Wild Yeast

NPHuskerFL

@caliking Want me to ship you some of my unnamed starter?  

caliking

@blind99 @NPHuskerFL I appreciate the offer of starter.  I'm working on reviving the bit I had stashed in the freezer, so should know in a day or two whether it's good. Otherwise, I may take you up on the offer. 

blind99

@caliking i've reanimated frozen starter a few times now and find it takes a good 4-5 days to get going, so don't be discouraged if it doesn't look great right off the bat

caliking

blind99 said:

@caliking i've reanimated frozen starter a few times now and find it takes a good 4-5 days to get going, so don't be discouraged if it doesn't look great right off the bat

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be more patient with it now

caliking

ITS ALIVE!!!

not the prettiest loaf, but a testament to how hardy these lil yeasties are.

spelt 20%, wheat bran 10%, hydration 75%.  I’m enjoying the slight chew of the wheat bran in the last couple of loaves. 

Binned most of the partially cooked starter, fed it, and it did its thing. Now named Jesus. 

The frozen starter has also taken off well. Named it Han Doughlo, for obvious reasons. 

The offer to share your starter(s) is much appreciated @blind99 and @NPHuskerFL

Hoster05

Has anyone in the group made sourdough bagels?

caliking

Hoster05 said:

Has anyone in the group made sourdough bagels?

Not yet. I’ve made bagels once before, using commercial yeast. They turned out pretty good. 

https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1207250/homemade-bagels-and-lox

I’d probably start with 55-60% hydration, 20% starter?

this seems like a good recipe to try:
https://www.baking-sense.com/2019/05/16/homemade-sourdough-bagels/

paqman

@caliking what’s the benefit of reviving a frozen starter as opposed to starting a new one? faster?

A local baker offered to give some of his but I am about to start one from scratch.  Just wondering what I am getting myself into 🤔

caliking

@paqman it’s definitely faster to revive frozen starter vs. making a new one. Much less effort too. 

Took about a day or so to get the frozen one going, but it took about a week (or more), with daily tending, to make it when I first started out a couple of years ago. 

To freeze starter, you thin it out, then spread on parchment in a thin layer and let it dry for a few days. Break it up and freeze. I vac sealed mine. To revive it, rehydrate with tepid water for a few hrs until the chips dissolve. Then feed it a couple of times until it’s bubbly and feisty. 

jtcBoynton

what’s the benefit of reviving a frozen starter as opposed to starting a new one? 

Your starter is a combination of various strains of yeast and bacteria.  The combination contributes to the growing properties of the starter and its taste.  There is no guarantee that a new starter will have the same combination of various yeast and bacteria.  The differences can be subtle or quite pronounced. 

blind99

@caliking that's a fine looking loaf!  

btw I tried to make a nice heart on the top of a loaf last night, for wifeys bday.   stencilled ala @nphuskerfl but despite my scoring i still got a split through the heart!  next time... maybe valentine's day...

caliking

Thanks @blind99!

I've often pondered the forces at play re: scoring, oven spring, etc. Just haven't had the time to really figure it out

My basic understanding is that scoring provides release for the forces generated by/during oven spring. You could try (deep) scoring  a square as an outline, then stencil the heart in the center. Another option may be to score horizontally on 2 sides, so that the top doesn't get stressed and split during baking.

Yet another approach may be to mitigate oven spring by proofing the dough longer than you usually do. 

Just thinking aloud. 

paqman

caliking said:

Thanks @blind99!

You could try (deep) scoring  a square as an outline, then stencil the heart in the center.

Yet another approach may be to mitigate oven spring by proofing the dough longer than you usually do. 

That’s basically what I’m doing (scoring a square).

Overproofing the dough did not work well for me, I ended up with uneven oven spring/rise and deformation.  I got better results underproofing, the square raises high and uniformly and the “stenciled“ shape remains nice and clean.  Maybe I’m not gauging correctly with the finger dent test 🤷‍♂️

paqman

So... I’m starting a starter today.  Wish me luck.  It is winter here (as in lots of snow winter and the windows are closed). So not sure what kind of wild yeast I’ll be able to harvest but hopefully it is the right kind 😂

Been trying diastatic malt powder for 3 days now and it does help with the texture of the crumb.  I noticed it improves tenderness and the bread remains fresh longer the next few days.  It is worth trying.  I don’t think that I would be using it if I knew I would eat all the bread the same day because I personally prefer a “tougher” texture with a somewhat open crumb but my wife prefers soft with smaller “bubbles” crumb.  Happy wife, happy life 🤷‍♂️

jtcBoynton

paqman said:

So... I’m starting a starter today.  Wish me luck.  It is winter here (as in lots of snow winter and the windows are closed). So not sure what kind of wild yeast I’ll be able to harvest but hopefully it is the right kind 😂
.......

