Saturday, May 19, 2012

First sourdough (bread)


Sourdough Bread Loaf


With all of this beer making, we thought it was time to start our own sourdough culture. Bread is solid beer after all.
It all started two weeks ago when I mixed some leftover wort with some flour in a mason jar. We fed it daily (your are supposed to feed twice daily, but we had trouble keeping up) for two weeks. This weekend I decided it was time to see what our little creation could do. I found a basic sourdough recipe and got to work.


Sourdough Starter
Starter culture
Here is the recipe and process I used. It is a combination of a few I found online modified for what I had on hand.

Mix 1 cup sourdough starter in large bowl with -
 3/4 cup water
 2-1/3 tbsp olive oil
 1-1/2 tbsp buckwheat honey
 1-1/4 tsp salt
Mix ingredients well then add in 2 cups whole wheat flour and mix well.
Turn onto floured surface and kneed in another 1/2 cup or so of white flour.
Kneed into a ball and put in covered greased bowl.
Allow it to rise - we gave it about 8 hours.
Punch down, kneed some more and formed into a ball ( from here you could do loaf, rolls, pretzel, etc)
Put onto floured pizza stone (bad idea) and let rise another hour or so.
I forgot to slash the top, but that didn't cause a problem here.
Baked at 370 for 40 minutes.

I baked it on our pizza stone, but soon learned I should have put something on it other than just flour. The bread was glued to the stone and it took some time to scrape it free. Someday I will learn how to use that thing,.

We let it cool 10 minutes before trying it.

Soft crust, very soft and springy inside. It was also a bit chewy. Not bad for almost all whole wheat.
Standard bread flavors, but definitely has that sourdough taste to it. Not overpowering, but it was definitely there.
Lactic acid flavor lingers long after you are done eating it.
Overall, we were very happy with how this came out and will definitely make it again.

1 comment: