If it's a good, established starter, it's hard to kill. Don't fill your jar so much the starter rises and squeezes out the threads of the lid. It won't harm the starter, but could bend the lid. And make a mess.

Most white flour starters are half and half by weight, flour to water. Very liquid.

Dryer starters keep better and are easier to handle. I keep my whole wheat starter at 80% hydration (4 units water to 5 units flour) and the white at 75%.

Keeping starter in the fridge lets it go dormant so you don't have to feed it daily.

Feed once per week until you learn its tolerances.

Note: In general, you want to feed with the flour you're going to bake with, but if you just need to feed, you can use any flour you have. I once used up some old pastry flour that way. Do try to transition back to your baking flour asap.

To create another starter, feed with your regular flour once, and leave it on the counter. Next day, feed with 10% of the new kind of flour (e.g., whole wheat). If the starter looks happy, do 20% new the next day, or repeat 10% if it's looking a be peaky. Do the 10% more until you get to 100% new flour.

If your starter starts to look grey and/or smell boozy, that's the hooch. The prairie wife's unregulated tipple. :) It means your starter is really hungry. Remove any dark, oxidized bits from the top, carefully not to discard too much. Otherwise, stir in or pour off the hooch. Stir any light gray bits in or remove so long as you have enoough to do so.

To feed: Weigh your vessels (small bowls or jars) and move your starter to one and weigh the starter. Clean it's jar.

Put half the starter by weight into a separate jar, a larger one. This discard jar will hold hungry but not dead starter, also in the fridge. It's useful for texture, sourness, and longevity when added to bread recipes just as part of the flour and water, and can support the rise. It's also great for waffles, crackers and the like.

You'll be feeding an equal amount of flour plus water as weight of the remaining (undiscarded) starter. (I just do 50g flour, 35g starter to 100g white starter and it works fine. Classic is 50g flour and 50g water to 100g starter.) Stir in the water to liquify the starter, then stir in the flour until it's all dampened. Replace in cleaned jar and put in the fridge.

To use:

ETA (also in post below a ways):

Big part on using the starter: Before you begin, feed your whole starter without discarding. Its volume should double and hold without sinking within 8 hours If not, discard and feed the same amount (double-ish) again. When it passes that test, separate off your storage amount and feed it and put it away in the fridge, then use the other part to make your bread, adjusting the quantity and hydration left to fit your recipe.

Start with a sourdough bread recipe to keep your head from exploding until you know what you're doing. If it doesn't give you the hydration proportions of the starter, either assume 100% or get a better recipe. If you're relying on the starter for your rise, find a cozy place for it. It wants to be a little warmer than ambient, but not hot. It can take many hours to fully develop, so be patient. Starter yeast is a different strain than is in commercial yeast, but it's strong, especially in a mature starter (early ones have to fight off a lot more other microbes). Do make your life easier and use bread flour or add VWG while you're learning. And white. The bran in whole wheat cuts the gluten strands as you work it. Work yourself up to that . If you want assured success, especially while getting your bread groove back, add a teaspoon of commercial yeast.

Look at old posts by Grainlady. Check out The Fresh Loaf (website).

Good luck!

I don't usually make boules. Here's an old favorite for a small, easy loaf, based on a Vienna bread recipe, as I posted it some years ago:

Preferment:

1 Tbsp Starter

100 g water [Non-chlorinated is best.]

100 g bread flour

(Optional, a tablespoon of malt powder to improve the rise.)

Dough:

100 g cool water [same as above]

200 g bread flour [same as above]

1 tsp salt [I used Morton’s iodized table salt]

oil

[I used EVOO that was wholly underwhelming, and which I want to use up, for kneading, and spray sunflower oil for the bowl. You can use any oil that tastes like something you’d want to taste on your bread (i.e. peanut and sesame are not great choices).]

Directions

1. Make the preferment. Put the starter in a small bowl, stir in the water with a small scraper or similar, until the starter is dissolved, then stir in the flour. Cover, and wait until it’s well risen and bubbly all over (5-10 hours.)

2. Make the bread dough: Stir the salt into the flour in a larger bowl. Add the preferment and water and mix. It’s probably easiest to use your hands. [I tried my Danish dough whisk, but had to finish with my hands.]

3. Spread a little oil on a clean, non-porous work surface. A Silpat or pizza pan or cookie sheet, are good choices. Some people like to work right on their counters. Use your hands to spread the oil thinly, meanwhile oiling your hands so they don’t draw water out of the dough, and don’t stick while you knead (and your hands will feel great after).

