How I treat my Mother

Started by juniorballoon, December 16, 2024, 06:21:56 PM

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TXCraig1

The other big factor is the culture itself. I've had some that there was nothing I could do to get a sour taste and others that made a sour sourdough no matter what I did.
"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, baker's yeast when we must, but always great pizza."  
Craig's Neapolitan Garage

juniorballoon

Today I'm getting ready to bake another loaf Tuesday. So at 3pm I mix the levain, 25g starter, 50 g flour and 70g water. I have these heat mats that are designed to start seeds or encourage root growth on cuttings and I'm using that as a heat source to keep the levain at around 80 degrees. Due to the way the Mother has been slowing down I expected it to take 18 hours or more to double. figuring that tomorrow at 8amish I could start to build my dough. But this levain almost doubled by 6:30pm. I put it in the fridge to slow it down. We'll see what happens. Maybe it will be ready when I wake up. Maybe it will need some more time at 80 degrees. Maybe it will be ruined and I'll start over. Very surprised at the activity level of the starter.

juniorballoon

This was an interesting loaf. Next morning I took the levain out of the fridge and set it up on the heat mat. It took 6 more hours to double. it was a very frothy, bubbly levain. Kind of looked like it had broken. It smelled good, so I used it. The loaf got a bit over proofed. By the time I shaped it it had some pretty large gas bubbles. Using these heat mats is a bit of a work in progress to regulate the temp. And I know I am making changes with each of these loaves, but I am aiming for a reproducible process that gives me the results/taste I'm looking for.

Baked the loaf last night and made a sandwich next day. Baked up great, looked great and tasted great.

My next bake I'll be aiming for a leavin doubling at around 85 to 90 degrees and a dough rise at 80 to 85 degrees. I have yet to keep those elements consistent.

juniorballoon

Mother is slowing down. The levain took 15 hours and never really doubled. Started at 11pm, by 2pm it had started to fall, so I said, let's make dough. I wondered if it would even work, was it too weak to get a good rise and what would it taste like? 

I'm getting a good handle on my proof temps. The heat mat I'm using can get up to120 degrees. To temper that I have a folded towel under it, and two folded towels on top. That keeps the temps at around 80-85 at the surface of the towel (I check with a infra red , and the dough/levain temp was in the upper 70's. After three hours of stretch and folds I left it to rise. In 3 1/2 it had doubled nicely, which surprised me. Shaped and into the fridge for the night.

It cooked up beautifully and tasted even better than the last. Nice tang and while I think it's crumb structure is a bit holey, I like it. :chef:

I don't think I'm going to stick with always leaving the starter in the fridge. As I said up thread that method came from a fellow I'm sure does way more baking than I do. When I first got my starter from my friend I gave it a healthy feeding , equal dose of flour and water, can't recall the exact amount, but after baking a bit with it I have enough starter for 20 more loaves. I think that's too much for the amount of baking I do, especially if I start doing a regular feeding program. At the moment it's last feeding was on 12-12-24. It still smells sweet and floury, but as noted it is slowing down which makes timing more complicated. Not sure what feeding frequency I'll go with. Time for more experimentation.

Thanks for following along and I hope it may be useful to some other neophyte.




Heikjo

There are many ways to maintain a starter. If done correctly, using the fridge will work fine, but they can lose power if things tip the wrong way.

I feed it 15-18 g twice a day, store the discard in the fridge and use it once a week or so for cracker bread, pancakes or something. You can even include it in a dough. It won't contribute all that well to structure, but if a lot is used you can always do a pan loaf.

If you haven't been there already, I have found a lot of help at The Perfect Loaf: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/guides/sourdough-starter/

Here's another way to keep a starter: 
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/40918/no-muss-no-fuss-starter?page=0
Heine
Oven: Effeuno P134H

A D V E R T I S E M E N T



juniorballoon

#25
The experiment is over. I plan to make pizza this weekend, and checked my starter last night. It smelled faintly of nail polish remover. I scooped a portion and added equal amounts of flour and water and left it on the counter. This morning it was moderately active and smelled much better. I plan to feed it a few more times before it goes back in the fridge. It lasted from 12-12-24 to 1-28-25, and produced four nice loaves of bread. I am going to start a regular feeding process, somewhere between never and twice a day. I won't ever let it go as long as this first time. I plan to let it tell me when it's time based on how quickly a levain doubles and the smell.

juniorballoon

#26
The mother was fed once more and left on the counter for several more hours, very active and then back in the fridge. Tonight we made two pies, 349g of flour with 27 grams of starter/levain. I used the starter to make a levain in the same ratio as I would for bread, 5-6g starter, 10g flour and 14g water. the levain sat at between 70 and 75 degrees for about 9 hours. I then incorporated into the dough mixture. 4 stretch and folds over a 2 hour period and then balled and placed in oiled tubs to sit on the counter overnight.

Room temp for us is about 70. At 10am their hadn't been much activity, so I placed them on my new heat mat with a thermostat and set it to 80 degrees. 2 hours later they were cooking. A bit too much and I put them in the fridge. Pulled them out 3 hours before and they had doubled by the time I was ready to cook. This was a very different dough than I usually made with bakers yeast. With the combination of the sourdough starter and stretch and folds the dough was more resilient than previous and required more stretching to open the dough. They cooked in an oven at 550 degrees for about 9 minutes. Delicious pizza. Nice rise in the cornice and the crust was soft, not chewy like the first time I made SD pizza.I will only change one thing next time. Stretch the edges out thinner. The crust is very tasty, but there was a lot of it. More than I like. I was afraid to stretch it to thin when opening and maybe break a skin, but that wasn't an issue at all.

Pepperoni and Italian sausage and a pesto with chicken and artichoke hearts.


juniorballoon

This is likely the last I'll post about this, unless the process changes, as I'm settling into a routine of feeding once a week. My temp controlled heat mat arrived and it works very well. Set it to 85 and it kept the levain at around 78, which this time around took 6 hours to double. The dough proofed for 4 hours at same temp, probably a bit to long. I'm not an expert on knowing when it's over proofed, but I believe that over proofed loaves have more holes in the bread structure. This loaf is much more consistent than the last, my best so far.


juniorballoon

When I factor in the flour and water from the starter and levain, this recipe is 69% hydration. That's surprising and much higher hydration than any pizza dough I've made( 60%), and yet it's still quite easy to handle. It does get a little sticky during the stretch and folds, but after a few it no longer adheres to my hands. I think I'll play with that next time I make pizza.

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