Do you know what is in the packet of dry starter by Breadtopia?
I’m assuming 100% starter (flour and water) that has been air dried.
But I’ve always made my own.
Seems like it is easy to make on your own vs $6 for a “tiny bit” of pre-made starter! Is there a guide available that helps explain taste & texture obtained by using various flour?
For now concentrate on getting your starter active. The starter is just where you store the yeasts and bacteria i.e. non specific, from which you will build a levain - an off shoot specific starter which you will concentrate on the final bread you’re after.
Ok thanks. I will give it a go today.
OK, I found some flour and tried your recipe. Taste OK but not nearly sour enough and the loaf has the appearance of a petrified mammoth turd. Any ideas?
Infinitely better than before. Much more edible, not quite as light as the French bread I made but quite acceptable, just not very sourdoughey. Don’t know how to take crumb pictures. Loaf weighed out at just over a pound and my machine seems quite capable of producing 2-pound loaves, but I hestitate to double all the ingredients for fear of an explosion. I added one tbs of sugar on the advice of others for added fermentation plus 2 tsp of dry yeast just for the helluva it, but otherwise stayed pretty much in the parameters of your recipe. including the basic cycle. Size and crust medium. Looks like it will work with more tweaking
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Higher hydration with a longer ferment sounds like a plan. Will give it another go in three days or so.
I would use the bread machine to mix my dough, let rise till at least 70% bigger, turn the bread machine back on and degas the dough. Then remove the dough, form it into a loaf. 2nd rise until at least 80% bigger, slash the loaf and bake it. I would learn by only baking with white flour, it’s the most forgiving. I’d also go with a basic recipe of 1 cup active starter, 1 cup warm water, 3 1/2 cups flour and 1 tsp. Kosher salt.
Interesting. Don’t understand what you mean by “degas the dough.” Do you mean let the machine knead it? I have been thinking of making sourdough with the dough only cycle and then oven-baking but don’t really know at what temp or for how long except to sit around and eyeball it occasionally until it looks right. The bake only cycle on my bread machine runs for 1-1/2 hours, I believe but I’ve never used it separately.
I do not understand hydration. Do you know of a link that explains it well?
Hydration means more water.
Technically, in bread baking, hydration is the percentage by weight (or, if you must and in my opinion, you mustn’t, by volume ) of water to flour in your dough. For example, if you have 1,000 grams of flour and 900 grams of water, that is 90% hydration. 1,000g of flour and 650g of water would be 65% hydration.
I’ve been making sourdough in my bread machine with mixed results, but my bread’s been generally successful but sometimes ugly. I have an $80 Hamilton Beach and just use the white bread setting. I’ve found that no or little yeast, works best or the dough overproofs and the bread caves in. Let the yeast in the starter do the rising. I should preface that statement with the fact that my recipes are salt-free due to kidney issues, so I have to cut back on yeast anyway to make up for the lack of yeast inhibition that salt generally provides. Even so, the white bread setting has worked just fine.
Don’t overthink it. My problem has been in getting it to be consistent, which is probably because I haven’t been real scientific about my measurements when feeding my starter. Thus my starter consistency has been erratic. Go for it and good luck!
Your white bread setting for sourdough sounds interesting but what recipe do you use, or at least how much starter do you add to the white bread ingredients? I’ve been experimenting with four different recipes. The one Abe provided in this forum has been the most successful. Other three are “Best Bread Machine Sourdough” from food.com; Armchair World “Slow Method” and King Arthur Flour Recipe. They all work with some tweaking, two of them using the 6-hour French bread cycle and two 4-hour basic. If your recipes are salt-free do you use any sugar? I’ve been told that a bit of sugar produces lighter fluffier loaves.
OK folks, here are the results of my testing of four sourdough breadmachine recipes. Abe wins hands down with a recipe provided on this forum by one of his friends that closely matches the Best Bread Machine recipe featured on food.com. It uses the 4-hour basic cycle, needs some tweaking for visual appeal but comes closest to real San Francisco sourdough. The Armchair World “Slow method” comes next with a denser version that is heavier and best put in a toaster before serving. The King Arthur Flour recipe is a distant third with the consistency of a brick and an overbaked crust that needs a hammer and chisel to cut through to the bread.
Last but not least, I experimented with some whole wheat flour in making sourdough in a bread machine. The fed starter or lavain was a lot more sour than that made with white bread flour and the end result tasted like real San Francisco sourdough. But, while the loaf was quite light and airy it had very little rise – ended up sort of like half a loaf, or a flat loaf but, surprisingly was not very dense or heavy, picture attached. I used the measurements in Abe’s recipe and am beginning to think that everything depends on measurements. For example, what does a cup of starter really weight? Some starters are thick and gloopy, some watery, others dry and light. I read somewhere that ideally, a small piece of starter should be able to float atop a water glass. Any ideas?
Where can we find Abe’s bread machine sourdough instructions?
Hi @Quiltgirl Abe here. If I remember correctly (it’s been a while) it’s pre-ferment 30% if the flour and a basic bread dough cycle. Might take a bit if tweaking depending on your starter and bread machine but if you send me a recipe you like the look of and your bread machine make we’ll come up with a plan.