4. Move the dough to the oiled work surface and make sure all the flour is incorporated (squish with your fingers).

Knead for 10 seconds, return dough to bowl, cover, wait 15 minutes.

Knead for 10 seconds, return dough to bowl, cover, wait 15 minutes.

Knead for 10 seconds, return dough to bowl, cover, wait 15 minutes.

Stretch and fold with dough in bowl, turn, cover, wait 1 hour.

Stretch and fold with dough in bowl, turn, cover, wait 1 hour.

Stretch and fold with dough in bowl, turn, cover, wait 1 hour

Each time you stretch and fold, the dough should feel a little tighter and stronger.

I love this method. The initial dough is doughy enough to handle and knead, not goop. Kneading is wonderful! I’ve never heard of this 10 second knead before, but it works. At about the ten second point, you can feel the dough stiffening. It loosens up during the wait, then tightens again at the next knead.

Stretch and fold methods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz9CO1PJ0sM time 3:12

This is the first video that comes up when I google ‘stretch and fold dough”. (I wasn't about to try to film a demo myself!). For those who have never done it, it’s a very good explanation. The video is a whole big experiment for different techniques, which is interesting, but not necessary for this recipe. The stretching and folding starts at the time in, above, if you want to skip to it. He shows three ways of doing it. I do the normal, two handed version. Some depends on the size of your hands and your ability to control the dough.

5. Preheat oven to 440° F. Put a light layer of flour on a cookie sheet, quarter sheet pan, pizza pan, or whatever you have with no tall sides. Shape your loaf and place it in the middle of the pan. Cover with a tea towel dampened with warm water (it’ll soon be cold and clammy, but it’s nicer if it starts warm). Let rise to about double. Your loaf may spread more than it rises

6. Have a pan of water ready to put on the lower shelf in your oven, or a dish of water to put beside your bread pan if you only have one shelf (or use your favorite crusty baking method). If you want a crunchy crust, heat the water pan while you heat the oven, and put warm water in it when you put your loaf in. Slash your loaf, and put the bread in its pan, and the pan of water in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes or until done. (The loaf should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom, or have an internal temperature over 195° F.)

Thank you so much for such detailed and complete instructions! Giselle looks forward to baking bread.

Q: to use the discard starter in making bread, I assume I substitute by weight: if using 30 g of discard, that replaces 10 g of water and 20 g of flour?

If your starter is 50% hydration, yes. That's more like a French starter.

My wonderful spicy pickle bread uses a jarful of discard of any age. I did a lot of sums when I first made it, and just recorded the total weight. Once you get back into making bread, your hands will know if you have the right amount of flour and water and you can adjust by a pinch or a drip and not worry so much about weights. There are all kinds of confounding things in any kind of measure, and adjusting is where the art is. Recently, I made a delicious loaf without measuring anything. I jsut threw it together and made sure it looked and felt right.

I added a couple of things to the first post while you were writing your last.

Okay, I forgot a whole big part on using the starter: Before you begin, feed your whole starter without discarding. Its volume should double and hold without sinking within 8 hours If not, discard and feed the same amount (double-ish) again. When it passes that test, separate off your storage amount and feed it and put it away in the fridge, then use the other part to make your bread, adjusting the quantity and hydration left to fit your recipe.

I fed my starter and am trying to make my first sourdough bread! Very excited.

Another thing I maybe should have said, but I hope you've heard elsewhere: The actual sourness comes from less starter and a longer rise. More starter and a shorter rise just gives you bread. :)

I used about 35 g starter in a 900 g dough - about 500 g bread flour, 350 g water, and salt - mixed it up this morning. I’ve been working on the kitchen all day, so didn’t have time to work the dough that much. Put it in a workbowl, stretched and folded all around about 5x or once an hour or so. Did the last stretch-fold and added a little more flour, the dough is gathered in a tight round boule and resting for a couple hours. I’ll preheat Giselle on high steam and see what happens.

That sounds like it should have a nice sourdough flavor. :)

Hmm. I had a weird result. Baked about 45 min at 475F and 75% steam to internal 203F. The interior was dense and gummy, some nice voids here and there. The exterior was dark, almost burned in spots, crust like armorplate. Flavor good. Rose oddly - not much at first then after the top had crusted the bottom lifted up.

