Home
>
Foodlovers Food Talk
>
Topic
Foodlovers Foodtalk Forum
Sour dough Starter
Posted by helen
Sour dough Starter October 25, 2019 04:12AM |
Admin Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 7,920 |
Today I was gifted a wonderful loaf of homemade sourdough, it has a fabulous thick crust and lovely soft bread.
It was to try out on Freddie (14) who is struggling with lots of food intolerances post a severe gastro 18 months ago. He now has post infectious IBS and is on a restricted (low roadmap) diet. His dietician suggested that he should see if he is sourdough tolerant, as long as it is made with artisanal flour and also left for a long rising period.
Anyway, with the bread came a starter which I am looking at a little nervously.
Nervous at both the responsibility and also wondering if I need to be baking fabulous loaves of bread each week.
Does anyone else have a sourdough starter or regularly bake sour dough with any tips to share?
I am completely new to this.
It was to try out on Freddie (14) who is struggling with lots of food intolerances post a severe gastro 18 months ago. He now has post infectious IBS and is on a restricted (low roadmap) diet. His dietician suggested that he should see if he is sourdough tolerant, as long as it is made with artisanal flour and also left for a long rising period.
Anyway, with the bread came a starter which I am looking at a little nervously.
Nervous at both the responsibility and also wondering if I need to be baking fabulous loaves of bread each week.
Does anyone else have a sourdough starter or regularly bake sour dough with any tips to share?
I am completely new to this.
Re: Sour dough Starter October 25, 2019 05:29AM |
Registered: 12 years ago Posts: 3,422 |
Low roadmap? Did you write Low FODMAP and autocorrect did its thing? If he is on a low FODMAP diet that excludes wheat (and spelt as far as I know, although spelt is lower in fructans than wheat), so any bread, whether sourdough or not, is likely to upset him. Whether the flour is "artisan" or not is irrelevant.
A friend's teenage son had very bad IBS and after trying all manner of dietary interventions it was low FODMAPS that got him healthy again. Initially the diet is very restricted, but gradually and cautiously you can start to add things back - some foods will be fine, others may not be. It would be worth you reading up on it as much as you can as many dieticians don't have a clue and the more you know the better you will handle it.
I used to make sourdough regularly; once you get into a routine it's no more trouble than making ordinary bread, but if you're not making it at least once a week you do have to keep your starter fed. The main thing in the early stages is to be very careful about contamination of the starter: use filtered or bottled water to avoid chlorine and other minerals which will distort the balance of yeasts and bacteria, keep your hands and utensils very clean so you don't introduce unwanted bacteria. As the starter ages its bacteria and yeasts come into balance and it becomes more resilient.
A friend's teenage son had very bad IBS and after trying all manner of dietary interventions it was low FODMAPS that got him healthy again. Initially the diet is very restricted, but gradually and cautiously you can start to add things back - some foods will be fine, others may not be. It would be worth you reading up on it as much as you can as many dieticians don't have a clue and the more you know the better you will handle it.
I used to make sourdough regularly; once you get into a routine it's no more trouble than making ordinary bread, but if you're not making it at least once a week you do have to keep your starter fed. The main thing in the early stages is to be very careful about contamination of the starter: use filtered or bottled water to avoid chlorine and other minerals which will distort the balance of yeasts and bacteria, keep your hands and utensils very clean so you don't introduce unwanted bacteria. As the starter ages its bacteria and yeasts come into balance and it becomes more resilient.
Re: Sour dough Starter October 25, 2019 06:08AM |
Admin Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 7,920 |
haha yes I did mean low fodmap.
Freddie is intolerant to fructans (plus fructose and lactose).
His fructan intolerance is not as severe as the other two and our dietician has said that we should try sourdough made with artisan flours as these are easier to digest. Meaning the 000 Italian flour etc... She said that the flour type can make a big difference.
She also said the rising time is critical for "gobbling up" the negative carbohydrates so therefore making it was easier on sensitive systems. Anna is experienced with fodmap diets and teens with IBS symptoms so I am listening to her.
Freddie initially was fine with fructans but a huge increase in exercise has meant that his fructan intolerance has surfaced.
It is boring and hopefully isn't life long.
Freddie is intolerant to fructans (plus fructose and lactose).
His fructan intolerance is not as severe as the other two and our dietician has said that we should try sourdough made with artisan flours as these are easier to digest. Meaning the 000 Italian flour etc... She said that the flour type can make a big difference.
She also said the rising time is critical for "gobbling up" the negative carbohydrates so therefore making it was easier on sensitive systems. Anna is experienced with fodmap diets and teens with IBS symptoms so I am listening to her.
Freddie initially was fine with fructans but a huge increase in exercise has meant that his fructan intolerance has surfaced.
It is boring and hopefully isn't life long.
