Posted: 5/17/2008 7:30:05 AM EDT
|
I put together a starter earlier this week. Unbleached flour, and water. Every night, chuck half into a big tupperware that I'll use to make Pizza dough, and feed the rest a half cup of flour and some more water. Yesterday, it "caught" -- smells great. I'll probably do another 24 hour cycle and then bake up some loaves tomorrow night. Then I'll have home made sour dough whenever. You guys should try it. Freaking cool stuff. |
Yup. You use unbleached flour, and tap water you've allowed to sit all day for the first wetting. (This reduces chlorination of the water and allows it to not kill the bacteria in the first cycle of feeding). Take a half a cup of flour and a half a cup of water, mix well, and leave for 24 hours. Then discard half of it (I put it aside for pizza dough), and add anther half cup of water and flour. Repeat this until the starter "catches." Its using natural yeast that is within all flour, and natural bacteria. The repeated removal and replacement of half the volume of the dough keeps the conditions such that only the "right" yeast and bacteria propagate. Its how they made bread in the "old" days. When it catches, you'll know, as it bubbles and foams and you'll get the scent of sourdough. It takes a different amount of time to rev up a starter each time, but mine caught right away this time, as the temperature is just right in my place this week. In fact, the sponge was so active this afternoon I just said "fuck it" and made a loaf. Its in its second rise now, and probably ready to go to the oven in about half an hour. |
Sorry for my ignorance never seen anyone do this before. Are you calling the dough the sponge or what? And once it apparently smells funny what exactly do you do? |
"Sponge" is what the woman who showed me how to do this called the starter when its "ready" and has had "one more" feeding, but this time of a full cup of water and flour. Anyway, you know its ready when the bubbly foamy stage doubles its volume during a day. (If you're not there to see this, you won't know it happened because it will rise and fall back down). Once its ready, you set aside a half cup of the sponge (this becomes your starter for next time), then its the rest (perhaps 2 cups) of sponge, 2 1/2 to 3 cups of flour, a bit of oil 4 TBSP of sugar, 1 tsp of salt, and any water (minimal) needed to get it to regular bread kneading consistency. Knead the hell out of it, set it to rise and after it rises the first time, punch it down and let it rise again. NOTE: IT can take a lot longer to rise than regular yeast breads. But after the second rise, you bake it at 350 for a half-hour plus (till its done) and viola! If it doesn't rise, you fucked up. If it doesn't taste like sourdough, then all you captured was flour yeast and you weren't cultivating the bacteria. The dough's got to be sour as hell and still active or it won't work. If you wait too long between feedings, you'll kill it. Once you've got a good starter going, you can keep it in the fridge, and reduce the discard & feed cycle to every week or so. |
That looks great. I stopped making sourdough when I was out of town so often that I couldn't reliably keep the mother fed. I felt bad and stopped. Still have some mother frozen, and it is probably still viable. |