55
votes
What type of salt for sourdough bread baking?
This may come across as a little cynical ;)
Don't believe the hype.
Salt is salt.
The difference between Himalayan, iodised & kosher is so small you'll never taste it. They're all 98%+ sodium ...
- 29.7k
43
votes
Accepted
Why stir sourdough only with wooden spoons?
This is not true anymore, and modern recipes omit that part.
Back then, when silverware was made either from silver or pre-stainless-steel-alloys the acid in sourdough (and other foods*) would ...
- 621
37
votes
What type of salt for sourdough bread baking?
Any salt will do. The trick is figuring how much salt. If a formula is based on a specific salt, and you switch, you need to adjust. For example this author did a comparison. She weighed 1 level ...
- 73.8k
31
votes
Accepted
Why not make sourdough bread from young starter?
The advice to let the culture mature before you use it is targeted to getting reliable results. A mature sourdough culture has a relatively small number of strains of microorganism, which have ...
- 26.9k
26
votes
Some instant yeast went into my sourdough starter
"Flour with Leavening Improvers" generally means baking powder and/or chemical dough conditioners.
Your sourdough will be unaffected.
- 61.2k
18
votes
Picking up wet dough
If it is turning to "slime", losing shape, and becoming sticky again, you are probably not building enough strength in the dough. First, I would try the same recipe, holding back 50 - 100 g of the ...
- 73.8k
18
votes
Accepted
Some instant yeast went into my sourdough starter
Not withstanding @GdD's comment above, even if you just had a small amount of yeast on a spoon, I would guess that, after a year (and it doesn't take nearly that long), the bacteria and yeast you've ...
- 73.8k
17
votes
Can I give my friend the sour dough "throw away" as a starter to their sourdough starter?
Sure, you can begin a new sour dough starter with the discard from a feeding. However, the reason for discarding isn't simply to reduce the amount. As your starter matures it also becomes much more ...
- 73.8k
16
votes
Can I use a rectangular ceramic pan instead of enameled cast iron to bake bread without losing the nice crust?
Doesn't matter; you cannot use a ceramic pan with that baking technique.
If you heat the ceramic pan to 500F and then add the wet dough, it is likely to crack, and possibly even explode. Same goes ...
- 61.2k
16
votes
What proportion of the natural yeast in Sourdough comes from the flour?
It Depends, but ...
First, it depends on the flour. Bleached, sterilized, hot-rolled white flour has the least (possibly none) naturally-occurring wild yeast on it. Cold-rolled unbleached organic ...
- 61.2k
15
votes
Accepted
Can I give my friend the sour dough "throw away" as a starter to their sourdough starter?
Absolutely you can. When you use the starter to make bread you make an arbitrary decision of which part of the starter you use and which to feed, the part you scoop out is just as viable as the part ...
- 75.4k
12
votes
Accepted
What's the point of long/complex sourdough feeding techniques?
Absent a definitive answer here, I'm going to take a stab at this based on some experience I had with difficult sourdough starters. Note that I make a lot of sourdough items but do not do any kind of ...
- 61.2k
12
votes
I bought a sourdough starter from a bakery, fed it too much, and it overflowed the jar overnight. What should I do now?
All you need to do is clear up the mess, and make use of the active starter. Maybe find a bigger jar as well.
You've got a good healthy starter by the sounds of things. If it's from a bakery it's ...
- 43.7k
10
votes
Accepted
Why does my sourdough starter have in the top the liquid separated from the flour?
That is referred to as "hooch". It is water and alcohol. It forms when the yeast has passed its peak activity. I've noticed that it corresponds with the increase of bacterial activity when the starter ...
- 47.5k
10
votes
Picking up wet dough
I'm going to work on the assumption that your dough is fully worked and at the right hydration level. If your dough is losing shape it's possible it's too high hydration or you haven't develop the ...
- 75.4k
10
votes
Why not make sourdough bread from young starter?
The wait is to give the desirable yeast cultures time to fully establish themselves as dominant in the starter. Using a starter that's too young can sometimes mean it doesn't rise as well or that the ...
- 10.6k
10
votes
One time sourdough starter
I would recommend you find a (hobby) baker locally. Almost everyone who maintains a sourdough has some extra that they would otherwise discard. I have read about local Facebook groups etc. of people ...
- 58.5k
9
votes
Accepted
How do different techniques impact sourdough bread?
Lots of questions here. Let me try to address them:
To knead or not to knead? I've heard people claim that kneading impacts flavour, then others claim it's the only way to get the highest rise.
It'...
- 32.1k
9
votes
Accepted
Adding flavorings & fillings to bread dough
As you have already intuited in your question, what you do to adjust is going to vary based on the ingredient, and how much of that ingredient you add to the bread.
I can try to address some of the ...
- 950
9
votes
Traveling with sourdough starter
Treat it like any liquid. You don't need much. Just put some in a 100 ml plastic bottle if carrying on. Alternately, if checking your bags, put your starter in a larger plastic container with a ...
- 73.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Traveling with sourdough starter
If you don't want to transport liquid (= active) sourdough because you don't want to risk it to spill out of your container, note that you can either
mix some of it with more flour than usual until ...
- 58.5k
9
votes
Sourdough starter bubbling but not rising after months of feeding
Filtering water may not remove all or even any of the chlorine in your water, it depends upon the filter. Chlorine is the bane of sourdough starter's very existence.
In 2017, Nashville tested the ...
- 58.5k
9
votes
Can I use a rectangular ceramic pan instead of enameled cast iron to bake bread without losing the nice crust?
In a very similar position to you, I switched to an old-fashioned sheet steel loaf tin. The method is a little different
I line the tin with reusable non stick liner, and prove the dough in the tin (...
- 43.7k
9
votes
What proportion of the natural yeast in Sourdough comes from the flour?
There's an article in Scientific American which is worth a read here: The Science of Sourdough. It's also archived here in case the link rots.
I'll summarise the intersting part.
A team of researchers ...
- 1,779
8
votes
Make sourdough starter without discarding
While I have successfully begun a starter with only 10 grams of flour at the outset, I think I agree with Stephie that doing a little more is more efficient. I used to do very wasteful starters until ...
- 32.1k
8
votes
How do I properly substitute flour and water for sourdough starter?
Starters are typically maintained at 100% hydration. That means equal parts water and flour. So, in your case, mix equal parts water and flour. Measure 1 cup of that, and add it to your mix. Of ...
- 73.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Sourdough Starter Black Spots
I would discard this batch, carefully clean everything and start over.
If you truly mixed well in the beginning, then the fluffy bits are probably mold and the black spots are somewhat fishy as well. ...
- 58.5k
8
votes
Accepted
85% hydration tangzhong sourdough bread - what went wrong?
It's hard to say exactly what went wrong, I've worked with plenty of high hydration doughs and sourdoughs so I have a few ideas though. I can see from your picture that you did get yeast action in ...
- 75.4k
8
votes
What type of salt for sourdough bread baking?
Himalayan salt is not really from the Himalayas, but from the Salt Range, which is nearby -not exactly 'Himalayan snow melt' (in fact an underground salt deposit from a sea that dried up hundreds of ...
- 1,103
8
votes
Can I use a rectangular ceramic pan instead of enameled cast iron to bake bread without losing the nice crust?
There are two good answers here at this point, but I'll just add a little more about why your wife's method works. It is not just heat conductivity. First, cast iron does store a ton a energy as it ...
- 73.8k
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