Sourdough and other animals Author Elena Zheleznyak
🔗In this article, I tried to collect my modest knowledge about homemade sourdough, which can be useful for a beginner. From my own experience, I know that too detailed materials can scare away and seem too difficult to understand and, moreover, to repeat in practice. And there are not so many simple but sensible ones. I hope that this material can be attributed to just such a variant - simple and sensible.
It was difficult for me with sourdough dough until I understood what sourdough is and how it works, while it "lived" in a completely separate mansion, by itself, and the sourdough dough is just as incomprehensible in itself. How the leaven works and what happens in it was a mystery to me. While I was learning to bake with sourdough, I managed to make almost every possible mistake, my family had a chance to taste bread as sour as vinegar, hard as stone and rough as rubber. Now I can't say that I know a lot and have experience, but I can already do something and I no longer perceive the behavior of the sourdough dough and the sourdough itself as something unpredictable and fantastic. This revolution in my mind happened after I realized that leaven is dough. Ordinary dough, only sour, with well-defined properties, and the processes in it are the same as in the dough. Of course, there is a big difference between the starter culture, that is, the leaven, and the bread dough, but I think it's more important to understand what they have in common.
To summarize, homemade sourdough is a sour dough in which mainly lactic acid bacteria and yeast live in a friendly union. This is, however, provided that the leaven is healthy and active. In fact, its flora contains a great many different "inhabitants", which are in constant variability depending on temperature, consistency, fermentation time, etc. The flora of the leaven is unstable and must be constantly maintained in a certain state in order for it to be dominated by milk sour bacteria and yeast, and the starter itself was sour in taste and smell and actively fermented and bubbled. In this state, it can and should be used for its intended purpose - to bake bread.
It is worth noting that the situation is different with industrial leavens, they most often cultivate strictly defined strains (for example, the San Franciscan leaven or the German sekowa), this provides the leaven with stability and predictability and makes it convenient to use in bakeries and bakeries. But we have with you the usual homemade sourdough of spontaneous fermentation, which we got by mixing flour and water, and, in fact, we have no idea who lives in it. The only signs by which we can reliably assess its suitability are smell and activity. I already wrote above, but I repeat once again that a healthy working leaven always smells sour, actively ferments, with each feeding it reaches the highest point of rise (to the peak) and falls off.
What is the best flour to use for growing sourdough? Ideally - your own, home. But, in fact, not everyone has the opportunity to buy a mill and grind flour at home, so, of course, one bought in the nearest store will do. For wheat sourdough, it is important that it is whole grain (or wallpaper, or coarse grinding) flour, for rye, peeled flour will go, although whole grain is considered ideal for this purpose.A sourdough made from premium wheat flour will not last long, because it does not contain enough nutrients to maintain a normal healthy flora. For comparison, I now have two sourdoughs, one on wheat store, the other on wheat homemade flour, and so the one on the home is much more active and lush than store-bought.
What is the best way to feed? Until recently, I did not measure out to the nearest gram the remainder of the leaven, flour and water. I took about half or more from the jar, added a couple of tablespoons of water and a heaped spoon of flour, until a thick and almost always the same consistency was obtained. In general, this is an acceptable option so as not to bother with the scales, for a couple of years I just fed my starter cultures "by eye". But for some time now I decided to be precise and accurate and I feed the sourdough in strictly equal proportions. I started this fuss first for the purity of the experiment, and then it became a habit. Accuracy is especially important for wheat sourdough, it is more whimsical and capricious, it has gluten that should not break down, so it makes sense to feed the wheat sourdough twice a day if it is kept warm, and two to three times a week if it is contained in the refrigerator.
In addition, the quality of the whole grain flour is of great importance. Usually, grain with relatively low levels of gluten is used to obtain wallpaper flour in production, which means that too long fermentation is contraindicated for dough made from such flour. Private mills often sell flour, freshly ground, in the heat of the heat, when it would not hurt to lie down for at least a few days - a week to mature. If we use homemade flour, then in this case it is also not always clear what is the quality of wheat and, accordingly, flour. In order to know for sure that our starter culture will not peroxide by the time of the next feeding, that it is in a healthy active state, it is necessary to observe the proportions of starter, water and flour during each feeding.
