Bejay, my web research on vinegar suggests that mothers can be saved/shared and used again & again. As you grow more, you could always compost the oldest ones. You might cull any that look moldy or unusual. I haven't heard of boiling vinegar for storage. You can pour it through a coffee filter and let it age for a while to mellow the flavor. That should get the mother out, but leaving it in shouldn't cause any more growth once the alcohol is used up. Health food stores sell unfiltered vinegar with the mother still in it. In fact I used store-bought unfiltered vinegar to start my own mother since it was only 1/5 the price of a slab of mother & I can used it to seed any other vinegar when I want to make more, without having to tend to a big hunk of mother. I can barely keep up with my sourdough. :-)

I'm glad your vinegar is delicious. There are sites with techniques for titrating vinegar to 5%, but it's so cheap at the store I don't see the point. I use my homemade vinegar sparingly for cooking & salads. Oh also, I think you can stick a mother into some other alcoholic liquid & if it survives the change of environment it will make vinegar. Gradually the microbes best suited for that liquid will predominate. White wine to red should work fine.

Melissa

Fantastic! - just imagine, vinegared rye, scotch, burbon, LOL.

That was a great post - and nice to know that "mother" won't poison someone - he he. (although - my kids say I sometimes "hold on to" things - like last week's stew too long - ho boy!).

As this was my first vinegar venture, it is always nice to know the proper way to go about it.

Was so surprised to find about 4 mothers in the bottle (had almost forgotten about it), and it looked like the longer it sat there, the easier it was to form still another new one.

I did put one of the "nicer looking" ones in a half bottle of Paisano - and hope for the best.

So - as long as I've got your attention (LOL), did you make your own starter for sour dough or purchase special. My last attempt wasn't the best - but I may try again, as I am "into" bread making this year.

Thank you so much for your very informative post.

Bejay

I'm jealous. I tried to make white wine vinegar by using the raw, unpasturized, unfiltered apple cider vinegar and a gal jug of white wine. After a year, nada, zip, zero. Oh well.

Re boiling, I make a fermented green chili sauce, using the same technique as saurkraut, and keffir starter. It is wonderful, but I found that I need to can it. At some point, usually 6 months later, other things start growing. It doesn't change the flavor all that much.

Re sourdough starter, take a cup of flour and 3 cups of water, wisk togeather, and pour into a wide pan. Leave sitting out somewhere in the kitchen for a couple of days, and you should see the wild yeasts start up. Alternatively, I just use some standard yeast to get it going, and let the same solution ferment 48 hours, then use half or so in the bread, and replace with flour and water.

David,
You might want to consider using a 'mother' to start the vinegar stage. Another option is to add a slight amount of a yeast and see if it starts to ferment. Many commercail wines have a sulfite added to retard spoilage and any change to vinegar.

David, everything I've read suggests white wine vinegar is harder to get going, so maybe Bejay can mail you one of her mothers. ;-) You can get one at a home-brewing shop. The bacteria & yeast who make cider vinegar aren't quite at home in white wine, so I bet it's easier to put a white wine mother in something else than vice versa. The link below is to a site I enjoyed reading while trying to start mine.

Bejay, I got my starter from a friend, but starting your own will help you tame the yeasts who are happiest in your kitchen. I thought of starting my own, but I think we'd have too many mold spores from an old dishwasher leak and some basement mold. Nothing hazardous, just more spores than average to crowd out the yeast. To read more about starting your own sourdough, try reading the rec.food.sourdough usenet group. I'm not too familiar with usenet, but I access this group by going to google.com, clicking on "groups" (above the search bar), & searching for rec.food.sourdough. The faq has a lot about starting at home, and apparently people dry out their starter & mail it to each other. A starter from elsewhere will gradually be recolonized by your own regional yeast. If you want to post to the usenet group through google groups, you need to register, and usenet is crawled by email harvesters, so I used a spam-only email address. Let us know how it goes.

Melissa

Here is a link that might be useful: making wine vinegar

David/Melva -

About the sourdough starter - I am in the process of trying to get one going. I used David's idea - flour and water, and added a little yeast, it looks like it is fermenting well after 12 hours or so.

Like you - I tried awhile ago to make one, but we live in an old (really old) house - damp, etc. So perhaps that was why my original one wasn't all that great.

