You’d think there were enough mouths to feed on this farm, but I’ve added another one to the menagerie.Fortunately this one only needs feeding once a week. It’s wild, but hasn’t escaped yet.
About three years ago I went to a sourdough-making workshop at a friend’s house. I came home, inspired, with my little jar of frothing flour and water. Some months later I found that jar in a forgotten corner of the fridge, containing a dark green slime swimming in black liquid.
But a couple of months ago I started thinking again of wild yeasts when I was flicking through a bread-making book. The thought of capturing my own yeasts, and keeping the starter like a pet, inspired me again.
Guy says I’ve been neglecting the blog since I’ve been bread making, and I apologise. He hasn’t, however, suggested I stop baking.I began with an incredibly simple mixture of organic wholemeal flour and water – one cup of each in a plastic honey bucket with a tea towel over the top. I let it sit for a couple of days on the kitchen bench and it started to bubble.
I fed it another cup of flour and cup of water, and it bubbled again. I’ve read that wholemeal is the best flour to get a starter going - it’s the most vigorous fermenter. I’m also planning to make a rye starter for a different flavour.
After the first feed you need to throw out half the starter (in the compost) and feed it again. When the starter is in its infancy you should do this every day for a week, and you’ll notice the smell becoming richer and more complex.
It’s great getting to know the habits of your starter. Now mine’s established I keep it in the fridge in the garage (putting the starter in the fridge slows down the fermentation, but you still should feed it once a week). When it’s hungry it’ll look flat and won’t have many bubbles. It might even have a bit of darkish liquid on top called hooch – it’s a by-product of the fermentation. After you feed the starter it comes to life in about six hours: it bubbles and rises a couple of centimetres, happy again.My routine now when I’m baking is to take the starter out on a Friday night and mix a big ladleful of it with 600ml of warmish water. I then stir in 500g of flour (any sort you want, but I usually do this stage with white) and I leave this gluggy mix overnight covered with a plastic bag. Some books call this the ‘sponge’.
Next morning the sponge will be really bubbly and light. It’s like you’ve given your starter a massive feed. Now I add 600g of flour – I’ve been experimenting with mixtures of white with wholemeal or spelt or rye (don’t be too heavy-handed with the rye though, it’s pretty dense) – and 25g of sea salt.
It’s important to rest the dough now, and let the flour soak up all the water. After half an hour I knead it for 5-10 minutes. I’ve read lots of complicated recipes involving long kneads and lots of re-shaping, but for what I’m doing, it’s really not necessary.The wetter the dough is the bigger the air holes will be. It’ll also spread out more sideways than up. If the dough’s drier it’ll keep its shape better while it’s rising, but it will be denser.
I’ve been splitting the dough in two and shaping it into rounds. Then I leave them on trays covered with cotton cloths and flour for about six hours. That’s enough time to get heaps of jobs done on the farm, or a full day of brass band practice (we competed in the Nationals at Easter!).
Close to cooking time the dough should have just about doubled in size. Your oven needs to be really hot. I crank mine up to 260 degrees Celsius. There are all sorts of fancy baking stones and ceramic containers you can bake in, but at the moment I’m just using a couple of pizza stones. I pre-heat them too.
When the oven light’s gone off I slash the tops of the loaves with a bread knife, down to about 1cm, and then I spray with water.
Then comes the bit where I get a bit stressed: I worry about losing too much heat out of the oven while I’m mucking about getting the dough off the trays and onto the stones, but I’m getting quicker as I become more confident.Bake the bread for 10 minutes at this high heat, and then check to see how it’s browning. If it’s looking pretty dark I turn it down to 170, if it’s only a little bit brown I’ll keep it at 180-90. The rest of the cooking takes about 30 minutes. It’s ready if it sounds hollow when you tap it.
Problems I’ve had so far that I’ve managed to solve:
- Starter not rising after I fed it – I was being too stingy with the feed and it was a bit too watery. Boosted the flour ratio.
- Not enough air holes in the bread – made the dough moister. I think the holiness has also improved as the starter has matured.
So far I’ve made different combinations of white, wholemeal, spelt and rye breads. I’ve also made a tasty combination of quinoa and spelt. I made an accidental ciabatta too, but so far the Turkish bread has been the biggest hit.
Photos from top:
- Rye and white
- Rye and white cross-section
- Established starter
- Turkish bread
- Quinoa and spelt
- White (decadent!)
