Hi All, I am new to sourdough breadmaking. I would like to ask the more experienced bakers if sourdough cultures are appropriate for someone who intends to bake bread just once a week. Or do these cultures need to be used and fed much more regularly than that? Thanks.
Replies
Once a week is certainly doable. I'd think many home SD bakers bake only once to twice per week. All you need to do once you have a good active starter is feed it up the day before baking, and when your bake is over, put it back in the fridge until next bake.
Sometimes, if it's a bit sluggish, you might need to feed it up for 2 days before a bake. On these occasions, I make pancakes out of it the morning after the first day so I don't have to throw any away. Actually, I LOVE SD pancakes, and would do this anyway - not just to use up starter.
A routine I almost always follow these days is to make my dough up early evening, and at the end of the bulk proof do the pre-shaping and shaping, plus 1 hour of the final proof, then retard in the fridge overnight. (You'll need to adjust proof times as the seasons change; in winter, I don't even retard in the fridge - just leave on the counter overnight). Bake directly out of fridge next morning, later in the day, or even in the evening. The quality of the loaf will not suffer, although you might find the flavour changes if you leave it in the fridge until evening (tends to get a little bit of a sour tang to it).
Anyway, the retarding in the fridge really adds flexibility to your baking timing, AND allows flavours to develop. Plus, when baked straight out of the fridge, your loaf will often 'sing' to you for up to 10 minutes after you take it out of the oven, during which it will develop a nice crazing of the crust. Win-win, or what?!
Best of baking to ya!
Ross
That is all I have done for a while now and it works very well
I bake about twice a week normally, but have left it for a week and didn't really notice any difference - bread was as yummy as ever!
I was told on a mini course I went on, that a starter made with the best rye flour you can find/afford is the best as it does not go "off" as quickly - something about it being more stable than white wheat flour. Seems that if you leave the normal flour starter for too long, it gets slimey and a bit stinky.
I only feed my starter once and put it in a tupperware in the door of the fridge. This is what I do. I normally make about 150g of starter and just keep that one going.
When I want to bake, I take the starter out of the fridge, weigh off 150g into my mixing bowl, then straight away put my starter container that still has about 2-3 Tbspns starter in it on the scale. I then add 60g organic rye flour and 90g purified water (just normal water with chlorine removed) and stir briskly, put the lid on loosely and place back into the door of the fridge.
I leave it there and it "grows" nicely by the time I want to bake again. I only need 150g grams as we only need one batch/loaf at a time, but I guess you could just up the flour/water in the same ratio and use a bigger tupperware.
Hope this helps.