Dehydrating I've order starters over the years and most came to me as dehydrated flakes. I just made a nice flour/water starter and I spread some on wax paper and dehydrated (@ 90 degrees or less) in an attempt to save it in case I lost the original refrigerated one. I reconstituted the flakes to test...	Freeze dried starter is the best but dehydrator dried starter is next best..... just store it it a glass jar in a dark cool place for about forever.
SD starter yeast vs. LAB I notice every time I feed my starter there are a lot of bubbles, I wonder if this reponse tell me anything about my SD starter. Attached shows the bubbles after mixing 3 g of starter with 14 g of 85-degree F water. Are the bubbles created by the yeast or LAB? Does this mean there is plenty of ...	I've always assumed the I've always assumed the bubbles are caused by CO2 coming out of solution. But I'm just a computer guy.
How to Avoid Large Holes in Crumb I guess I'm fortunate. The prized holes large enough to hide a mouse come easy to me. I want to know how to get a nice open crumb without extra large holes.In the image below you'll notice tow halves of bread. They were cut from the same loaf. The right side has large holes and the lef...	It's all about the shaping I've heard those big holes called "the tunnel where the baker sleeps" or something similar. How are you shaping this dough? Do you divide it, give it a rough pre-shape, let it sit, then a final shaping? A two-stage shaping can really help, esp w/very wet doughs. Don't be afraid to degas a...
Re-do starter hi I decided to Re-do my starter again. 50/50 rye/white flour and water. Left is from scratch 19Jun 8pm, right is 20Jun 8pmi found it is very active and strong, is there an issue with that?	Nope Looks perfect. Initial bubbling up can happen quite quickly but you need to see it through past this stage as it isn't from the bacteria and yeasts in a viable starter. Continue but don't be surprised if all goes quiet on the 3-4th feed. If you do then skip a feed or two until it picks up again.
My first loaf.... So, a colleague gave me some of his sourdough starter with the directions to feed in the weight ratio of 1:1:1 and it has been doing pretty well, so I decided to make bread. It had doubled easily in 4-5 hours after feeding and was very bubbly.I followed a recipe which (after ~halving quantities) calle...	Just a few thoughts Congrats on your first loaf! Here are just a few things to consider:First, experiment with letting your dough ferment in the fridge for periods of 8-24 hours. This is called retarding your dough. The resulting bread will have much more flavor!Second, if your dough deflated when you scored it and did...
High quantity cold proofing Ive started baking 32-hour cold proofed sourdough for friends and family, and am considering starting to sell at farmers market. But I'm wondering if I really need to buy 20-30 bannetons for shaping/proofing, or if there is another method (maybe with a couche?) that works with a high number ...	500g Loaves Work Fine in a Couche That's my standard size loaf (bake two of them at a time for home eating). I would think that to go higher than that would require a banneton.
A couple of questions 1. Could I have pushed for an even longer proof for a more open crumb? The dough still felt pretty strong to me when I took them out of the fridge but I had to rush off. These are about 69% hydration with 20% dark rye, 80% bread flour. The slashes also didn't open up very much. Here's a shot of th...	Here's the way I understand things 1. One can do a single rise and bake at the optimal time.2. In order to improve flavour, texture and crumb a bulk ferment is done. After which the dough is shaped and proofed once again (final proof) to optimal time. 3. One has more freedom of expression with the bulk ferment but with...
An idea for Trevor Wilson's autolyse method I am currently working on Trevor's idea of preparing the dough the day before baking, sans starter, refrigerating and then taking it out to bring back to room temperature through the night. Although adding salt at this stage is not technically a true autolyse, Trevor does so ...	I suppose you could but you I suppose you could but you'll still get development overnight wits Salt as its only there, along with cold to slow it alll down so doing one hour autolyse before doing premix is neither here nor there if you get my meaning....I love his method and use it all the time as it really is good fo...
Using rye starter in white flour levain what difference would using 20g rye starter in a levain of 60g white flour and 60g water instead of using 20g white flour starter in the same ratio of white flour/water levain	Not sure of your question, but ... whether you mean using two levains in one bread or using one mixed grain levain, the addition of whole rye will speed up fermentation because of the added minerals in rye vs. wheat. The addition of whole wheat will have a similar but somewhat lesser effect.David
Hamelman Mixing Instructions - Ankarsrum and KA - On page 12 of Hamelman's "Bread" book he states that gluten development is obtained at approximately 900 -1000 revolutions. At the bottom of that page he has a chart showing various types of mixers and the suggested speeds and times for each.I have an Ankarsrum and also...	Ank mixing I'm finding that mixing times in the Ankarsrum need to be much longer than in the KA to develop the dough, but that's okay because it is much more gentle on the dough - more like hand mixing. See my videos on this post. The 'recipe book' that came with the Ank seems to recommend ten to 15 minutes mixing time...
Proofing and transferring high-hydration dough...is there an easier way? Since my last visit to the forum about five years ago, I've stuck with baking one recipe which dough is very easy to shape and handle. I've finally ventured to an additional recipe, a much higher-hydration sprouted wheat formula. The result is, as...	i start in a cold oven so i proof in a basket. i slightly underproof because there's still just a little proofing to be done in this method in the oven.i then flip the dough out on a piece of parchment that will fit inside my dutch oven (that's just what i use). the dutch oven is cold.i score the bread, put it in the...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.