First successful Sourdough
As the title states, it was a busy weekend. Quick summary: finally made a good sourdough bread and tried a few recently bottled beers that I will detail in the next post.
First and most exciting is that I finally made my first successful sourdough bread! My previous two tries had been... less than beautiful as my perfect, foggy, 65° San Francisco weather wasn't the perfect environment for the dough to rise. But after doing some reading and thinking, I managed to coax my little yeasties to create enough CO2 to fill the crust up with a great crumb.
The secret in my opinion was feeding the starter two times a day after the initial wait period to capture wild yeast. Once I started to feed it twice a day I really started to see it rise and fall in a predictable manner just a couple hours after feeding it.
I figured as any good San Franciscan should, I would follow the Tartine recipe until I got it right, so I won't rehash it here. I combined about 150g each water and a 50/50 blend of whole and white wheat for the initial starter ferment, followed by discarding most of it each morning and adding 100g each warm water and the flour mix; after a week I started the twice daily feeding. I knew it was ready once a spoonful of the starter consistently floated in warm water a few hours after I fed it.
I did run into a minor speed bump: the morning after I mixed the leaven (200g each water, the 50/50 flour mix, and a couple tablespoons of my starter) it didn't pass the float test. So I discarded about half of the leaven and added 100g more of flour and water and left it in the oven with the light on while my girlfriend and I went on a walk to the Mission to find breakfast. When I came back it passed! The downside I believe is that the dough didn't turn out as sour as I really wanted it.
Sidenote: Samovar on Valencia has some delicious food. The avocado toast with two poached eggs was amazing, and my girlfriend got a mason jar full of egg goodness. The matcha latte they made was also excellent.
Back to the bread, I wouldn't worry about the leaven next time. The bulk ferment went without a hitch, and whenever I feed the starter it immediately springs up to the top of the plastic container I have it in. That seems to be the main predictor of health and given its vigorousness, I'm sure it would chow down on any food I give it.
The only other major thing I ran into while making it was during shaping it. I think one of them turned out well, the other needed a bit more time to develop strength. In my defense, I could not find my bench knife after moving so I was a bit flustered and instead used a metal spatula. I didn't let them bench rest long either as I was late to hang with friends.
Despite these very minor setbacks, both of them turned out great! They came out of the oven light in my hands, had a full crumb (my major shortcoming in my last two batches), and tasted great.
I also want to get a true bread scoring knife to make the cuts better next time.
And finally I want to start trying out whole wheat sourdoughs and walnut breads. My dream bread that I get from the store is a whole wheat walnut bread I get from Pain Bakery in San Mateo which I usually find at Bi-Rite or Gus' Haight St Market. If I could make bread like that... I could die happy.
First and most exciting is that I finally made my first successful sourdough bread! My previous two tries had been... less than beautiful as my perfect, foggy, 65° San Francisco weather wasn't the perfect environment for the dough to rise. But after doing some reading and thinking, I managed to coax my little yeasties to create enough CO2 to fill the crust up with a great crumb.
The secret in my opinion was feeding the starter two times a day after the initial wait period to capture wild yeast. Once I started to feed it twice a day I really started to see it rise and fall in a predictable manner just a couple hours after feeding it.
I figured as any good San Franciscan should, I would follow the Tartine recipe until I got it right, so I won't rehash it here. I combined about 150g each water and a 50/50 blend of whole and white wheat for the initial starter ferment, followed by discarding most of it each morning and adding 100g each warm water and the flour mix; after a week I started the twice daily feeding. I knew it was ready once a spoonful of the starter consistently floated in warm water a few hours after I fed it.
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| The bulk ferment |
Sidenote: Samovar on Valencia has some delicious food. The avocado toast with two poached eggs was amazing, and my girlfriend got a mason jar full of egg goodness. The matcha latte they made was also excellent.
Back to the bread, I wouldn't worry about the leaven next time. The bulk ferment went without a hitch, and whenever I feed the starter it immediately springs up to the top of the plastic container I have it in. That seems to be the main predictor of health and given its vigorousness, I'm sure it would chow down on any food I give it.
The only other major thing I ran into while making it was during shaping it. I think one of them turned out well, the other needed a bit more time to develop strength. In my defense, I could not find my bench knife after moving so I was a bit flustered and instead used a metal spatula. I didn't let them bench rest long either as I was late to hang with friends.
Despite these very minor setbacks, both of them turned out great! They came out of the oven light in my hands, had a full crumb (my major shortcoming in my last two batches), and tasted great.
Changes for Next Time
The changes I want to try next time I make sourdough bread is to use the leaven I make in the morning regardless of whether it floats or not; considering that now my starter seems quite mature (it rises and falls predictably within hours of feeding it) I'm no longer worried about it fermenting what I throw at it. Using it when it's a bit more mature is likely to get those sour flavors I want.I also want to get a true bread scoring knife to make the cuts better next time.
And finally I want to start trying out whole wheat sourdoughs and walnut breads. My dream bread that I get from the store is a whole wheat walnut bread I get from Pain Bakery in San Mateo which I usually find at Bi-Rite or Gus' Haight St Market. If I could make bread like that... I could die happy.
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