Experiments with my current sourdough culture. Trying to find that sweet spot between flavour and effort.
I have screwed around with sourdough for years but always fall out of it because it’s a pain n the ass to maintain and cook.
So this time, I’m determined to make sourdough bend to my schedule, rather than rearrange my life around feeding the beast.
Recipe overview:
- Wallaby bakers flour (Australian brand).
- 72% hydration
- 10% starter
- 1.7% salt
Method:
- “no knead” (stretch’s and fold - ~20 minute intervals for ~2.5 hours)
- +4hr bulk ferment at 22°C
- +30hr (refrigerated) final rise in banneton.
Bake:
- Heavy bottom stainless pan (on parchment)
- Baked at 240°C-220°C (40 minutes total)
- 20 minutes @240°C covered by steel bowl
- Uncovered and baked for 10 minutes.
- Removed from pan (directly onto oven wire rack)
- Turned down to 220°C for 10 minutes
Rested:
- oven off, door cracked open and left to cool for an hour
- served after a 12 hour rest.
Review: Not bad. Great oven spring. Could have better acidity. Crispy crust but a bit too much “chew”. Nice, medium density, open crumb. Extremely low sugar (great for extra crispy toast with Vegemite and grilled cheese).
Looks great! Do you use the PH meter to also determine when the cold ferment is done? Is it worth getting a meter?
Thanks. It was a tasty loaf. Just needed a bit more acidity.
I wouldn’t bother with a pH meter. Was just using it in a few batches to get a better understanding of what was happening.
I wouldn’t use it after the cold ferment. I go from bulk ferment, to shape, to cold and then when that’s done, straight to the oven.
Yes it has to fit your life, but I’ve found sourdough the easiest ferment to maintain. Bung it in the fridge, take it out and refresh into the big starter before making bread, take a little bit of that and refrigerate it for next time. It’s robust.
Your bread looks gorgeous!
My starters have always been harsh taskmasters. “Feed me now!”, “Oh, refrigerated me too long - now I just sits when you try to wake me.”, “I’ll rise if and when I feel like it”…
Not this time. This time I’m gonna defeat this starter - beat it into submission!
Experiment #4 is doing its bulk ferment now.
Most impressed that you’re using a pH metre and are only on attempt number four. Also, that pic of your bread made my stomach growl, which is the best compliment, looks delicious.
Ok. A few weird things with my Lemmy client. It double posted the comment and one of them is linked to the main post instead of a reply. So. Uhhh. Yeah thanks and see other comment for details 😀
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Ha thanks.
The pH meter is largely qualitative, just gives me an idea of where the starter is at and gives me some hint as to when the yeast activity will be highest (I’m trying different concentrations of starter in my poolish to try and target specific timings).
I actually already had the pH meter for sauce experiments - I was curious about sugars:acid in BBQ and tomato based sauces.
Also, while this is batch #4 (this time), it’s like sourdough #30 over all time, and bread #200+
[sorry, this is out of context… something went weird with my Lemmy client and posted this at the top level instead of as a reply]
Didn’t mean to derail the whole discussion with the pH thing! And like you I’ve experienced some Lemmy issues which cause me to post strangely sometimes. Going back to the bread, fermentation looks spot on to me, I did think to myself that 4 hours with a 10% inoculation in Australian winter may not be enough, although perhaps your fridge isn’t particularly cold. Strange that the fridge time didn’t develop enough acidity for your liking, but if you were to add an interesting wholemeal at 10 or 20% of the flour mix think you might find the flavour that you’re looking for? I’ve got a cheap pH meter very similar to yours that I bought for sourdough, what has stopped me from using it is because it is cheap I’ve got to make a solution from the dough and measure the pH of that and it seemed like a schlep.
Batch #4 is out - trying for more of a sandwiching crumb… https://lemmy.world/post/1007486
You know you’re right. Something seems off. I usually do 20% starter [the posted recipe] was copy/pasted from my notes so I’m pretty confident it’s right - but it sure seems odd.
Temperature was about 22-27 for most of the bulk ferment.
Hmm. You have me wondering.
Anyway, currant experiment is definitely 20% (but lower hydration). I’m doing 5 hours bulk ferment and then shape but leaving it for another 1 hour before refrigerating.
I’ll report progress.