For me, refreshing the starter has become a mandatory ritual that I spend twice a day, it happens like this according to the following scenario (a variant of a completely whole-grain sourdough):
I put a clean half-liter jar on the scales, add 35 grams to it. water and 25 gr. starter.
I mix well.
I add 50 gr. home-made whole wheat flour.
I stir it.
I cover it with a lid and put it on the shelf. The sourdough turns out to be quite thick, this consistency allows it to stay at its peak for a long time and not to over-acid. By the time of the next feeding from the jar, it smells sharply sour, there is almost no activity, the bubbles began to deflate - this means it's time!
In general, to make the wheat starter more stable and softer (in terms of taste and aroma), it is very beneficial to feed it with a mixture of 1st grade wheat flour and whole grain. Then it will stay at its peak longer, its smell and taste will be unobtrusive and pleasantly sour even after 8-10 hours of fermentation, and how quickly such a leaven raises the dough! My option now is this: 20 gr. starter + 35 gr. water + 35 gr. wheat flour 1 s. + 15 gr. homemade whole grain flour.
What happens to the leaven when it ferments, when it needs to be fed, and when can you wait a little longer? At first, it is completely incomprehensible what her smell means and, in general, it is not noticeable that it changes. Over time, you can become a real connoisseur and connoisseur of starter aromas, because by the look and "bouquet" you can determine at what stage of fermentation the starter is.
By and large, the period from feeding to feeding is a cycle during which lactic acid bacteria have time to grow in the sourdough, followed by yeast, and behind the yeast what we do not need at all is putrefactive bacteria and mold. Of course, it is better not to bring it to the last and to have time to feed the leaven on time.
Immediately after feeding, the leaven begins to ferment, the ratio of bacteria and yeast in it constantly changes.At first, it smells very thin, fresh and very slightly sour, lactic acid bacteria begin to grow and multiply in it. Literally after a couple of hours, signs of active fermentation appear inside the dough, it grows and swells with a cap, and when the leaven reaches its peak, its smell changes to a more sour one. At this stage, there is already a lot of yeast in it, which appears after the lactic acid bacteria, and it can already be used for bread dough.
If you do not touch the leaven and leave it to ferment further, it will, of course, fall off, its smell will become sharper and sour, and then it will acquire fruity or wine notes. By the way, thick sourdough stays at its peak much longer than a liquid one, which is especially convenient when it's hot. If we wait a little longer, we will notice how the bubbles inside the leaven become smaller and smaller, and the leaven itself turns into a homogeneous mass of yellowish color and an unpleasant odor of dead yeast. It is true, the stagnant leaven smells of dead yeast, by the way about those who like to call leavened bread “yeast-free”. The type of yeast there is the same as in industrial baker's yeast - Saccharomyces cerevisiae. But even at the stage of yeast dying off, the leaven can be reanimated by simply feeding it according to the already known scheme: by mixing a little leaven, flour and water in a clean jar.
If you completely forget about the leaven, then soon mold will start in it and then nothing will save or help. I once forgot about my rye sourdough for a couple of days, and when I looked into the jar, I was horrified by the unpleasant smell and was surprised at the many whitish dots on the surface - it was mold. By naivety, I still tried to feed, move them to clean dishes, I thought, maybe good bacteria will defeat bad ones, but not in this case, mold is incurable. A very good tool allows you not to forget about the leaven - it is regularly baked. It is not necessary to knead the dough directly every day, but, regularly baking delicious bread with sourdough, a sense of duty and gratitude will not allow you to go to bed with a clear conscience without feeding your favorite pet animal - sourdough.
What is the best way to store the starter culture? I am very sensitive to my starter culture and therefore I store it at room temperature and feed it twice a day. For those who do not bake so often and are not so reverent, the option of storing the leaven in the refrigerator is quite suitable. There it can be kept for 2-4 days without damage, feeding it and hiding it the day before baking.
The scheme is simple: the day before the intended baking, we take out a jar of sourdough, warm it at room temperature for three hours, then feed it as usual, cover it with a lid and leave it warm until the next feeding With the first feeding, we "woke up" the leaven, the next time it will be possible to take a little starter for the dough, feeding it in the usual way. After that, the jar with the sourdough can be hidden in the refrigerator again, but it is better to do this not immediately after refreshing, but after waiting a couple of hours for fermentation in the jar to begin and the dough to loosen a little. We close the jar with a lid and put it in the refrigerator on the lower shelf of the refrigerator, for a few days, until the next baking.
I once kept the sourdough (rye, really) for a month without feeding it at all, then I fed it, it grew again and bubbled up and I baked lush and tasty bread on it. Often in the leaven, which has stood in the refrigerator for a long time, a little cloudy water is cut off, which then floats freely on top. At the same time, the sourdough itself has a wine sweet-sour smell. For some, the fact of free liquid on the surface of the starter is embarrassing, in fact, this is a normal phenomenon, it is important that there is no mold and an unpleasant smell. Even if doubts arise, nothing prevents you from feeding the starter and seeing how it behaves for the next 8 hours.
When and how to start sourdough baking? Rye sourdough can be used for baking bread literally right after it has become sour and active, that is, almost a week after the first feeding. Fresh rye sourdough perfectly raises both wheat and rye dough, completely without the participation of industrial yeast - checked. Wheat leaven needs more time to gain strength, it can start to smell sour literally on the second day, and at the same time be active in appearance, but such a young leaven will not be able to properly loosen the dough and the bread on it will turn out to be dense, slightly loosened, coarse and acetic acidic. It is better to start working with wheat leaven in a couple of weeks. If the dough, put on a piece of young wheat sourdough, did not fit within the allotted time, provided that the proportions and conditions are correct, then it is better not to start the dough on such a dough - the bread will not work. Better to wait a week, feed, and then try again.
How is sourdough dough made? The dough for wheat leavened bread is always built gradually, in at least two or three stages: dough-dough or sourdough-dough-dough. How exactly depends on the recipe. If dough requires 30-50 gr. refreshed sourdough, it is better to use not a clean starter from a can, but a previously refreshed sourdough on a piece of starter, moreover, in the proportions of the future dough. For example, if we need to put a dough of 100 gr. water, 100 gr. flour and 50 gr. sourdough, it's better for us in advance, 8 hours before putting the dough, feed the starter, take about half a teaspoon from the jar, add 25 grams to it. water and 25 gr. flour, mix in a separate container and wait for ripening, and then put a dough on this leaven. If you take 50 grams straight from the can. starter, the bread may turn out sour and tasteless. If the recipe assumes 15 grams. sourdough for dough, then you can not refresh it on purpose, but take part of a mature sour starter.
At each of the stages, whether it is sourdough or dough, it is necessary to use a mature dough that has reached its peak, but has not fallen off. For example, this:
Or like this:
Both of these indicators are very important: the dough swells with a head and grows to a maximum when there is as much yeast in it as possible, but a little more acid. If the dough or sourdough has fallen off, this can further negatively affect the finished product, the bread will turn out sour and not as lush and thin-crust as it could be. You can also use the dough that has grown, but not yet to the maximum, when the bubbles have just begun to break through on the surface, and the smell from the milk-cream has not yet had time to become sour. This dough will raise the dough well and at the same time give it a special soft milky flavor.
Sourdough dough, due to the small amount of yeast in the dough, may not fall off for a long time and this is very beneficial to the baker. However, it is far from always possible to control the process, especially when it is hot, the dough can oxyderate, and it will be undesirable to use it for bread. To somehow stabilize the process, you can add a little salt to the dough or ferment it in the cold, this will slow down fermentation. Bread dough should not peroxide and must not be accelerated by sugar, traditionally sugar and other additives that significantly accelerate fermentation are intentionally not added to the dough and sourdough in order to keep this process stable.
Which sourdough is better - wheat or rye? I tried to bake both wheat and rye and, to be honest, I didn't notice much difference, or rather, I didn't even notice at all. They say that wheat gives bread a softer taste and aroma, perhaps it is, I just have not matured yet to understand such subtleties, but so far. Rye sourdough in content is even more convenient than wheat and less whimsical. But here's my current starter, which I derived from homemade whole grain wheat flour, is something special: fast, soft, stable and sooo grateful)
The forum has a separate section Various starters 
