Post by wyomama on Aug 30, 2004 18:18:58 GMT -5
I saved this off the old board..
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The starter should look creamy white and bubbly and smell pretty good. You can just pour it with your other liquid in bread making so that you have about 2 cups of liquid.
Let this mixture sit in a warm place for about 45 minutes.
Knead it for at least 10 minutes, longer if you are up to it. Or use your machine.
The dough should be easily handled but not too hard and stiff. Add that last cup of flour slowly in case you don't require all of it.
Put the dough in a greased bowl and cover it with a moist towel and set it in a warm place. Check it once in a while to be sure it is not drying out. If it is, spritz it with a misty spray bottle or something. It should only take 2 or 3 hours to raise, not all day like most sour dough.
When it has doubled in size, either push it down and let it raise again, or form loaves now. It should make two loaves. Put them in well greased pans. Allow them to raise as before, covered with a damp tea towel. Bake at about 350 for about 35 minutes. Remove them from the pans very soon after they come out of the oven.
Exact directions are useless in bread making because of the differences in flour, yeast, and temperature. Write down what worked or what you want to do differently next time.
Feed the yeast by adding more milk and flour every time to replace what you remove. But if you think the sourdough starter was unsatisfactory, throw it out and try starting a new batch. The raw milk starter has been more consistently reliable for me than some of the other types such as San Francisco. But you never know with wild yeast what you are going to get.
There were nevr any exact mesurements for putting together this starter.But as I think about it, I believe it would be better to use a larger proportion of flour to milk than I suggested the other day. Most starters say use one cup of liquid to one of flour. I think this is too thick. I think I have prefered one cup of flour to two cups of milk. I like it to be pourable. For the sake of accurate measurement of bread ingredients, it is good to remember your formula. Then you can know, for instance, that if you use a cup of stirred starter you are adding about one cup of liquid and 1/2 cup of flour.
I do hope that anybody who makes this starter tells us how it turns out for you. Just be sure it is good and foamy when you use it and that is smells yeasty.
I hope others will add their experience, I will answer as well as I can. Bread baking is one of those things where all the directions in the world can't substitute for experience. You don't mention if you are making whole wheat but I will assume that it is at least mostly ww. My KitchenAid is the 300 watt model and I also use a smallish 5 cups of flour bread machine. I suggest record keeping on ingredients and timing until you are satisfied with your results. With ww flour I consider that my breakthrough came when I began making the horse-bran analogy: it has to be soaked. It keeps taking up moisture until it can't take any more and this is going to happen inside your bread (or horse) and make a hard lump unless you give it time to first get in a good soak.
Start with a slurry in a ceramic bowl*. You can throw this together in the evening or early morning. Don't bother with any ingredients except the liquid, the ww flour and the sourdough starter or yeast.
When you are satisfied that the ww flour is saturated, proceed to add your remaining ingredients: soft or melted lard or butter**, salt, molasses or sugar if desired. If I don't trust my sourdough starter I add 1 t. of dry yeast. The dough should by now be sticky but no longer a slurry. (If the slurry is to sit unsupervised it is better to err on the wet side so it can't climb out of the bowl)
Now put everything into the bowl of your mixer or bread machine. If using a bread machine your amounts of course have to conform to its capacity. For flexibility I find the mixer more satisfactory.
Add flour gradually until the dough forms a coherent mass. I switch to white flour most of the time for this addition as what you see is what you get; white flour takes up moisture so fast that there is little need to accomodate to soaking. If adding more ww try to make an educated guess as to how much drying out it will do and err on the side of damp. It is easier to add more dry than wet ingredients. My Sally always does all the kneading on a board but I mostly use my mixer.
After is is kneaded "enough" (usually about 7 minutes in the mixer, 10 by hand, It will be smooth and elastic (which means the gluten has developed)and will cease to stick to the mixer bowl, board or marble.
If in a bread machine, by all means keep opening it up and looking at it. If so dry that the machine is laboring, jab it a lot with a chopstick and dribble on a wee bit of water. Add flour sparingly as needed to make the dough gather. I use the "dough" option and form the loaves by hand.
Let the dough rise in a warmish place. Don't let the surface dry out. Let it rise until a little poke rebounds slowly. It will seems alive and healthy and about like a healthy baby's bottom. This may take two hours, longer if pure sourdough.
Dump it out and form your loaves using a minimum of flour. They will now need to rise for about 45 minutes, sometimes longer for pure sourdough. If the loaves over rise to the point of being flabby and collapsing when poked, punch them down and turn them over and let it rise again. Over risen dough will give you a too crumbly loaf that slices poorly.
* Yeast hates metal, even stainless steel. For long rising choose wood or ceramic.
** Instead of adding butter or lard with the other ingredients, you may knead in soft fat a little later for a silkier texture.
If any questions were not covered, let me know.
*******************
The starter should look creamy white and bubbly and smell pretty good. You can just pour it with your other liquid in bread making so that you have about 2 cups of liquid.
- Add about 2 cups of flour. I am assuming whole wheat is what you are using.
