Happy Yeast!

[texassourdough]

I made my "normal" five pound batch of sourdough boules yesterday and, after dealing with cooler temperatures over the winter and spring it was a joy to see my yeast happy and in the zone. (My starter has a strong preference for warmer temperatures - like 75!)

The bread is very simple. 100 grams of 100% starter expanded with 200 grams of water and 200 grams of flour (100 whole wheat, 100 bread flour) overnight. Then expanded to 2.5 kilos with 1220 grams bread flour, 780 of water, 45 grams of salt for a final hydration of 70%. Hand mixed followed by stretch and fold. 3 hour bulk ferment, only 1 1/2 hours after forming.

Happy yeast is so much fun!
Jay

[Frances]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Ohhh, those look yummy!

[egalecki]

Re: Happy Yeast!

MMM. Those look very tasty. It is always nice to have happy yeasties- Mine tend to be ok at our normal room temperature, and they get a bit sour at 75. They don't like it t 65 at all, though, and take forever to get anywhere. It's a very narrow band of happy.

Do you mix all your breads by hand or just some of them?

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Elizabeth,
So how does it feel to have your first 1,000 posts completed? Wow!

[egalecki]

Re: Happy Yeast!

compared to some, it took me forever to get here....

I gotta say, having il pizzaiolo after my name does make it look like I know what I'm doing...

[Tscarborough]

Re: Happy Yeast!

That is some pretty bread. I bet it smells just as good and tastes even better.

I am firing the oven this morning for some bread this afternoon. I made 2 loaves of honey wheat (with fresh Utah honey given me by Derkp!), 2 loaves of rosemary (from the garden) bread, and some pizza dough for tonight. I used some durum wheat in the pizza dough so I am curious to try that.

Eventually I will get a sourdough culture started...

[texassourdough]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Thanks, Y'all! I thought you might enjoy them!

Elizabeth, I almost never use a mixer for bread. (I sometimes use the mixer for sweetened breads like raisin bread but...) In this case the first expansion is simply stirred. The second expansion I mix to a ragged dough with a King Arthur bread whisk, dump it on the counter and using wet hands sort of shove it around and mix it to a slightly smooth blob and let it sit about 20-30 minutes. Then I give it some kneading - no more than a minute or two. Then one or two stretch and folds at roughly 30 minute intervals. I poked this down at about 2 1/2 hours. Then formed boules at 3 1/2 hours and baked about 1 1/2 hours later.

I fully agree, cold weather is a drag. My yeast really shuts down below 65 degrees F and is pretty slow below about 70. (I usually compensate by reducing my expansion ratio - instead of going 100 grams of start to 500 and 500 to 2500 I usually go 100 to 400 (adding 150 grams each of water and flour) and then 400 to 1600 grams final and only make three loaves. But the timing is always (as you allude) uncertain for even when at max vigour the yeast is not very predictable (probably is but the vigour vs. temp is so critical). I have a proofing box I can use but I rarely use it unless it is really cold. WRT sourness, my starter is so mild any extra sourness is great.

The joy of those loaves was that everything was right on. The times were just what they should be. The yeast was happy and that made the baker happy!

And...you don't need pizzaiolo after your name for us to know you know your stuff!

Tscarborough... sounds like you had a good baking day! Good luck!
Jay

[MK1]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Jay,
I follow JH like the bible and he has the dough bulk ferment for 2.5 hours and then form and rise for 2. Can you tell me why you bulk 3 and form 1.5? Is this dictated by your culture or are the 2 not that critical? JH also uses a stiff starter for his this non-retarded dough and a liquid starter for the overnighter. Why?
This bread is my house bread, I bake 4 a week. I think it tastes like really good bread.

Thanks,
Mark

[texassourdough]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Hi Mark!

My yeast is not normally this active so I usually do 3 bulk followed by 2 to 2 1/2 depending on how fast it is rising. My yeast was going bonkers and I was doing other things and didn't realize until I got to forming at 3 hours. It was a little later than I normally form but...no big deal. The final rise was abbreviated because it was rising like gangbusters and I didn't want it to overproof. The results are just about perfect IMO. Good rip and pretty loose/varied crumb which suggests it was pretty much proofed to perfection. So main reason was "I erred" but...

Every sourdough starter is a different and while I consider JH a wonderful guide you ultimately have to personalize to make the bread the best.

