A Sourdough I am Happy With

I have baked many loaves of bread that you will never see. I've eaten them all to remind myself of what not to do the next time. They are not horrible but they aren't perfect. I strive for excellence in all regards and I'm happy to say that I have finally nailed down my technique for a sourdough that I'm pleased with. Why settle for anything less than something you can be proud of?

The way I made this sourdough is not one I could find anyone else utilizing. Because I like my sourdough to actually taste sour this bread was a three day process for me. I started with about 2 cups of my cultured wild starter in a large bowl and I added enough water and flour to double it. This sat and fermented for around 6 hours at which point I added enough flour to make the mixture into a runny dough. Very sticky and far too loose to work with. I used a butter knife to mix the dough and encourage gluten formation. I did this every few hours until my day was over and then the dough sat over night. In the morning I added a little more flour and continued the process. I did this until I had a dough that was the consistency I wanted. Tacky and somewhat wet dough that would stick to my hands if left to do so but could be worked if I moved quickly. This dough went into my cast iron Dutch oven to rise for a full 24 hours.

To bake this bread I started with the oven cold and placed the Dutch oven inside with the cover on. I used low heat (around 275F) for a long time and checked it every 20 minutes or so until the bread pulled itself from the walls of the Dutch oven. Taking the lid off I baked the bread until it started to turn golden brown and then turned the loaf out onto the rack of the oven and shut the heat off. I let the bread and oven cool until they were just warm and then I enjoyed my delicious and flavorful homemade sourdough.

It doesn't look half bad either.

How Did I Manage That?: A Sourdough Update.

As some of you will remember I cultured a sourdough starter some time ago. Since then, I have been keeping it active and baking with it on a regular basis to the tune of once a week. I have been producing some wonderful bread and my starter is surprisingly strong and robust.

It's just not very sour.

As anyone who has brewed beer can tell you, a large part of the brewing battle is sanitation. It does not take much for a beer to become home to the acid producing bacteria and turn into something you did not want and many won't drink. The antiseptic properties of hops help to keep these beasties at bay but in low hopped brews it is much more likely that they will take hold if your sanitation is not complete. In brews made without the use of hops it's almost impossible to stop them from taking roost unless another edible antiseptic is used.

With all of that in mind, how did I leave a starter medium exposed to the air for weeks and wind up with little or no acid producing beasties? I now have a very large culture of a strong, fairly cleanly fermenting and robust wild yeast. I have done lots of research and the most common answer I have found is that I am not giving the microbes enough time to work. Many assume the sourness of sourdough comes from the starter and do not let the beasties work on the freshly added flour for long enough. The last 4 batches I have made have had full 24 hour long proof/rise times. Before that I was working on 12 hours and some the earliest batches were 10 hours. The guides I have seen suggest a max of 20 hours. I'm pretty sure I've been giving the little guys enough time.

All in all I don't think I can be too displeased. I have a fairly constant supply of tasty bread, everyone who has tasted it has been quite happy and I always enjoy feeding others good food. I may try to make another starter once the weather warms up a bit and see if that helps me wrangle different beasties. I also may intentionally inoculate this starter with active cultures from other sources. Either way I will update with any news.

I'm also hoping to start a food and cooking group here in Salem before I head of to California. I'll have some more updates once that gets off the ground.

The Right Whey and The Wrong Whey

Cheese makers of the world, I tip my hat to you.

It's not often that I get so frustrated with a project that I step away from it and take a breather but my attempts at making mozzarella have been less than fruitful. 4 batches of grainy ricotta like curd later and I learned the difference between pasteurized and ultra-pasteurized and what it means to cheese making. On the 5th batch is when I learned how important it is to use the proper amount of citric acid and to have a controlled source.

Perhaps I should explain a little.

Cheese making is, in theory, pretty simple. A combination of acid, rennet, heat and time are utilized to make the proteins in milk form curd. Curd is coagulated milk protein (casein) that has been separated from the whey protein. Gross as that may sound, curd is fresh tasting, smooth and plenty edible. Great with fruit, preserves and sourdough. Ricotta cheese is less of a cheese and more of a loose curd made with just acid. To turn curd into mozzarella all you have to do is cook it slowly and knead it until it becomes stretch and pliable. Mozzarella, The delicious cheese many of use love and pay large amounts of money for. To turn curd into other kinds of cheese is going to take a whole series of posts to explain.

When done properly, the whole process should take about an hour to an hour and a half and result in a great final product. "Should" is the operative word there. If you want to take up cheese making you need to follow the directions very carefully. Use the amount of acid suggested, make sure to get low heat pasteurized milk (raw if you can manage it) and do your research. Why do I keep mentioning pasteurization? Remember those proteins I was talking about earlier? Well, high heat pasteurization denatures whey proteins and makes it almost impossible for the curd to set properly. If you use ultra-pasteurized milk you will end up with a decent ricotta that you wasted rennet in but if you try and cook the curd it will turn into an awful, grainy and rubbery mess.

For the most part I used to think "milk is milk". As true as that may be for cereal it's far less true for cheese.

If you are interested in cheese I suggest following this link to a great starter recipe for mozzarella. New England Cheese Making supply Company is a great site full of recipes and information including a guide to finding "good milk" or milk that will work for cheese making.

Look for updates with embedded  fanfare when I finally pull this one off.