I am thinking that

1. My kitchen was too cool (67F ish) for good dough development. The starter was active (bubbles and volume increase) but as the day went on the dough seemed to shrink a bit

2. Next time I’ll do more kneading for better gluten development

3. 75% steam for the whole time is too much, I should have done 100% for the first ten minutes then 0%

Looked at a recipe for sourdough boule in Anova - indeed, it calls for a preheated cast iron pan, 482F 100% steam for 20 min or until stops rising, then open door to reheat steam and continue 400F no steam until done. Perhaps I should have done this research before baking the bread :-) Naah, I was busy installing receptacles.

I was going to take a photo but the bread is all gone. As disappointing as it was, apparently people ate it up.

plllog, I watched the “Foodgeek“ video you linked. Wow, that guy is kinda creepy. Odd cadence. Hardly ever blinks. Stares fixedly at you. Serial killer vibes. “I make delicious food [from little children]”. Brrr. Okay, his demos are good though. My bread turned out like the “unagitated” bread. Should I use a marble top on my island, for slick shaping? Temperature during fermentation seems important. I want a banneton.

Congrats on your first sourdough loaf! Eaten up is good! In general, when one uses a significantly new recipe, no matter prior baking experience, it's the third loaf that's good, and edible is an accomplishment for the first. When I do the improvisational breads I talk about, they're based on a kind of bread my hands know. If I don't use measures, I adjust until the dough feels right. The focaccia recipe which was shared not too long ago is the rule-proving exception; it came out really well.

Temperature isn't that important in fermentation, but if the dough is cool it'll be slow. Too warm is actually worse because the yeast will die, Joy, in the old days, had a picture of a towel-draped bread bowl, sitting on a pot of water on the stove (like if you're melting chocolate in a mixing bowl), keeping it warm. In cold parts, the bread bowl was often set on the covering of the pilot light. My mother liked to bake early, and started a load of towels as she started getting ready to bake bread, then set the bowl on top of the dryer (more waste heat back when). The plate warming setting on a warming drawer will do, but not warmer. Does Giselle have a setting for rising dough? IIRC, 84F is an approved number, though I just go with ambient in my warm kitchen, which is around 75F when things haven't been cooking.

I don't really remember the video. The link was in the writeup I did years ago. Please note, the large voids in his bread are caused by weak gluten. It's just like the big bubbles in a bubble bath. The membranes, where adjoining bubbles are, break and form bigger bubbles. These are actually flaws in the structure, though common in sourdough breads. Up under the top crust aren't a big deal, and some people want an all over lacy crumb, but unintentional voids are from poor gluten development, or insufficient protein, even though there's a current style to declare them a badge of success. You get to choose your crumb and how holey it is, but there's a learning process.

You don't need any specific surface. You just need to feel your way for what works for you. You can use marble, for sure, but try to keep the divots, like in the veins, to a minimum, or consider a close textured granite. But you could use a silicone mat with a drop of oil (and a plastic bench scraper), a baking board, or masonite- the smooth kind--for slicker. You could use a sheet pan, or an enamelled tray. Try things.

Re the video guy's affect, he looks like a field reporter plunked down in front of a teleprompter, trying really hard to hold still and keep his eyes from moving back and forth along the text on his screen. Not creepy to me, just trying too hard to look like a pro and ending up looking like a golem.

Bannetons aren't necessary for the use he showed. You do have to work hard prepping them to work right. It's a process, and meantime can muck up the bread. If you just want it for resting dough, use a glass or stoneware mixing bowl. If you want the ridges, use the banneton, but also use a stiffer dough which will retain the ridges. Don't bother with cheap ones.

Re ”agitated”, you can do a proper knead on sourdough, especially white flour. The bran in whole wheat can cut the gluten strands and they don't really recover, but go ahead and knead white if you want. That'll give you stronger “legs”, though perhaps longer to rise. The pattern in the recipe I posted also works well. In the past while, I've only done machine kneading or stretch and fold (or the Vienna pattern) because of my issues, and make good bread. Sometimes, I'll use commercial yeast. It just takes less time. Either way, a good preferment makes for a better rise, besides quicker. You just get so much more yeast right away, ready to burp.

I'm not an expert in the steam thing. I'm not really into crunch. Do check some other sources to compare with Inova's. It doesn't sound quite right. I do remember the popularity of throwing ice in with the bread, but I don't really remember it being a big difference, Your oven will make the biggest difference. If you decide to bake on the road, you can bring Giselle. The theory, IIRC, is you want oven spring first, and then the steam helps set the crust. It works on vhicken—I get crispy skin with “suntan lotion” and steam.

