[Kefir_making] Re: Baking sourdough
- Subject: Re: Baking sourdough
- From: "Dominic A." <dna@c...>
- Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 13:06:16 +0930
- Yahoo! Message Number: 3291
- Onibasu Link: http://onibasu.com/archives/km/3291.html
Hi Bobbo
I agree with Marissa (in this thread) abut the blue-green whiskers being a
mold over growth or contamination (be very careful with this and take no
chances!)
Certain types of friendly molds are part of a sourdough bread starter. This
are mainly Aspergillus's oryzae, which do have a green coloured spore.
I also believe that some types that are also used for blue vein cheeses
making can be part of the microflora of a healthy SS. These are the
blue-green coloured sporing types of the Penicillin family of molds.
It sounds to me that your problems may be many fold. The original flour you
used to make the initial sourdough starter (SS), may have been too old or
the cereal grains were not stored well, the latter may have been the cause
for contamination.
If the SS is too vinegary, then you may have either left the SS ripen for
too long, or the temp may have been too high during ripening, or you may
have let too much air into the SS during ripening. Also if your final baked
sourdough bread was too sour, you may have used too much SS per flour, or
the SS was too acidic to start off with.
I find that my SS made with the yeast that settle at the bottom of a
water-kefir can ripen in 2 days at room temp. This makes a wonderful
sourdough bread using 1 cup of 2 day-old kefir-SS with 2 pounds (approx 1
kg) of flour. This takes only 6 hours to rise if left to rise in a warm
spot.
Note thought that I use biodynamicaly grown whole meal wheat flour that has
been freshly milled (with a week or two at most).
And thanks for sharing that link with us!
Regards
Dominic
Hello Eva Turner <jackandeva@e...>
This could be quite a long list if I were to tell you of all the
problems that came from my efforts.
At the very beginning I could not get a starter going. I was very
careful not to use tap water but used bottled mineral water. The
utensils were kept clean, I kept strictly to the recipe and I even
e-mailed the author of a bread book (Sharon Tyler Herbst) for help.
So far I have used about 5 kilos of flour in starters that grow green
or blue whiskers within two days. There was one time when a starter
did not grow any and the culture had a winey or beer-like smell. It
was a viable culture that stayed good for at least three loaf-making
sessions. The problem with it was that the culture was so vinegary
tasting which got progressively worse so that I was unable to eat the
product at the end. At this point I threw the starter out and didn't
try any more.
Since then I discovered www.sourdo.com and I was willing to pay to get
a viable culture to start off. The additional information I got
regarding handling the culture and what makes up a good sourdough
starter was worth the money.
If this works out then I will be back to get a culture that handles
the heavy rye and Russian wheat so that I can get a good chewy bread
that will make my jaw muscles ache with pleasure. But until then I
will wait until the days of unleavened bread are over.
Bobbo
Onibasu Link: http://onibasu.com/archives/km/3291.html