Sourdough

For the last four weeks I have been cultivating a symbiotic colony of lactobacillus bacteria and yeast, otherwise known as sourdough.  I started with one cup each of warm water and flour, with a little active dry yeast to get things started.  Depending on who you ask, adding commercial yeast is cheating, and I may try a starter sometime with only naturally occurring yeast, but so far I have been very happy with the results.  Supposedly different yeast strains can coexist, so wild yeasts from the air and flour will establish themselves overtime anyway.

Feeding the starter daily by removing half or more of the culture and replacing it with a fresh combination of water and flour is very important at the beginning.  Because the mixture contained some yeast from the start, I used the removed portion to bake bread from the first day, instead of discarding it.  The improvement in the quality and flavor of the bread over the first 4-5 days was remarkable.

Here is a picture of the four-week old starter (it has been more bubbly in the past, probably because it was less acidic):

Even after the colony has established itself, most sources recommend feeding it everyday when left at room temperature.  In the refrigerator feedings can be reduced to once every week or two.  I had mine in the refrigerator for about a week, and it came out pretty acidic, probably because it hadn't been fed for almost 2 days before being put in.  The bacteria, which essentially eats the yeast's waste just took over.  I was a little worried about the starter, because it smelled like vinegar, but that has subsided somewhat, and I think it was just overactivity from the bacteria.

Aside from the acidity issue, I think it took a couple of days out of the refrigerator for the starter to recover.

Here is a loaf made a day or two after the starter came out of the refrigerator, before going in the oven.

And the finished product:

 

Not the best crumb, as you can see:

 

This was definitely a step backwards from the loaves I was baking before taking the week off.  It probably needed to be in the oven longer, and I forgot to add salt, which certainly didn't help.

Luckily, this was only a temporary setback.

I had only been baking smallish loaves until yesterday, but although I haven't perfected my loaf baking technique, I decided to move on to other sourdough vehicles, with happy, happy results.

Check out the crumb.  This is right before toasting and making a pb&j sandwich

I will eventually have another crack at a perfect loaf (there really is nothing quite like buttered sourdough toast) but baguettes and buns have some serious advantages, not least of which is that they are easy.  And this.