Re: Sour dough Starter October 26, 2019 03:54AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 2,411 |
Helen, I have been baking sourdough bread now for around three years and apart from Vogels which my husband likes toasted on a Sunday for breakfast I don't buy any other bread. As I understand it it's the long time in the fridge that develops the flavour and apparently makes the bread more digestible. Flour, from what I have read, also makes a difference. Anecdotally there have been plenty of people who don't tolerate gluten very well but don't seem to have that problem when they eat bread in France. It is said that modern flours are to blame. I have no personal knowledge though as I am fortunate not to be suffering from gluten intolerance or a bowel disorder. A starter can live quite happily in the fridge for a long time without feeding. It might develop a greyish looking liquid on top but that is just a form of alcohol and you either stir it in or tip it off. Also, you can just keep a very small quantity of starter in the fridge, say just 30 grams and when you want to make bread you feed the starter up to the required quantity. The less starter you use in the dough the longer the rising time which is beneficial. Take a look on Facebook and bring up the New Zealand Sourdough Bakers group which I belong to. Trish Dee who heads the group is Auckland based and very knowledgable and members go out of their way to answer questions and are very helpful. There are various other sourdough baking groups. I belong to several. The Australian Sourdough group is also excellent. As a start I would suggest you take a look on YouTube at Elly Stanley's videos. She is in Brisbane and she makes a great basic bread that practically looks after itself once you have mixed up the dough. Give it a shot. Also, earlier this year I made some random notes for a friend who wanted to bake sourdough bread. The notes are in no particular order but I added to them whenever I thought of something as well as suggestions to websites and books. Those notes have grown to an A4 sheet or more and I'd be happy to send them to you if you want. Just let me know.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2019 03:58AM by Chris.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2019 03:58AM by Chris.
Re: Sour dough Starter October 26, 2019 10:00PM |
Admin Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 7,920 |
Re: Sour dough Starter October 31, 2019 03:04AM |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 653 |
Chris has given a really comprehensive reply and I'm scratching my head to think if there's anything useful I can add. To give you another option going forward: I started sourdoughing at the same time as Chris, but went in a different direction as I found the amount of info online about sourdough overwhelming (it took me two years to get up the courage to get started!). Instead I bought the book Classic Sourdoughs by Ed and Jean Wood, a couple with many decades of sourdough experience. I also bought cultures from them, one a particularly sour one from Bahrain I use with white flour, and one that raises wholemeal flour even better than white - we eat mostly wholemeal so that was important to me. I found that the information in the book was everything I needed to make unbelievable bread - my 100% wholemeal loaves are actually light! - and continue maintaining happy cultures. So if you want everything you need in one place, I'd recommend that. There are two schools of thought with sourdough - one is very precise and is concerned with exact hydration levels and things like that, and the other is very much looser than normal baking - instead of relying on measurements it's very much about what the texture of the starter and the dough looks and feels like. The latter is the one I use as although it was intimidating at the beginning as it's a learning curve finding out what best works for you, once you know it it makes breadmaking very quick, easy and reliable. And although I was intimidated at the start I've actually never had a failure. The only tricky thing with sourdough is the long lead time when you need more bread, and working out the timing so that you're not having to get up in the middle of the night to do something to the dough. Otherwise it really is easy. A few extra tips from my own experience:
If you're using a glass jar for your starter, put some in another jar (and feed it occasionally) as a backup. I've cracked two jars thus far from overenthusiastic stirring and I would have lost my starter without my backup.
I find the best rise comes from a wet starter (like thin pancake dough) and a wet dough overall, but the starter keeps better in the fridge if it's less wet so I put it away with quite a stiff batter.
By far the easiest way to knead the dough is to throw it in the breadmaker. If your breadmaker is like mine and doesn't have an actual dough cycle, however, always remember to set a timer! A couple of times I've forgotten to get the dough out (which takes 20 mins in a Panasonic, cycle 2) and have ended up with a little brick as the cycle progressed to the baking stage.
Over time starters get more acidic and this affects their ability to raise the bread. One of the invaluable tips from Ed's book is when you get the starter out of the fridge to bake, fill the half-full jar with hand-hot water, mix it and throw half away before you add the new flour.. This combats the acidity problem so successfully that my starters are raising bread even better now than when I started.
And finally - I went to a lot of trouble to get a good baking environment, including lugging a massive extra-thick baking stone home from the US. And after all that, I find my Breville Smart Oven makes by far the best bread, probably because the elements are closer to it than in a normal oven. So if you have something like that or a small second oven, I'd recommend baking in that.
Good luck! Happy to answer any questions! And fingers crossed it helps Freddie.
If you're using a glass jar for your starter, put some in another jar (and feed it occasionally) as a backup. I've cracked two jars thus far from overenthusiastic stirring and I would have lost my starter without my backup.
I find the best rise comes from a wet starter (like thin pancake dough) and a wet dough overall, but the starter keeps better in the fridge if it's less wet so I put it away with quite a stiff batter.
By far the easiest way to knead the dough is to throw it in the breadmaker. If your breadmaker is like mine and doesn't have an actual dough cycle, however, always remember to set a timer! A couple of times I've forgotten to get the dough out (which takes 20 mins in a Panasonic, cycle 2) and have ended up with a little brick as the cycle progressed to the baking stage.
Over time starters get more acidic and this affects their ability to raise the bread. One of the invaluable tips from Ed's book is when you get the starter out of the fridge to bake, fill the half-full jar with hand-hot water, mix it and throw half away before you add the new flour.. This combats the acidity problem so successfully that my starters are raising bread even better now than when I started.
And finally - I went to a lot of trouble to get a good baking environment, including lugging a massive extra-thick baking stone home from the US. And after all that, I find my Breville Smart Oven makes by far the best bread, probably because the elements are closer to it than in a normal oven. So if you have something like that or a small second oven, I'd recommend baking in that.
Good luck! Happy to answer any questions! And fingers crossed it helps Freddie.
Re: Sour dough Starter October 31, 2019 05:10AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 174 |
Re: Sour dough Starter October 31, 2019 05:23AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 2,411 |
Carolyn,that book sounds interesting. I must look it up. I use my scales but have learned to ‘feel’ the dough and also trust myself more when judging whether the dough is ready to go into the banneton or tin. I also tend to overthink and have remind myself that I have only once had a real failure. I would be interested in your whole meal bread recipe but you might not feel free to share it.
Re: Sour dough Starter October 31, 2019 07:31AM |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 653 |
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.