Before Kitchen Remodel
After Kitchen Remodel
I started my bread baking adventured after my kitchen was remodeled. Loved the aroma bread baking left in the house. It was also a way for me to have something to do on weekends that didn’t involve long term standing or walking. Just short 10 – 15 minutes of standing. Then I found I could make tortillas, english muffins, cinnamon rolls, and cakes (that I don’t decorate).
Then in April 2022 I started the sourdough adventure then ventured into some gluten free and keto items. (Gluten free/keto area is the area by the window in the after remodel kitchen picutre.) First “go to” for the sourdough venture was https://www.facebook.com/groups/sourdoughstartersbeginnerbakers (https://www.pantrymama.com/) facebook group. She helped get me started through the “beginners’ struggles” with creating a sourdough starter and my first few loaves. She limits “lessons” to her method. Which for a beginner is great (at least from what I was reading). Stuck to one recipe until things were pretty consistent. (Still have some issues with the bulk fermentation, to short or to long, but that’s on me, not her method.) And it’s still the recipe I use for my sourdough.
I have now incorporated some other information I’ve learned from my other “go to” websites:
The Sourdough Journey (https://thesourdoughjourney.com/) – He tends to get very scientific. Which is great if one wants to know the “how/why it works” stuff. Some very interesting stuff learned here and as a result I do think my baking of sourdough breads has improved. I did try the recipe here but prefered my standard recipe from The Pantry Mama. And since that’s what my customers seem to like, I’m a bit hesitant to switch to a different recipe.
The Bread Code (https://www.youtube.com/@the_bread_code) – Some scientific stuff here also but more demonstrations. Also tried the recipe for basic sourdough bread here and again, I’ll stick to The Pantry Mama’s recipe.
Now for the things I’ve found out.
Sourdough baking isn’t an exact science. The science behind it can help determine the expected outcome. However, if you’re a gram or two off on your measuement of water, flour, or salt…it’s not going to destroy your bake. Now if one of those science people could tell me what the variable weight changes can be without affecting the loaf I’d greatly appreciate it. (Took me a while to figure this out. I no long weigh to the exact gram for anything. Once took me 30 minutes to get it exact – was a bad day. Now I know I don’t have to do that.)
Better understaning of the window pane test and the finger poke test and when to do each. (Window pane test during strech and folds to determine if the gluten structure is ready for resting bulk fermentation. Finger poke test to determin if bulk fermentation has completed and the dough is ready to shape.)
Liquid starter and normal starter don’t have the same flavor and a stiff starter will have the same flavor as the starter you create it from. I didn’t want to go back to day 1 of making a new starter for my liquid starter so I calculated what I’d need to add to my 100% hydration starter to get to a 500% hydration starter for the first feeding. Then I fed the starter 1 part flour to 5 parts waters to equal starter amount or more (60 grams starter, 10 grams flour, 50 grams water). I then took this starter and converted to a 50% hydration starter. Baked a loaf with each and really like the flavor of these. But found that the stiff started made from the liuid starter will not keep it’s dairy tones for long. So I will keep the wet starter and make a stiff starter from this when I want to bake with the dairy tones. I also found that using the liquid starter the fermentation times are longer. (This is not a good thing for someone that struggles with patience waiting for the fermentation processes to be completed.) However, the stiff starter fermentation times are reduced! (This is a good thing for someone that struggles with patience waiting for the fermentation processes to be completed.) So going forward I will most likely us the stiff starter made with my norrmal 100% starter or with the liquid starter depending on the flavor I’m going for.
I also learned that I need to adjust my “standard” Pantry Mama’s recipe depending on the starter I’m using. As I want to maintain the hydration level of the original recipe. (Good thing I like working with numbers!) The orginal recipe is 71.43% hydration and the adjusted stiff starter recipe is 71.56% hydration. (My scale doesn’t do decimal points of grams so I stuck to whole numbers with the recipe adjustment. an increase of 0.13% hydration.)