Now, you're ready for loaf #2. Because you're out of bread!

Thank you!

When I was making bread before, it was with store bought yeast, I was into higher hydration like 90%, big crumb, chewy bread, crispy crust. I used my Magic Mill and knead(ed?) quite a lot. It was kind of labor intensive.

I’d like to learn a minimum effort process this time around.

Just keep making bread. There's a tradeoff. Sourdough takes a long time, but mostly hands off. You could make a warm arrier for it and take it to the office, bake when you get home, or develop your own recipe which rises over night and bakes fist thing. You can cut some time with commercial yeast, or add some to push your starter, or add discard to an all commercial yeast bread for flavor.

Vessel baking works well for higher hydration. Those tend not to have the gluten strength to stand tall and spring out rather than up, and the walls of the vessel contain the rise and give the dough something to cling to. Vessel baking also evens up the heat. Maybe not a problem for Gisele, but even bakes are nice. I've baked bread in seasoned terracotta, enamelled cast iron and heavy stoneware. I don't even bother baking daily bread on a flat sheet anymore. The latest, the KA bowl for mixing/kneading and baking makes funny shaped bread, but I really like it. I use a glass bowl for the pre-ferment, and dump the dough in it while I'm oiling the bowl, and shaping the dough. Minimal washing up.

Hint for vessel baking from Sourdough and Olives blog (though probably not if you're stuck with automatic pre-heat mode): Don't pre-heat. When you're ready to bake, put the lidded vessel in the oven and set to 425F bake + convection or 450F without convection, for 45-60 min. depending on your loaf. IIRC, 55 min. was perfect in cast iron. I'm still tweaking timing for the KA bowl, but that's close. All ovens differ wildly. Another use your best guess.

I wonder what is the minimum amount of water needed for bread. Like, how do Fremen make bread?

I just discovered that, among her diverse talents, Giselle can be a proofing box. She can hold down to 77F!

Excellent! Gisele's tanents, that is. I'm not surprised, but one doesn't assume.

If ”Fremen” means on Arrakis, um, y'know, like they're fiction, right?

Define ”bread”. On earth, look at the breads of the Middle East. My favorite pita recipe is about 80% hydration. A lot of cracker recipes use less water, but then have shortening (oil, butter, etc.) A recipe for Iraqi samoom is 50% hydration, plus a couple of TBSP each yoghurt and oil.

Re water minimums, (definition of “hydration” is, again, given the weight of the flour is 100%, the hydration level is the percentage the weight of the water (watery substance not including fats and solids) as a percentage of the weight of the flour), minimum, one would guess, is just enough to completely dampen the yeast and flour. My ”French” starter was 45% hydration and rose all over the place given enough time. Too much less and you might not get sufficient gluten development for much of a rise, which is where flat also comes in.

In general, ”low hydation” bread (like sandwich bread) is around 60%, but I've seen 40% suggested as a minimum. Somewhere in there the kind of flour, and dryness of the flour become crucial. At more normal levels, you just adjust a little, and anything works. High hydration breads often have trapped water, especially if they're prevented from steaming out. They have literally wet crumb structures. Some people love this and do it on purpose, looking for so wet it glistens, but wet crumbs are also gummy and nasty. Depends on you point of view. Some people claim 90% hydration but that usually means they're not counting bench flour, nor how much flour they're kneading in so it won't be a gluey mess with no legs—nor, for that matter, how much moisture is coming out into their hands as they knead and shape.

You have a whole world to experiment with. Or find a recipe you like, make it a bunch of times, and then you can mess with it.

BTW, the starter discard and ADY loved each other and gave high and stable rise. :) What I expected, but they can on occasion fight for dominance. I suppose, having sufficient flour helps keep the peace. And it did sink quite a ways when it was forgotten, though the bread itself rose very nicely today.

Fremen are NOT fictional. Dune Is Life. Paul Lives!

We are cooking and here is the chaos of my kitchen. Off to the left, almost off camera, Giselle sleepily cradles her dough.

Someone I used to know was well acquainted with Frank Herbert. I think she would have let me know if the stories were true… Just saying. (Psssst, Elvis really is dead.)

Love the jungle! Is the bin on the right for the compost pile? I'm currently using the plastic bucket provided by the pickup dept. It works really well, but lacks such beauty entirely.

Is it the same kind of dough looking to come out better? Or a new recipe?

The copper bin is for compost.

We had a contretemps. I was wiping fingerprints off Gisele’s handle and accidentally reset the temp to 240F. Learned an hour later.