- Add 2 to 4 tablespoons of some kind of fat (melted butter, lard, olive oil) unless you wish to wait to knead in the butter a little later.
- Although it is not essential, I usually add some honey or a tablespoon of sugar.
Let this mixture sit in a warm place for about 45 minutes.
- If you don't see any sign of yeast action, what I would do is proof 2 teaspoons of dry yeast dissolved in a little water and add this to your dough. This is just for insurance in case your home made starter is a dud.
- Add about 2 1/2 cups more flour to your dough mixture
- Add 2 teaspoons of salt.
Knead it for at least 10 minutes, longer if you are up to it. Or use your machine.
The dough should be easily handled but not too hard and stiff. Add that last cup of flour slowly in case you don't require all of it.
Put the dough in a greased bowl and cover it with a moist towel and set it in a warm place. Check it once in a while to be sure it is not drying out. If it is, spritz it with a misty spray bottle or something. It should only take 2 or 3 hours to raise, not all day like most sour dough.
When it has doubled in size, either push it down and let it raise again, or form loaves now. It should make two loaves. Put them in well greased pans. Allow them to raise as before, covered with a damp tea towel. Bake at about 350 for about 35 minutes. Remove them from the pans very soon after they come out of the oven.
Exact directions are useless in bread making because of the differences in flour, yeast, and temperature. Write down what worked or what you want to do differently next time.
Feed the yeast by adding more milk and flour every time to replace what you remove. But if you think the sourdough starter was unsatisfactory, throw it out and try starting a new batch. The raw milk starter has been more consistently reliable for me than some of the other types such as San Francisco. But you never know with wild yeast what you are going to get.
There were nevr any exact mesurements for putting together this starter.But as I think about it, I believe it would be better to use a larger proportion of flour to milk than I suggested the other day. Most starters say use one cup of liquid to one of flour. I think this is too thick. I think I have prefered one cup of flour to two cups of milk. I like it to be pourable. For the sake of accurate measurement of bread ingredients, it is good to remember your formula. Then you can know, for instance, that if you use a cup of stirred starter you are adding about one cup of liquid and 1/2 cup of flour.
I do hope that anybody who makes this starter tells us how it turns out for you. Just be sure it is good and foamy when you use it and that is smells yeasty.
I hope others will add their experience, I will answer as well as I can. Bread baking is one of those things where all the directions in the world can't substitute for experience. You don't mention if you are making whole wheat but I will assume that it is at least mostly ww. My KitchenAid is the 300 watt model and I also use a smallish 5 cups of flour bread machine. I suggest record keeping on ingredients and timing until you are satisfied with your results. With ww flour I consider that my breakthrough came when I began making the horse-bran analogy: it has to be soaked. It keeps taking up moisture until it can't take any more and this is going to happen inside your bread (or horse) and make a hard lump unless you give it time to first get in a good soak.
Start with a slurry in a ceramic bowl*. You can throw this together in the evening or early morning. Don't bother with any ingredients except the liquid, the ww flour and the sourdough starter or yeast.
When you are satisfied that the ww flour is saturated, proceed to add your remaining ingredients: soft or melted lard or butter**, salt, molasses or sugar if desired. If I don't trust my sourdough starter I add 1 t. of dry yeast. The dough should by now be sticky but no longer a slurry. (If the slurry is to sit unsupervised it is better to err on the wet side so it can't climb out of the bowl)
Now put everything into the bowl of your mixer or bread machine. If using a bread machine your amounts of course have to conform to its capacity. For flexibility I find the mixer more satisfactory.
Add flour gradually until the dough forms a coherent mass. I switch to white flour most of the time for this addition as what you see is what you get; white flour takes up moisture so fast that there is little need to accomodate to soaking. If adding more ww try to make an educated guess as to how much drying out it will do and err on the side of damp. It is easier to add more dry than wet ingredients. My Sally always does all the kneading on a board but I mostly use my mixer.
After is is kneaded "enough" (usually about 7 minutes in the mixer, 10 by hand, It will be smooth and elastic (which means the gluten has developed)and will cease to stick to the mixer bowl, board or marble.
If in a bread machine, by all means keep opening it up and looking at it. If so dry that the machine is laboring, jab it a lot with a chopstick and dribble on a wee bit of water. Add flour sparingly as needed to make the dough gather. I use the "dough" option and form the loaves by hand.
Let the dough rise in a warmish place. Don't let the surface dry out. Let it rise until a little poke rebounds slowly. It will seems alive and healthy and about like a healthy baby's bottom. This may take two hours, longer if pure sourdough.
Dump it out and form your loaves using a minimum of flour. They will now need to rise for about 45 minutes, sometimes longer for pure sourdough. If the loaves over rise to the point of being flabby and collapsing when poked, punch them down and turn them over and let it rise again. Over risen dough will give you a too crumbly loaf that slices poorly.
* Yeast hates metal, even stainless steel. For long rising choose wood or ceramic.
** Instead of adding butter or lard with the other ingredients, you may knead in soft fat a little later for a silkier texture.
If any questions were not covered, let me know.