If David would like a bit of "mother" that I used, I will save some when I finish off the next batch (I tossed most of the 4 left overs), and put only one in the Paisano.

Incidentally, the location for my bottle of wine was at about 70 degrees - near some vegetable seeds that I was starting in flats. Perhaps the added warmth was what made it produce like crazy.

When some of the sourdough starter is used - "take out half and add more water and flour" - does this affect the original bread recipe as far as amounts is concerned. Is it necessary to add more yeast to the recipe or ???

Lotsa questions -

Bejay

Info taken from an email from The Cooks Wares mailing. It is a recipe for making a sour dough culture. Additionally, I had a source for a free dried culture, that the sender only requested a SASE. Unfortunately, I can't remember that source anymore. I store mine in both liquid and dried form and added it to my grandfathers 100+ year old one he had when he ran his bakery in VT.

Sourdough Starter

Sourdoughs were originally produced by wild yeasts. The wild yeasts in the San Francisco area produce a unique flavor in breads. Some sourdoughs are over a hundred years old. You can buy dried versions and then activate them. Or you can make your own, catching the wild yeasts indigenous to your area.

I have tried to make a dry sourdough starter to no avail. So I use the following recipe which I devised after studying several sources. It works well.

Ingredients
1 cup spring water
1 cup butter milk
1 teaspoon instant dry yeast
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour

Mix the flours and yeast together in container, preferably glass or ceramic, that can hold two quarts and will take a lid. Stir in the water and buttermilk, and mix well. Cover the container with a dish cloth and let it sit in a warm spot. The dish cloth will let wild yeasts pass through into the batter. The mixture should bubble as it ferments. Stir it once a day. Let it sit out from 2 to 5 days. Then stir it, put a lid on it, and store it in the refrigerator.

As your starter sits in the refrigerator, a liquid will form on the top. It contains 12% to 14% alcohol. Stir that liquid back into the starter before using.

Your starter should be fed every other week. To feed it, remove one cup (use it in a baked item, give it to a neighbor, or throw it away) and replace it with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of unbleached flour. Let it sit out for a few hours; then refrigerate.

If your sourdough gets too sour, throw all of it away except 1 cup. Add 2 cups of flour and 2 cups of water to it, and let it ferment for a day or so.

If you will not be using your starter for some time, freeze it. Two days before you need to use it, let it defrost. Then feed it and let it ferment for a day.

Bejay, there are sourdough snobs who don't use commercial yeast at any time, so you can vary it however you like. By starting yours with some yeast that you know is alive, you get things going for sure. If you don't add any more yeast to the jar, it will gradually be recolonized by the yeast in your air. I usually start by adding flour & water to my starter a day before I want to use it, then taking out the amount I need for my recipe (the remnants in the jar are enough to leave behind if you need almost all of it). The recipes I use don't call for commercial yeast. Originally I liked my sourdough because it rose very slowly, so I could do my kneading at night, rise overnight, shape in the morning, proof all day, and bake for dinner. As I used my starter more, it became more robust & rose faster. I was never too serious about it myself & when work & school got the best of me I let it go bad & it turned pink & smelled bad. I just got a new batch of the same starter from the original donor, so I will get it going again.

For a broader introduction to sourdough, I recommend the faq at that rec.food.sourdough group. There are people on there who will do like Ken's source & mail you some dried-up starter, but any heirloom starter will be recolonized by indigenous yeasts eventually.

Bejay if you come up with any good recipes please share them! I was trying to switch to whole-grain bread instead of white, but the recipes I had turned out too dense & doughy, so I'd love a good recipe that's not all AP flour.

Melissa

My hubby is starting a sourdough right now that involves grapes and the mold that is found on the outside of the grapes. The grapes are in a pillowcase sitting in the container with the flour and stuff. I never heard of it before, but he saw it on a cooking show I think. It isn't ready yet so I can't report on the taste!

Evidently that is how wine is made, using stuff that originally was on the outside of grapes, which is somehow preserved from generation to generation as now they wash the grapes first and lose the natural mold.

Marcia

Well - I'm far from the "perfect recipe." But actually, it wasn't bad. It is a nice textured white bread, but unfortunately lacks flavor.

I made the starter of flour and water, and added 1 tbs yeast. Put in the stove with the bun warmer turned on (bottom of oven - where I dry fruit). This gave enough warmth to activate the mixture in the oven. I think if I had left this to become more fermented - it would have been better.

I have a book by Jeff Smith (Frugal Gourmet) and used his recipe for the actual mixing. However, his starter called for buttermilk, which I did not have. (how about other cultures - would sour cream, yogurt, rennets etc. be appropriate?).

However, I think I'm going to try buttermilk again, and I like the idea of adding other flours - as my thinking is that a lot of bread flours on the market today, do not carry enough of the right kind of wheat (winter wheat?), as I remember this could be a factor (growing up on a farm in the wheat country).

One recipe for bread before the present one - was done with usual white bread recipe, then adding some rye flour and some fennel. Not too bad - but maybe still stronger seasonings to my taste would have been better. (Perhaps some of my nicely dried onions, dill seed or caraway next time??).

Marcia - you know, about those grapes - my best recipe for brine dill pickles this year called for grape leaves in the jar. Indeed, these are the best, most crisp ever dill pickles I've ever made (lots of garlic and fresh dill too).

Anyway, perhaps there is something "magical" about grapes, they not only can make a culture but also preservant/crisper as well.

Ken - really! That is simply amazing that you could keep those cultures alive so long.

Just my 2 c's. Sorry if a bit OT -

Bejay

I kept a sourdough starter for a while about 10 years ago before the kids came along. I didn't have the inclination to deal with it after that. The sour flavor has to develop over time. I remember the first loaves tasted like normal bread.

Led Zep, that 'mold you mention isn't actually mold, but wild yeast that forms naturally on most berries and grapes. I had seen a PBS program about using grapes as a yeast source. Usually with berries the wild yeasts are mostly friendly compared to kinds of yeast that come from sources other than fruits. To add lightness to bread, add some wheat gluten which will help it to become strechy. Most flour sold today lacks the essential gluten and even for that the bread flours you buy are at best, only about half as much as there should be. To keep breads moist, adding potato flour can help. To retard spoilage and help the yeast along, adding some ascorbic acid will help. If the bread is flat tasting, is it because you forgot the salt? Sour dough bread can also benefit from a boost of adding some sour cream to the dough. Because I keep an active culture going all the time, as well as having some dried, I can always make more starter. I never add anything to the starter until its measured out and used in making a dough. Adding things like sugar to a starter will spoil it. The best starters come from whole wheat flour and water only.

My interest in white wine vinegar stems from making fillet bean pickles, those long, narrow beans done with tarragon, pepper corns, and white wine vinegar. My family loves them and will snarf a qt jar within minutes of opening. The quality of the pickle depends directly on the quality of the vinegar, and I was using Spectrum Naturals organic one. Doing up a couple dozen qts starts to get expensive so I tried to make my own. But then I figured that to get good vinegar it would be a good idea to start with good wine, which cost more than the finished vinegar. All the ads I've seen for making homemade vinegar talk about using left over wine, adding it to the cask as you go along. In the 52 household, finding bottles with left-over wine in them does not happen very often. Anyway, there came a time in there, a couple of summers ago, when yours truely asked for assistance in the every-three-day fillet bean picking, careful jar stuffing, and pickle making, and the above mentioned household was conspicuous by its garden and jar stuffing absence. So I then shifted my pickle making over to cucumber with massive amounts of dill, which I can do very easily myself in a relatively short amount of time. Question, do you really need good wine to make good vinegar?

I have an elderly neighbor who makes her sourdough starter using whole wheat flour and water slurry in a 9 inch baking pan. She learned this from her Mom who was a cook in the mining camps around here. To my jaded taste buds, I can't really tell the difference between using her starter and using my own, homemade starter with the commercial yeast that has been left two days, they both taste pretty good. She makes better bread than I do, but I think it has more to do with the actual baking process, she can "read" the dough and kneeds it by hand, where I use a dough hook and mixing bowl.

I make the best sourdough bread by using a yeast "sponge" and then mixing unbleached flour, a bit of whole wheat flour, and a bit of semolina. I make the sponge with whole wheat.

The sponge is usually made with whole wheat as thats usually the best for a sour dough culture. I use rye flour in the sour rye culture and and keep it seperate from the other one. Adding some additional wheat gluten can help to reduce a heavy doughy bread. I don't think it matters about the quality of the wine when its made into a vinegar, but that would depend on the taste of the wine. If it tastes decent to begin with it should make for a better vinegar. something like sake or a wine made from honey (mead) or other non fruit would probably not be as tasty as a vinegar. I grow tarragon now and this year it grew really well outside. I was given a small puny plant last summer that seemed to die out in fall, no matter what I did to it. I treated it like it was still growing all through last winter, buy just watering it. When this past spring came, it sprouted new shoots everywhere in the pot. I was able to cut off about 10 plants and seperate them into my garden next to my greenhouse where they grew very well. I wasn't sure if it would survive our winters here, so I left two of them in the pot and brought it back inside for this winter. If all goes well and it survives outdoors, then the one I have inside will get planted out there too. At least its real french tarragon as I tasted the leaves and they were really flavorful. if I get some cheap wine vinegar, I might rebottle it with a few sprigs of fresh tarragon inside.

Ken, can you treat a rye starter similar to a wheat? I haven't made much bread lately because I want to eat high-fiber bread instead of white bread. I could switch to rye in my current starter & gradually transform it (I wouldn't bother to keep a wheat version since I never have time to bake anymore). So the question is, can I just feed it every other week & use it about that often & it will survive fine? Or does rye require more finesse? I sure do love rye bread & the caraway would add even more fiber. I think I would eat rye toast at every meal for a week if I could get this going. Thanks for your insight.

Melissa

David -

I won't mention the name of the brand of wine I used, but it wasn't as tasty to me as some other white wines. It cost very little - say $6.00 for a gallon (or whatever equivalent liter size used nowadays). It was called Classic White - but it didn't "disappear" so decided to salvage it by doing the vinegar starter. I don't know if it would do nice things for your beans or not, but it does taste as acidic as the regular commerical cider vinegars, (and the pH meter would confirm this) but it had a better more fruity flavor than cider vinegar without the bitter after taste.

I think, however, if I were going to make vinegar in larger amounts, I would use several bottles, without disturbing the "mother" too often. Too bad, I didn't keep those 5 other cultures, but as a 2-people family, I had no need for making large amounts, figuring I would save one and put to good use, when the present bottle is finished. Also was surprised to see it continue to "clone" itself so rapidly, once it started doing so.

My last bread attempt - with fermenting a culture, (flour, water, yeast in a warm oven), turned out quite well, although it was still not sour enough.

Perhaps I am getting the hang of what the kneeded specimen should feel like. The texture is especially good, and although a bit less flavor than I would have liked, must be pretty good, because I keep eating it. It tastes great with cheese and horseradish mustard as a snack. (garden fresh dug horseradish that is - heh heh!).

I do like the gluten - whole wheat, rye flour and buttermilk ideas, and that is the way I'm headed on the next round. As I have no need to make bread for large numbers of people, I think making the starter a few days in advance to my project, would prove to be the most effective.

Ken - my initiation with tarragon was short lived. It didn't survive - even in my probable friendly climate. I did put a sprig into some vinegar, but it was not too spectacular, as I can't recall anything about its use.

As usual, I enjoy reading your posts and continue to be inspired to try for the "something just a bit more special - such fun to have a variety of foods to eat each day." Thank you for your continued support..

Bejay

Bejay, Keep at it, that starter will get more sour.

Rye flour is just fine, but if your moving to a sour rye culture, it should still get about 1/4 wheat or whole wheat flour every other time its expanded from its initial starter. Also, try to use filtered water that has no trace of chlorine as that can affect some wild yeast cultures too. Making a loaf of bread using all rye flour will give you a heavy doughy loaf and lack the essential gluten to make it firm and light.

Yeah, I usually mix white & rye flours as in the recipes, I just never thought of keeping a rye starter in the fridge for more than one use. I'll try it now! Thanks Ken.

Melissa

Rye makes for a very nice bagel too, or even a preztel. I get a few additives from KIng Artyhur Flour company, like some of their sour rye flavors. These are quick ways to add even more sourness to the breads. My grandfather used small black seeds in some of his breads in his bakery and I had a small jar of it for over 40 years. I recently found out that it was black caraway seed. My grandfather used to call it Russian bird seed. It looks a little like thistle (niger seed), but has a smell and taste unlike anything else you would use in bread making. It adds a nice 'old world' flavor to breads and raised doughs. They sell it though Penzeys or Spices Etc.

Hmmm, whether or not you should boil the finished vinegar...

I dont make vinegar, and i rarely use it BUT I know as a fish breeder i use vinegar eels (Vibrio aceti) to feed my baby fish. The best vinegar for culturing these little beasts is unpasturized as they occur naturally in there ... if you dont want them in there you need to pasturize :)

OOOOh - the only thing living in my vinegar was a few very tiny fruit flies that somehow managed to wiggle through the cheese cloth banded on top of the bottle.

Are these creatures visible to the naked eye?

Now I am intrigued.

P.S. Ken - The black caraway sounds like fun. My last sour dough culture bombed out. The bread turned out a bit too doughy - but possibly could make rye crackers out of it - (naw - its still edible - toasted anyway).

Still working on a new improved culture. Fun.

Bejay

I am now making a decent bread by using 2 cups of warm water, 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of yeast, and a cup of whole wheat. I whisk all this togeather in the mixing bowl and leave it set by the wood stove, from 8 am until 5 pm, then add 5 cups all purpose flour and then make a shepards bread. I add some orange zest as well. It is slightly sour, tastes pretty good.

Sarah Bella, I worked in aquaculture for many years, how nice to meet someone in the same field, but here. Would you mind sharing a bit more about what you do?

Bejay,

They are visible to the naked eye, but barely and only when they reach adulthood. They hang out at the top in the cloudiness (where i assume they feed off the mother of vinegar??) the baby fishies love them.

Hi David :) I am just a hobbiest and am currently raising 2 spawns of betta splendens (Siamese fighting fish). I am independently studying genetics and my goal is to develop a cambodian(lack of black pigmentlayer) crowntail with butterfly patterning worthy of showing. So far i have crossed a purple female to a tricolour cambodian male combtail and the resulting spawn has produced ~30% cambodian, and even tho the tails are still quite small i BELIEVE i see the combing.

My second spawn is the same female to a turquoise double/double ray crowntail. resulting spawn has produced very possibly 2 cambodians out of 30 babies. tails are far to small to tell yet whether or not the papas tail genetics have been passed down but in the VERY least i should get some nice combs.. ;)

In total i keep 3 10 gal tanks, 2 20 gallons and a 5.5 gal + quite a few betta bowls :) I think Santas bringing me something in the 50 gal range for xmas tho ;) Hoping to try my hand at a dwarf cichlids in the near future...

Sounds like fun, Sarah. The cichlids are great, we raised many of the Tilapia species over the years; male and female mouth brooders, elaborate nest builders, and so on. All for human consumption, alas, as they are so beautiful.

Bejay, do you bake a lot of other bread and it's only the sourdough that's doughy? I'm always pulling mine out a little too soon & it's doughy, and for me it's because I don't keep the towel damp enough during the final proof, so the crust dries out & browns too early. I try to remember to keep it moist, maybe spritz a few times early in baking, and leave it in until that thump is good & hollow (I dump it out of the loaf pan to check, pops right back in). This is just my experience, so if you're a bread expert, please disregard. ;-) I'm sure Ken can diagnose if necessary.

Melissa

melva - I think you might be right - I did thump but think it could have baked a bit longer. It softened after I removed it from the oven, and seemed doughy when I cut a slice.

No - I'm new to bread making. As I retired a short while ago, I am "catching up" on a lot of these home making things that a lot of non-working mom's and wives learn over the years.

Having fun tho - as I have a lot of time for it.

Thanks for the hint - keep em coming - sometimes it takes a lot of book reading to get all one needs to know about learning a thing or two. I believe I am "getting the feel" for the dough - so perhaps it is a start.

Bejay

Spritzing the oven with water will encourage a harder crust. Sometimes the oven rack is too high and the top can brown too quickly. Mine is usually set in the middle, but if I want a more browned bottom, I either use a dark colored pan or set the rack lower in the oven. Yes, thumping can give some indication of doneness, but not for all breads. Oven temps need to be accurate. Yesterday, I made a batch of pizza dough that was shear heaven as to its lightness. It was made without a recipe as it just needs flour, water, a dash of olive oil, salt, and some dry yeast. I usually buy the big 1 pound bags of yeast from Costco or BJ's as its MUCH cheaper to use than those tiny packets. This last bag has stayed fairly fresh for over 6 months now. I just find that as it is used up, I have to use a bit more each time I make a dough. One of my most favorite breads is made simply by using a plain white bread dough and rolling it out to about an 1/8 inch thick in a big sheet. Sprinkling lots of chopped onions all over the surface as well as grated cheddar cheese (or others?). My brother nicknamed the bread 'lead bread' and it was the first thing to dissappear at a big meal. Once its rolled up and has risen, the bread is baked in the normal manner. I found that once it cools it looks as if it was a fallen cake and is very badly sunken in. All that is no problem however as it has a flavor and texture you can't get from any other fresh baked bread. I use at least two big onions and a half pound of cheese per 2 pound loaf. The cheese is what shrinks and pulls the dough down. Yes, it does look a bit doughy, but even for that, the texture is mostly soft onions and cheese. I use both a dark colored pan as well as a bright aluminium pan for my breads. The aluminium one is more for a 2 pound sandwich loaf size, whereas the dark pan is for a one pound loaf. If you ever want to make your own crouscants, they are made with a low gluten flour and yeast dough. Its rolled thin, and softened butter is spread on it like you would do puff pastry. It gets folded several times, and the layers get buttered several times, and then you form it into your favorite shapes and let it rise and then bake. My favorite there is one that has chocolate inside the dough that bakes up and has a really rich flavor when you take a bite. Next comes sweet creamed cheese filled, with a dash of lemon. My doughs are perfect when I can handle them without it sticking to my fingers. If I do let it rest however, it will get sticky, so you usually can tell if it doesn't stick to your hands, and then does stick when its rising, its at the right moisture level. For some interesting flours and additives, King Arthur Four company in VT has many choices.

I just wanted to mention bulk yeast keeps indefinitely in the freezer. You don't have to bring it to room temp to use it.

Sourdough breads will stay fresh longer. The same is true of sourdough cakes.

The most accurate way to measure sourdough is by weight. If not weighing, make notes to yourself about the consistency of the sourdough you're using. Is it thick like pancake batter (heavy with flour) or thin like light cream? Then if the recipe works well, try to re-create that consistency next time. For instance, I just made a sourdough carrot cake. If the sourdough had been very thick, I would have used just 2/3 or 3/4 cup instead of a full cup and thinned with an additional 1/3 or 1/4 cup water.

Sourdough bread shouldn't be doughy, though it may be moist. It can be very easy to overestimate the "doneness" of bread by looking at the crust. If you have an instant-read thermometer, here are some internal temperatures for bread:

190F+ for rich doughs, (lots of dairy and sugar, especially those with egg). Plain white bread 200F+ (around 205F is good), high-hydration doughs such a Ciabatta 210F+, special cases(Coccodrillo and Pain a l'Ancienne) 212+.

It doesn't do any harm to pull the bread out of the oven when you think it's done and insert a thermometer in the underside about to the center. If the temperature is quite close, you may just want to leave the loaf out as the bread will continue to "cook" for a bit before it cools. Usually if the temperature is low but the bread looks done, it won't take more than about 5 minutes back in the oven to raise the temperature to the appropriate level.

You can also often get better results on a bread baked in a loaf pan by taking it out of the oven when done, turning off the oven, removing the bread from the pan, placing it on the oven rack and leaving it for about 10 minutes. That crisps and dries the lower crust, which tends to "steam" in the pan.

Carol

Ken, those chocolate-filled croissants are very good indeed. French lesson for the day: here in Quebec, we often call them "chocolatines." I haven't been to France but I gather that there they are more often referred to as "pain au chocolat" (chocolate bread). Croissants filled with almond paste can be very good. One of my favourite realted creations, from a nearby bakery, has a filling of almonds, ground figs, and orange blossom water. Yum yum yum!

Thanks for those temperatures Carol, they came in handy just now!

Victrola,
I believe you are right. In the dutch grocery store we bought a can of "pain of chocolat" along the lines of the pillsbury cresent rolls. It was produced in France, and the doughboy can't hold a candle to these babies. Right out of the oven you would think they had come from a bakery. They weren't good left over but I thought it was interesting that they tasted so good out of a can. My mom always made the pillsbury cresent rolls when I was growing up. I find that I don't really like them now.

Oh yes, love that almond paste. Herer, there are two common types. One is very firm marzipan type, while the other is a bit more course, softer, and more sugary. Pepperidge Farms now has puff pastry turnovers with a raspberry chocolate filling. I'll be making some with some left over cherry filling and added chocolate. For a bread to remain moist, the addition of potato starch and ascorbic acid helps to keep it fresh and moist. If I use the cresants as store bought, I prefer the jumbo ones in the larger sized can. Each gets sprayed with some liquid 'I Can't Believe its Not Butter' and a little sprinkle of Spenda before they are rolled up. It helps to give them a richer taste, but as you might guess they are more like a bread dough compared to a crousant. Au Bon Pain stores around here has the best of these.

Ken, does potato starch alter the crumb texture? Some bread recipes call for mashed potatoes (and maybe the water from boiling potatoes? can't remember) to promote keeping qualities, but the texture of the resulting bread is different.

The texture is lighter and the crumb is softer. Kind of like store bought Wonder bread, but richer tasting. I use it for some rye breads as they tend to be a bit dry and tough after a couple of days. My grandfather used to brew extra strong coffee and put that into dark rye bread for color. I would use a little less than half a cup per pound of dough. Havent tried fresh mashed potatoes, but I do use potato flour a lot in breads. Yes, the bread stays stofter a few more days. One of my local favorites are hot dog rolls made with potaoes, they keep almost a week after being opened and don't break apart where they are sliced half way through. Dinner rolls made with some potato flour hold up better for butter spreading too.

Does anybody know much about homemade vinegar? I was given a vinegar mother by a friend of mine about a year ago. I have been adding wine to the mother all year and it has changed flavour several times. This doesn't concern me as much as the mould that has just started growing on top of the vinegar. Does any body know what I can do to stop this from happening? The vinegar is being stored in a glazed ceramic croc.
Thanks in advance for your help.

Here is a link that might be useful: blue bowl brown sugar

Princess,

Thanks for reviving this thread. Sorry that I can't be any help to your problem, but someone here will have an answer.

Due to Illness I lost 2 great sourdough cultures last winter. Why oh why didn't I freeze some or dry some. Both had great history. The link will tell about one of them.

jt

Here is a link that might be useful: Carl's Friends

princesspez -

Whee - this is a really oldie but goodie post. In re-reading it, I have confirmed what the writers have offered. Perhaps at the time of reading them, I was too busy "doing my own thing" to really appreciate the great advice.

However, your recent post mentions "adding more wine" throughout the year. Personally, I wouldn't disturb the wine/mother combination until it has reached it's final fermentation. It may take several months - and when it tastes as you like, remove the "mother" and start another batch if you like.

Strain out the mother and save it - or start anew. Then I bring the completed vinegar to a boil to stop any tail ends of "mother" left that would continue fermentation, and store in a capped bottle for present use.

You could measure the acidity with a meter if you like, and if you intend to use it for pickling - it should be OK as long as it is 5% - as mine turned out to be).

I hope to do some string beans this next summer with white wine vinegar - and perhaps now that I'm thinking about it, should start the wine "cooking" now.

The instructions on the commercial "mother" is as follows:

Use a clean 1 gallon jar or bottle. Add to the culture:

16 oz. of wine.
8 oz. of water.

Air is necessary for conversion of alcohol to vinegar so plug opening with cloth - I used cheesecloth and a rubber band.

Keep in 80 to 90 degree temperatures.

Complete conversion is possible in 3 months.

Use the finished vinegar as a culture to make more vinegar using the same proportions.

The instructions don't continue to include stopping the fermentation - but I remember inquiring at that time and so did the boil step as well.

About sourdough bread - since my posting, bread making has improved somewhat. For what it's worth, I have added potato water (heating to 80 degrees and adding yeast and sugar for proofing), in the recipe I'm using in place of the water called for. It seems to give my bread a lighter consistency.

One other "helpful hint - from ???) is to allow the bread to rise slowly, acquiring more air. I put the dough in my microwave - no heat) until it rises, rather than a warmer room temperature might be. Also brush the bread with water both before rising and before baking - nice crusty crusts.

I add back water and flour to the culture and store in the fridge. Take it out the day before, and let it "do its thing" all day - smells great.

My son (my critique person) really liked the last bakings. He puts grated roman cheese on it - and toasts.

Anyway, this is my upate.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay