Wild Yeast-Sourdough Starter

Making Sourdough Starter

What is wild yeast? That's the question.

Years and years ago, people and bakers used the sourdough starter to keep a supply of yeast alive.  They held a pot of live culture in a mix of flour/ water and fed it daily so that the yeast remained alive and active.  To understand how the sourdough starter works, let's look at how you can create a batch of starter using live yeast that is floating in the air!

To start a culture, mix flour and water in a glass.  Lay a cloth over the top and let it sit on the kitchen bench.  It turns out that there is yeast floating in the air all around us all the time, and some of this yeast will make its way to your flour and water mixture.   It will then start growing and dividing.

After a day and night or 24 hours, pour off some of the mixtures and feed it with another flour and water at the same amount.  In a few days, the mixture will become frothy as the yeast population grows.  The froth is caused by the carbon dioxide that the yeast is generating.  The starter also has a bacteria, lactobacilli, in it.  This leads to the slightly acidic flavour of the bread by creating lactic acid

The alcohol that the yeast creates and the lactic acid together are the source of sourdough bread's unique character!

I have decided to make a new sourdough starter, the wild yeast.  The recipe from the Perfect Loaf.  Found it on the website and it is very different compared to the sourdough that I have had.
I am looking forward to baking sourdough bread country style using the new starter.

Ordered a couple more basket to proof the bread, and it is fascinating to wait for their arrival.  I have all the tools just about everything I need to bake sourdough bread, only one thing, that is a transparent container to keep the dough after autolyse and I am not sure what it looks like.

The New sourdough starter 

The look of my sourdough starter on Day 7

Following the recipe from The Fresh Loaf
What You Need:
A jar, spatula, filtered water and the flour-mixed rye and white.

These are that I am going to use to make the starter.
The jar-309g (without the lid)

A small plastic spatula

Filtered water

The flour-400g rye and 400g white flour

Day One (1)

Wednesday 22 November at 8.55

40g the mixed flours

40g filtered water that has been sitting on the bench overnight.

Put the flours in the bottom of the jar (309+40=349)

Add the water, stir with a spatula to make an even smooth paste

Cover with a lid (slightly ajar) or only with a cloth

Place in a warm place, I put it in a cupboard around my kitchen.

Day Two (2)

Thursday 23 November 8.55

Ready for the first feeding.  Check for little bubbles and sign of life, but not entirely clear and there is no distinctive smell

Now for the first feeding:

Discard enough of the starter, the weight back as it starts that is 349g.  Added 40g the mixed flour and 40g filtered water

Stir vigorously until all dry bits of flour are incorporated and stir until it formed a little mound/ball in the middle

Day Three (3)
Friday, 24 November at 11.05
I forgot, morning too busy

See Little bubbles

Check again, as day two, that there is a sign of life.  It shows a little bubble, and it is rather promising.








Same feeding as usual:

Discard of the culture, so 40g remains in the jar
Add 40g the mixed flours
Add 40 filtered water
Stir until all the dry bits of flour are gone.

Cover with the lid slightly ajar
Keep in a warm place, I keep in the cupboard

Day Four (4)
Saturday, 25 November at 8.55

You may notice by now you could see more bubbles on the top, and take a little smell of your starter, it is almost the smell of vinegar.

Showing more bubbles and smells a little, not sure how to describe.  At this point my starter is staying almost the day before, it is not runny, in that regard I could see the bubbles and very few air pockets

Continue with feeding as usual

11 hours later, I can see more fermentation, bubbles on top, and more air pockets at the sides. The small bubbles and some rising happening. We're getting close to feeding more than a single time per day.

The picture I took it just 11 hours after feeding, you can see some bubbles.

Day Five (5)
Sunday, 26 November at 8.55

There was a line that the mixture has resided from also rising the smell was sweet alcohol rather pleasant.  Little bubbles on top were evident.  All these are signs that the starter is starting to-consume of sugar present in the flour you feed it, and by the time you get to feed it again, it's gone a bit too far.  This is a good sign, it is getting much stronger.


Feeding as usual!

I think things are progressing well this will be the last day to do a single feeding and starting on day six you will do two feedings per day.

Day Six (6)
Monday, 27 November, at 8.55

Good bubbles on top & pleasant smell

The first day you will do two feeding.  One in the morning as usual.  And eight hours later, set the alarm, and do the second feeding.  The look of the starter before feeding time

The smell is almost the smell of mild alcohol.


Morning feeding

Ready for morning feeding

Stir and mound the starter

Eight hours from the morning feeding, there are signs of rising and more pocket and bubbles. Look at this picture.

At 5.30 did the second feeding.  Checking the starter at 10 -11, again a sign of rising and the smell was pleasant, there were more pocket and bubbles.









Day Seven (7)
Tuesday, 28 November 2017, at 8.55

Checked the starter at 7 am, and it dropped from the rise, now it is down low and level.  It looks firm and lots of bubbles, the smell is pleasant.
Feeding as usual, and tried to mound up the starter but it's not firm enough.

4.55 pm the second feeding lots bubble on top and it has a sweet smell.  Mound starter in the jar

11.15, there is a sign of falling, but the smell is fresh, sweet.

Day Eight (8)
Wednesday 29 November 2017


I decided to do the first bake, and am so excited to find out how good, ready and robust my wild yeast was.

12.00 am

Making the first leaven for the first bake

55 mature starter

200g whole wheat

220 water

They wild yeast-starter
looked good 

For making the leaven

The Leaven mixture

The leaven, at night of the making

Also, continue feeding with the rest of the starter as usual before keeping it in the fridge.

6.35am

Checked the leaven and it worked well, it's risen and overflow, the jug was too small
My first bake using the leaven today is very encouraging.  I will be using 250 g only, and I don't know what I have to do with the rest of the leaven.

Leaven overflow

See a few holes from outside.

Usual feeding for the starter at 8.55, and I will try to feed twice today before I keep in the fridge.

My first try using the new sourdough starter the wild yeast.

The first bake

Ingredients

250g new leaven

200g whole wheat

800g white flour

20g salt

740 water and 50 water

(a little modification, 200g whole wheat instead of 300g, and 800g white instead of 700g)

Water and leaven with mixed flours

autolyse for 30 minutes

Autolyse: After you've mixed the leaven with the remaining flour and water, let it sit for at least 30 minutes or for up to four hours.  During this time, the flour absorbs the water and becomes fully hydrated, which helps gluten formation during the next step. Enzymes in the flour also start to break down the starches into simpler sugars, which becomes food for the yeast and bacteria in the leaven and also make the bread more flavorful.

After this resting step, mix in the salt.  Salt is necessary for a flavorful bread but can inhibit the activity during the autolyse step.

Bulk Fermentation

The end of the bulk fermentation, a bench rests for two hours.

The first hour of the bench rest.

Add caption

The last hour before first shaping

Some pockets to be seen from outside.

Dividing the dough for the first shaping

After resting, ready for final shaping

Shape into Batard

In a proofing basket

The Batard in the banneton proofing baskets

Final shaping for a Boule

The Boule in the proofing basket

The Boule is sleeping in the fridge at 3.30pm, I will bake at 7am, all together resting for 15.30 hours. 

Cover the banneton proofing basket with plastic, ready to place in the
refrigerator for retard proofing overnight

Retard proofing in the refrigerator usually, take 12-18 hours.

All the baking tools

The Baking
In the morning, set the open at 250 degrees C, place the pizza stone on a rack in the oven.
Let the oven going for one hour to heat up the pizza stone
Place the la Creuset pot in the oven,  the baking pot should be hot enough to place the bread for the baking.
Take the dough from the fridge, score it ready to bake.

Start the baking for 'Boule'.  Score and Bake

It was not a very good result, the bread 'Boule' was flat but light enough, not dense and heavy.   A lot of things went wrong for this first bake.  I must assess myself what mistake I did. One of them was overproof; indeed, it was my fault.  The overproof dough makes it very hard to handle as the dough become wetter and spreading quickly.

The Batard was far worst, it's flat as the pizza peel only smaller.  It burnt on the top, and the colouring was not as I expected.  I have done sourdough bread before (different recipe), and the colour was so perfect.  Dark brown rustic looking.  It looked so good.

The scoring did not work well for both, did not spit at all for neither of them. The crust is hard but rather nice with chewiness, and the crumb is soft but not heavy or tight.

Sliced off the sourdough bread the Batard

I am very proud to make the wild yeast which I will keep for years; hopefully, I will be able to manage and to care for it.  At the moment, it is resting in the fridge until I am ready for a bake.

The first bake was a big disappointment maybe, but I won't give up, all mistakes can be fixed.

The most important for me right now is learning and researching what have I done wrong.  

Learn from the mistakes.

Assessment

 I know where I have gone wrong: 
After the time of autolysing has finished,  added the salt and water, mixed beautifully.  Pulling and pushing I did not do it right, I was happy enough to see that the dough is looking good, soft and sticky. Placed the dough in a bowl rest for 30 minutes followed by the bulk fermentation step. My bulk fermentation was not executed well.
The Bulk Fermentation, supposed to be done 4 sets of turns, plus 1-2 hours of rest o the counter. A 'turn' consist of reaching under the dough, grab the bottom and pull up the dough on top of itself. Do this four times around the bowl.  And do this rather vigorously which I did not do.  I realised it now that the stretch up and down on itself is what gives the dough strength (working the gluten strands) It's the key.
The Pre-shape.  As I was scared to lose the lightness of the dough, I did not shape it well; instead, I divided the dough to two pieces, one for the Boule and the other one for the Batard, and rest them before the final shaping.
The final Shape
The resting dough indeed was spreading out as it should.  From here on the mistake has gone worst.  I did not pull, stretch and spin the dough for the shaping, instead what I did was simply to make, Boule and Batard.  I was happy enough to see that the small bubble of the dough was there, but the dough was not taught enough. This worked that I did was not right (the critical step)
The instruction that I did not do: Spin the dough using your two hands to shape into a boule. As you slightly pick up the dough and spin it, the bottom snags the un-floured work surface and creates tension. I do this several times to create a very taught surface on the top of the Boule. Sometimes small air bubbles will be visible.
Almost every step was incorrect, could be I rushed too much, now I have to pay for the prize-failure. The baking

After pulling the loaves from the oven, I cool them on a wire rack for at least one hour before cutting into them. Cutting too soon can cause the crust to harden drastically and the inside to become quite dense. ( remember always ). I covered the loaves with a tea towel and left for Thursday morning sports.

What a pair of beautiful loaves I baked this morning.  I wished I could say that, instead of having a flat boule and Batard very disappointing.  I must say the flavour was not too bad.  It was not successful baking even though my sourdough starter the wild yeast was mature enough.



I take a rest now and continue doing lots of reading about it, like to learn more,


Until Next Post
Susy