My real curiosity is this is two really aggressive rises in a row from my yeast. I am curious if the starter has undergone a permanent change (it is seven years old so that feels unlikely) or if it s just the fact I have the house warmer than normal right now????

Good Luck!
Jay

[meco211]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Nice looking bread. Nice big pockets inside!!

[meco211]

Re: Happy Yeast!

I think I am going to try your bread recipe on Friday morning!! I assume that u use your brick oven? since mine is not done yet, i will just be baking it in the kitchen oven.

[texassourdough]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Actually Toby, I don't use my oven unless I am doing twelve pounds of dough so I did it in a conventional oven but using a cloche (actually cloches - one for each loaf). The cloche is as close to WFO in results as you can get without a WFO.

The recipe is pretty straightforward. It should work for you. The big question is the timing. My loaves are about 1 1/2 pounds each. I will assume you are going to do them in a conventional oven - no cloche. Use a stone if you have one. Heat it to about 450 (about an hour from starting to baking to load the stone. When I don't use a cloche I put a cast iron skillet with lava rocks in the bottom of the oven and heat it up with the stone. I load the bread and put about 10-12 ounces of boiling water on the hot lava - no extra spraying should be necessary - you will get lots of steam. Drop the temp to 425 and bake for about 40-45 minutes. (Check the internal temp at about 35 minutes if it is getting done looking on the outside. Temp should be at least 205.)

Let me know if you have any questions - you can easily make a smaller batch by starting with less starter and following the same ratio (50 grams plus 100 flour and 100 water, overnight, then 610 of flour, 390 of water, and 25 grams of salt to make the final dough will make about 1.25 kg (just under 3 pounds - two loaves).

Good luck!
Jay

[SCChris]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Jay,
I've been working on the PR recipies trying to get my techniques in line and decided early on that although the WFO could easly do whatever I wanted to do as far as an oven goes, I needed to minimize the variables. I'm using my kitchen oven at least until I get a better handle on the dough, pardon the pun.. Once I feel more comfortable, soon, I'll be making a big batch to bake in the WFO.

As a side note; Boy have things changed since the late 70s and early 80s!! I have several Bernard Clayton books and PR has me wondering how to modify these BC recipes..

Chris

[texassourdough]

Re: Happy Yeast!

I think that is smart Chris. Once you can consistently do bread in the oven you have a big advantage when trying to figure out what happened with the WFO. I now know my oven well enough I can reasonably reliably make great bread in the WFO but fighting the timing of sourdough and the oven is always a bit tricky - especially if you have a tendency to try to not fire for 2-3 hours to get the oven ready (which is part of my original error and was compounded by the then unrecognized impacts of a new and therefore not dry oven).

I met Peter about five years ago and have been working with his recipes and watching his progress for years. His base logic is pretty straightforward. Use enzymatic action enabled by hydration to add more complex flavors to the bread. And his approach gets a good deal of the complexity of a sourdough (but not the sour) using conventional yeast - which has big benfits in timing - especially to newbies and stubborn people like me who don't like to proof at high temperatures to accelerate/control rise time.

You can easily approximate a Reinhart approach to another recipe by simply taking half the flour and hydrating it to say 60% and letting it sit out overnight and taking the other half of the flour and forming an unsalted dough using the rest of the water. A trick lies in how much yeast to put in and whether you retard or not. In general I think retarding is good and that means a relatively large amount of yeast - probably about half of what you would use in a full loaf. Next morning add the salt and mix the two pieces together. Adjust the dough with water or flour and treat like normal.

I scanned the Clayton book online and it looks pretty good!

If you have a specific recipe I would be glad to give you a stab at a PR equivalent.

Good Luck!
Jay

[SCChris]

Re: Happy Yeast!

Thanks Jay.. If I follow PR's terminology right then what you're discribing he refers to as "epoxy" mixing. X amount of part "A" with Y amount of part "B".. This is where I was heading. When I go through Claytons "Complete book of Breads" I always have to smile at the picture of the 10 year old boy, or there abouts, riding his bicycle with his arm through what is most easly discribed as a gigantic bagel..

I really want to understand to a much greater degree the enzymatic action and get more comfortable with the higer hydration that seems to be part of these techniques.. At some point I'm going to have to make an oven full of the classic Poilane style loafs.. Christmas, Thanksgiving.. Time will tell..

Thanks Again!!

Chris