Sour dough vs metal - grrrr.

17 years ago

My last "effort" in sourdough bread - which is off again, on again as I'm still in my infancy here - taught me another lesson.

I decided to use a regular cookie sheet to bake the bread on - thinking the corn meal would separate the acid in the dough from the metal sheet - wrong!

Soooo what do "old sourdough miners" do when they bake their bread in the wilds?

If this has been discussed before, please forgive. The notes on this site are fantastic (and overwhelming as yet) but perhaps I missed this question.

I do have a nice stainless steel cookie sheet, but it was a bit large, and I thought coating the non-stainless sheet with cornmeal would protect my loaves. After baking, they showed signs on the bottom (greenish) of having made contact.

I do have a small pizza stone - ???

Bejay

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Comments (13)

teresa_nc7
17 years ago
Put a Silpat sheet or parchment paper under your loaves between them and the metal pan. I use the cushion-air type aluminum baking sheets with or without parchment and have never had a problem with the bread reacting to the metal.

Sometimes I bake my breads on a round pizza stone; other times I use my silicon bread pans or my metal bread pans.

Teresa
grainlady_ks
17 years ago
You might enjoy this link below that tackles some of the myths of sourdough. Metals are about storing starters, not so much about using a metal bowl for mixing or baking on metal sheets or metal loaf pans.

About half-way down on the page of the link, it addesses the issue and it sounds like your stainless steel sheet will work. I'd also say use a sheet of parchment paper. Caution using silicon sheets, not all of them work in extreme temperatures. Silpats DO. They will go from the freezer to the hot oven -40Â° F to 600Â°F.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Sourdough Home
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kframe19
17 years ago
The miners likely baked their bread in well seasoned cast iron skillets, pans, or dutch ovens. The seasoning would protect the metal from the acids.
cloudy_christine
17 years ago
I want to know why it's green. Is there copper in your non-stainless baking sheet?!? I can't think of why acid on steel or on aluminum (you don't say what metal your sheet is) would produce something green. Anybody have an idea?
Can you take a photo?
simpletaste
17 years ago
Parchment is a good friend to have around when baking.
Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b
17 years ago
Thanks for that link! I LOVED it! I never know what to do with my extra starter, and now I do! Pizza dough! Can't wait to try his method!

I have a friend who claims HER sour dough pancakes are the BEST! Well, I've tried them and they can't hold a candle to batter made with ricotta, buttermilk, lemon and beaten egg whites! The lightest and fluffiest ever!

Pizza dough is going to be my extra starter adventure! And I noticed that it's 1/2 starter and 1/2 flour. Simple!!
grainlady_ks
17 years ago
desertdance - Instead of tossing a cup of starter, I use it to make sourdough crumpets according to a recipe I found in the King Arthur Flour Recipes - see link below. I freeze them with parchmant paper between them so I can remove them one at a time for a toasted breakfast bread, and friends and family gladly take any leftovers. I add flavorings to give them different flavors, or chopped deli ham to the batter to make a brunch crumpet, add some flaxmeal to up the fiber....

I have a lot of non-bread recipes I use with starter, but crumpets are quick and easy.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Sourdough Crumpets
paddy_99
17 years ago
Acid on aluminum will produce a nice light shade of lime green.
bejay9_10
Original Author
17 years ago
I've been "fermenting" for awhile now - but in other forms (i.e. sauerkraut, pickles, etc.) and thought I'd had my homework pretty well sorted out. I also like stainless steel for other acid cooking as well. Perhaps, it isn't a noticed thing with some - but I definitely detect the bitter acrid taste of metal coming in contact with acids - fruits, tomatoes, but not noticed it especially cooking with milk (yogurts, etc.).

My baking pan was probably aluminum. The greenish hue was not all through the bread, and so removed it.

One other thought, however, is that I also tried tweaking the recipe with some bran. It "drank" up quite a bit of fluid (I recently read grainlady's notes) and made my bread quite heavy. It didn't rise as well as I'd like - and perhaps that entered into the final picture as well.

See - I told you I'm a newcomber. Truly enjoy these notes on artisan breads, and maybe some day -------

Bejay
cloudy_christine
17 years ago
Paddy, which acid does that? I was thinking of the way acids in foods, like tomato sauce, make aluminum bright and shiny by taking off the oxidized surface. Wondering what's in sourdough.
deborah_ps
17 years ago
I bought several large saltillo tiles at Lowes or Home Depot and use those for my bread stones. Sometimes one will break, but they're so cheap that who cares?
Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b
17 years ago
Grainlady, thanks for the crumpet recipe! I'll be sure to put my nose high in the air and announce that we are having "crumpets."
kframe19
17 years ago
The acid in sourdough is primarily lactic acid from natural lactobacillus cultures.

Sour dough vs metal - grrrr.

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Sour dough vs metal - grrrr.

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