About baking bread

[Marthe48]

I mentioned last week that my daughters have become interested in making artisan sourdough bread. I got interested and put together a starter last night, using the ingredients I used when I first started making sourdough in the 90s. I'll probably bake a loaf tomorrow. The way I've always made starter is with flour, very little sugar, yeast and water. I let it sit out overnight, then put it in the fridge to slow down the yeast. I would use some of the starter weekly, and feed the remainder with flour and a little sugar.

I noticed that the recipes for sourdough starter online now use only flour and water, and then go through a process of discarding and feeding until the starter is fermented and usable. I thought that making a starter with just flour and water was used to make salt-rising bread. During Covid, I had searched for an online recipe for salt-rising bread. I have a 1940s era cookbook which had a recipe. I tried making s.r. bread in the 1970s, because my husband had eaten some when he was a kid and loved it. That recipe was flour and water, and it failed to start. I didn't want to use that recipe again, because of that early fail. At the time I tried again, there were very few references about s.r. bread, or recipes to follow. I ended up using the recipe in the cookbook, and about days after I mixed the flour and water, I cheated and added a little yeast. I made the bread, and it turned out different than either the sourdough and traditional bread I baked. I haven't tried again, because it was a difficult recipe.

I'm wondering now if sourdough made by the miners in early California used yeast or relied on natural fermentation? Until I looked at the recipes for artisan sourdough this morning, I really thought sourdough starter contained yeast.

Any thoughts?

[blue sky at night]

1. I have been baking for over thirty years...

With Sourdough. What you are doing is fine, the sugar feeds the yeast...sourdough is so forgiving you really can't go wrong. I purchased my starter from King Arthur Flour, it comes in a small container as raw dough. They like to say it has been bubbling along in New England for over two hundred years! I continue to learn about baking and have evolved the way I bake from using a pizza stone, to a baking steel and now I use the dutch oven...the best as it traps the moisture in the bread leading to a really nice oven spring. One of my best additions is a "proofing box" that I made from a foam cooler with two C-7 Christmas bulbs in the bottom for heat...it maintains 80 degrees constantly so I don't have to worry about finding a warm spot in the house, not too easy during the winter. BTW, I follow a King Arthur recipe that uses yeast, a much faster method than starter only. I feed the starter often and I use King Arthur Bread Flour exclusively.

[Bobstandard]

2. Sourdough starter is just flour and water

Here’s a link:https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-starter-recipe|] to a classic recipe.

I believe sourdough recipes rely on natural yeast that is ambient in the atmosphere.

[Ninga]

3. About 2 months into the sour dough starter/baking process. There are way too many websites and pages on how to

grow starter and the 2 day process for the bread. Unfortunately, I’ve gotten my knickers in a twist from all of the reading of the timing and fermentation of the bread.
But no yeast is used in all of the recipes I’ve read.
I have starter in the fridge that a friend gave me. It’s been 3 weeks since I feed it. It smells sour and has bubbles.
I found a recipe for same day bread using starter that hasn’t been fed in a while. Using it cold out of the fridge into the flour/water/salt batter.
No sugar or yeast.
You can make a starter from scratch and feed it every day until the fermentation process takes hold.5 to 7 days or more depending on the chemistry of the water temp and room temp.
Or
Buy a starter on the internet from King Arthur flour https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/
or from a wonderful baking site Sunrise Flour I’ve used for 6 years. My husband has type 2 diabetes and can eat small amounts of bread and other baked goods using their flour without getting huge blood sugar spikes
https://sunriseflourmill.com/

[Kali]

4. it shouldn't need commercial yeast

but sourdough is like beans or that hilarious Tday video "Just put the fucking turkey in the oven!" everybody has their way of doing it - hence the endless info out there. to me, when there are so many ways to do one thing it is a signal that they pretty much all work and anybody can do it. you just have to experiment and not get bogged down in "instructions"

the old timers didn't have yeast and it is everywhere in the environment, though I had a relative tell me they used a few local berries to get the yeast off the outside of them when they made new starter.

adding a little yeast, or even a bit of sugar, isn't going to get you arrested but you don't actually need either. the variety of yeast DOES influence the flavor and that is why commercial starters can be a good thing.

[Marthe48]

5. So is salt rising bread just another name for sourdough?

In 1998, when I made my first starter, I was mentoring an exchange student from Ghana. She was dissatisfied with bread products here in the U.S. and when she learned I baked bread, she explained what she wanted. Following her instructions, she and I made the starter, with flour, sugar, yeast and water. We left it at my house to ferment. I divided it a week later and took some to her, at her host family's home. The student happily made bread from the starter all year. The host Mom and I were friends. She said the student was devoted to the starter and fed it every week. I've thought all this time my starter was authentic for sourdough.

I thought salt rising bread was bread made from a different fermentation process, and I have to admit that after checking some internet resources about artisan sourdough, I am confused.

I knew about allowing wild yeast to ferment the starter. Both times I tried making a starter that way, I failed. Entirely the first time, partially the second (I cheated and added yeast)

[buzzycrumbhunger]

6. I'm a big breadmaker

Highly recommend Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book for everything in it.

If you love sourdough, try her desem recipe. It's older than sourdough and uses WHEAT as the only grain.

Sublime. 😋