Most of the yeast and bacteria that will populate your starter will come from the wheat.  whole wheat or rye flour are often recommended as the flour to use for getting a starter going.  They come with more yeast attached than bleached white flour.

caliking

paqman said:

So... I’m starting a starter today.  Wish me luck.  It is winter here (as in lots of snow winter and the windows are closed). So not sure what kind of wild yeast I’ll be able to harvest but hopefully it is the right kind 😂

Been trying diastatic malt powder for 3 days now and it does help with the texture of the crumb.  I noticed it improves tenderness and the bread remains fresh longer the next few days.  It is worth trying.  I don’t think that I would be using it if I knew I would eat all the bread the same day because I personally prefer a “tougher” texture with a somewhat open crumb but my wife prefers soft with smaller “bubbles” crumb.  Happy wife, happy life 🤷‍♂️

I’m going to try some. How much do you use? 

My dad usually says that sourdough is too chewy for him. Maybe this will take care of that. 

paqman

@caliking 2% looks like a winning ratio for me when using 60 lintner degree DMP.  That was with unbleached AP flour, instant yeast, 1 hour autolyse, short room temperature proofing and same day baking.

@NDG posted a dough recipe that calls for 3% 20 lintner degrees DMP so that should translate to 1% 60 lintner degrees DMP.

Wife says 2% was better, I haven’t tried 3% yet.  Guidance I obtained so far is to add 1/2-1 tsp DMP per cup of AP flour.  1/2 tsp per cup of AP flour translates to 1% baker percentage.

paqman

jtcBoynton said:

paqman said:

So... I’m starting a starter today.  Wish me luck.  It is winter here (as in lots of snow winter and the windows are closed). So not sure what kind of wild yeast I’ll be able to harvest but hopefully it is the right kind 😂
.......

Most of the yeast and bacteria that will populate your starter will come from the wheat.  whole wheat or rye flour are often recommended as the flour to use for getting a starter going.  They come with more yeast attached than bleached white flour.

Sounds like a plan.  Picked up some organic flour with no added fungicides.

blind99

@caliking @paqman for sure, when done well, the scoring definitely makes for an attractive loaf.  i think surrounding the stencil in a square would have done it!  

if you had total control of all the variables you could really take control of the loaf.  i use the same flour and hydration levels, same cooking vessel. but temp in my kitchen changes, activity level of the starter changes, and rise times change.  still the loaves turn out better than storebought.

paqman

Starter day #1 - How shall I call it?

paqman

Day 2 - The force is strong in this one!

The volume doubled in just about 3 hours

paqman

That thing doesn’t stop 😂😂😂



5 hours and it has more than doubled with at least 12 more hours to go until I discard and feed it again.  I see some small bubbles but no big ones.  It smells good.  I’m almost tempted to bake a bread out of it now 👀

caliking

thats looking lively @paqman

paqman

caliking said:

thats looking lively @paqman

Does that mean that I can start using it now?

caliking

paqman said:

caliking said:

thats looking lively @paqman

Does that mean that I can start using it now?

I suppose  you could, but you want to go through a few cycles of dumping and feeding to let the yeasties establish and dominate. 

I can’t recall all of what I learned back when I was reading about getting a starter going from scratch, but I think there  was something about it initially being a mix of some species of bacteria and yeast, and the repeat cycles eventually suppress the bacteria and lead to the yeast becoming the major player in there. 

Or something like that. I’m fuzzy on the details. 

jtcBoynton

More likely the opposite.  The yeast provide the rise and the bacteria provide the flavor.  It takes the bacteria longer to get established in a new culture.  

paqman

I’m not sure what happened here but when I woke up this morning the levain actually lost quite a bit of volume.  Hopefully I did not kill it when I smelled it last night. 😳

Eggcelsior

It may have just been some large bubbles that off-gassed.

jtcBoynton

you are viewing the natural growth cycle of the culture.  nothing to worry about.  Just stay with the feeding schedule and all will be well.

caliking

I re-educated myself a bit re: starting a starter and its seems that certain bacteria do proliferate in the beginning, in what starts out as a neutral culture medium. The big rise is from the activity of these bacteria (likely to be some lactobacillus in there). The fall you saw is expected.

Over some time, the bacteria take a back seat as the culture medium becomes more acidic and is less favorable for their growth, but favors the yeast. It's why some folks have to add pineapple juice (or some other acid) to their starting starters to rescue them.