Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/28/baking-with-an-ignored-sourdou.html
…
6 Likes
This headline is subtitled, “bad life decisions”. I kept looking for the plot twist that would deliver on that, but nothing bad happened! C’mon BB, where’s the sarcastic payoff?
8 Likes
I wanna get my hands on those newly genengineered yeasts that spit out THC and CBD
3 Likes
Oh man that looks yummy. I’m not eating a ton of wheat-based carbs these days, but when I do I try to save it for the good stuff.
3 Likes
I always try to wait until my starter’s successfully doubling in size before I bake a loaf with it; I’ve only gotten weird gummy crumb like that when baking with a starter I know isn’t quite awake. I’ve had good luck with feeding the starter with a somewhat dryer mix than usual (80% hydration rather than its usual 100%) before putting it in the fridge after baking on Saturday, then taking it out Thursday or Friday to give it a feeding or two before making another batch of dough.
Alas, baking sourdough takes a lot of time, and I’ve been pursuing other hobbies, so my starter is very, very dead right now…
7 Likes
These things are generally more resilient than people let on. The old tradition on the frontier was to keep starter in a leather bag around your neck. And you weren’t so much feeding and maintaining it as shoving a fist full of whatever you had made back into the bag after it had risen.
4 Likes
as someone both sour and doughy we prefer the term “neglected”
13 Likes
i am not an expert, but i believe that the hooch should be poured off, not mixed back into the starter, because too much alcohol from the hooch will kill off the yeast.
3 Likes
I have been told that mixing the hooch back in emboldens the sour flavor and is otherwise not a problem.
4 Likes
As a baker and homebrewer, I was thinking, “relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew” all the way through that post. Your last sentence did not disappoint.
Yeast is pretty hardy stuff, I find – even ignorance can’t really kill it. I think the hyper-attention to detail that some bakers and homebrewers get caught up in is warranted if you want to have a reproducible product that looks, smells, and tastes exactly the same time and time again. After fussing over details in a lab for much of my career, though, I enjoy the yeast’s ability to cover up my mistakes and shortcuts (and occasionally turn them into gold). I’m sure unconscious habits picked up in the lab are part of the reason I have so few real duds, but I think the batch-to-batch variations are all part of the fun.
13 Likes
I don’t do sourdough (or baking for the most part). But I’ve done home brew and work in the beer business.
Generally yeast can’t produce a high enough alcohol level to kill themselves. They simply go dormant when sugars are expended. If the ABV does get too high for the yeast they likewise go dormant. In either case there’s still some activity in the yeast, and there are fermentation byproducts and higher gravity alcohols produced that the yeast will feed off of instead of sugar, as well as neccisary nutrients for the yeast living in that hooch.
In theory if the yeast is at it’s alcohol limit, and you don’t dilute it enough during feeding, there won’t be enough runway for it to consume all the sugars before it goes dormant again. But from what I’ve seen on sourdough starter you’re typically cutting it by half, so it should be fine.
Other than that stirring the liquor in is probably good for it down to all the weird floating in there that the yeast can use or needs. Should make for healthy strong yeast.
3 Likes
I have done everything “right” with sourdough and gotten dwarf bread* and ignored the experts and the starter and gotten great results. Sourdough here has never been reproducible; I live above a bakery in a century-old building on a secondary main street in an urban-type area, and I think the wild wild yeast makes the sourdough unpredictable.
Now I’m tempted to find the starter in the back of the fridge and feed it.
*Baked as a snack for a Warhammer game, it’s still here, 10 years later, taken out, looked at, and put away again every so often. It is a marvel. The cat has not peed on it, though.
7 Likes
It’s probably still good. People have brought centuries dormant yeast starters (sour dough and alcohol) back from the deep sleep.
Wild yeasts are often pretty unpredictable. You can get around it by collecting/starting the starter elsewhere. Or even mail order starter of different ancient lineages or locations online. I’m often tempted to do so as a gift for bakers I know, but it seems too much like gifting a pet. And the collecting elsewhere is a popular approach for wild fermented beers.
But yeast breeds generations quick, and adapts just as fast. A big thing in brewing is collecting yeast slurry from a finished batch to keep alive as a starter for the next one. The yeast gets more and more adapted to a given recipe, or set of brewing conditions with each batch. Eventually becoming unique to the brewery. From what I’ve been told Sourdough starter are bit like that, seems like it’s not uncommon for them to start out weird. But over time they get better and more consistent.
5 Likes
I kept a jar of sourdough starter alive for about six years, mostly in my fridge and only baking with it or feeding maybe once every 2-3 weeks, and sometimes letting it go 5-6 weeks without a feeding. It was always fine, though sometimes sleepy.
It finally died when I forgot about it for six months.
2 Likes
I’ve gone over a year. Just takes longer to wake up.
4 Likes
really? well now i wonder if i learned that from an over-cautious person then.
@Ryuthrowsstuff that’s super interesting. my spouse has some experience in homebrew, but he doesn’t know enough about it to weigh in on it. maybe i’ll try it and see how it goes. i have some of my starter dried and stored, so i can always start over if i end up killing it.
2 Likes
Spread out some starter on non stick surface and let it dry out. Just slightly warm to dehumidify. Then you put in storage incase you kill the main starter.
Also, if any other boingers want a free starter. Friends of Carl’s starter will send a starter for free to anyone that sends them a self addressed stamped envelope.
http://carlsfriends.net/
8 Likes
Bread is such an interesting human invention: let’s grind up some seeds from this plant and let it rot for a while, then heat it up until it turns hard. Mmmmm. . . good!
1 Like
Here’s an even more ignored source of bread yeast. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a49894/yeast-infection-sourdough-bread/
1 Like
Stir the starter daily. Use rye flour for the starter. Don’t toss the starter you remove, use it to bake bread or make something. If you make bread once or twice weekly, keep the starter container in the fridge, noting to stir it regularly.
As well, starter-baked breads are also products of the humidity and temperature of the kitchen and area where the dough proofs. Check out if you need to place an oven-proof pan or dish of water in the bottom of your oven.