Oh well, I’m working from home tmrw so will try again with the sourdough.

Shame, this batch was looking good. Same dough as before, but instead of 35 g starter + 25g water + 25g flour for the biga, I just gave it 90g starter, and after about 2 hrs of periodic stretching I gave it 4 min of kneading in the Magic Mill and that all seemed to accelerate its development. Until it’s promising little life was cut short by the industrial accident.

Oh, no! Did it bake? If so, it should be good for bread crumbs or something. If you didn't toss it, you can finish baking it.

Sounds like a nice trial. Kneading will help the gluten develop while firming up the dough. You can over-knead, but resting usually makes it better. If your dough is stickier than it should be given the hydration, knead more.

Good luck with tomorrow's loaf!

https://soyummy.com/entertaining/dune-franchise-foods/

I guess Fremen tend toward flatbreads with lots of spice. Maybe sandwiches with desert hare.

Trying again with the earthbound sourdough.

You noticed ”inspired by”. Those look good, but very Earthable. :)

This is my second sourdough

It turned out ok on the outside, though I think I should have baked it longer to get more color.

The inside is still not right - kind of gummy. Tastes good, fine to toast. Not the chewy, large crumb that I want.

I think the gummy interior means insufficient fermentation time, that I am rushing my bread.

I don’t want to do the 12-24 hour process that some uber-purist sourdough bread recipes prescribe. I’m just too impatient and fidgety. So I’m going to experiment with adding stuff to make the starter work faster. What is like uppers, speed, cocaine, amphetamines, adrenaline - for starter? Sugar maybe?

I think I also want to push higher hydration to get larger crumb. I like holey bread.

best one yet, hardly gummy, though still not the chewy holey crumb I want, but I’m much happier with it.

Added a little active dry yeast and a tsp of sugar to the dough mix, then minimal hand kneading, overnight in fridge, all day on counter, then 425F with steam.

Carp. My computer ate my response and it's late.

Pretty loaf. ADY is the speed fix. You don't need sugar, though it doesn't hurt anything.

Gummy is from wet. It could be underbaked, crust too hard for the steam to escape (the slashing helps that, but it can get hard too), too much water to ever get out...some others that don't come to mind now.

I'm no expert at big holes because I don't want them, but as I said before, they come from the interstices between bubbles breaking and creating large air pockets, just like in bubble bath. They come, therefore, from weakening the bubble walls, and are done with too much water (which weakens the dough) and/or too weak gluten. That's why many of the high hydration recipes meant for airy lacy crumb also call for AP flour rather than bread flour. Less protein means less gluten. That's also why many are "no knead". Less kneading means less gluten development, meaning weaker bubbles.

I'm not sure what you mean by "chewy". Most lacy crumbs aren't what I mean by chewy. Sourdough tends to have a chewy open crumb, but not lacy. We may be using our words differently. High prrotein flour, like 14% (some bread flouts), tends to give a chewy, elastic crumb.

Keep experimenting. Write down what you're doing exactly so if it comes out just right you can repeat it. Good luck!

I'm planning another mandarin orange bread today, but with more oranges. I put some whole wheat starter in the pre-ferment, and I'm planning to throw the ww flour left in the jar in as well. I keep feeling tempted to put mushrooms in, too, but they're supposed to be mushroom soup. Maybe I'll add a little kale...

I just had a thought. Maybe your chewy big holes are like the sourdough from the old Pioneer Bakery? The same variables apply, but that would be a lot sturdier and solid than the lacy, ultra high hydration that's been popular recently, and I was imagining. I don't know a magic recipe to help get you there. It would take trial and error of which flour, timing, kneading, etc., but if that is your goal, and you're willing to keep at it past your declared three tries, you can get there.

Latest loaf. Chewy crumb. Is this the kind of holes you wanted, kind of on the road to them? That's slightly lower protein—majority 14% but a quarter to a third 10.5%. And high but not unmanageable hydration.

I recently tried keeping a sourdough starter that a friend of mine had started herself from the basic fermenting process. She had been using it and sharing it for some time with great success.

I tried. But, it was dead within a month. I have retired from taking care of living things other than hubs who needs me now. If it cant take care of itself, it wont live in my house.

I hear that! Mine has a name, and while it was young, I considered it a pet that had to be fed twice a day and have it's bed cleaned. Now, it's every few months. :)

Recent events have interfered with my bread making (and skiing, and sleeping) but I’m fermenting another boule in the refrigerator as we speak!