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It occurred to me that since I had never baked bread before and am within sight of having a WFO, I should probably try it in a regular oven first. So I did it for the first time about ten days ago using off the shelf fleishmans active yeast.
To get the stone baked feel I cut six fire bricks into splits and lined my oven shelf. As per the recipe I also put a broiler pan below the shelf with the bread and poured a cup of hot water in the pre-heated pan immediately after putting the bread on the stones. I was happy with the way it turned out since it was the first thing I had ever baked (Not counting baked potatos and pillsbury biscuits from the roll.)
I've baked three times since the first time but have been doing four loaves at a time in the oven now. Getting much better color now that I am doing four loaves at once.
So a few nights ago I decided to try a sourdough starter. I didn't have any whole grain flour. All I had was the Conagra "Minnesota Girl" baker's flour I bought at Costco. So I put one cup of one hundred degree water and one cup of that bakers flour in a four cup mixing cup and stirred well. I'd read that some people use a grape to innoculate with yeast and some just rely on the yearts present on the whole grain.
Since I didn't have whole grain I figured I should innoculate with something likely to have yeast on it. No grapes around so I used what I had in the refrigerator...blueberries and rasberries.
I took three blueberries and one rasberry and dropped them in the flour/water mix. I gently stirred the mix twice over the next hour. After one hour, I gently stirred again and then fished the undamaged berries out of the mix and tossed them.
I had also read that yeasts like a low ph and most bacteria doesn't. Since I was doing this whole thing in a somewhat odd manner I was afraid of "bad" bacteria being present in the bakers flour and taking over as the dominant speices of microrganism. So I decided to put a table spoon and a half of apple cider vinegar in the mix as well to bring the ph down a bit. I stirred again and lightly covered it.
The following (day 2) morning it had very tiny bubbles all over the surface. I stirred, pulled out a half cup of the mix and tossed it, and fed the starter a half cup of flour and a half cup of warm water. I did that again twelve hours later and have continued doing so every twelve hours since.
By that night (still day two) it was looking dead. No bubbles at all and a separated clear water layer on top. I fed it as before and went to bed. The next morning (day three) there were some bubbles again, not a lot, but the individual bubbles were bigger than they had been before. This morning (Day 4) I checked it and it looked better still, lots of big bubbles.
Here is my starter this morning (Day Four.)
It smells very nice and slightly yeasty. I think I'm on the right track in spite of doing everything a bit strangely???? Comments or concerns?
Bill
To get the stone baked feel I cut six fire bricks into splits and lined my oven shelf. As per the recipe I also put a broiler pan below the shelf with the bread and poured a cup of hot water in the pre-heated pan immediately after putting the bread on the stones. I was happy with the way it turned out since it was the first thing I had ever baked (Not counting baked potatos and pillsbury biscuits from the roll.)
I've baked three times since the first time but have been doing four loaves at a time in the oven now. Getting much better color now that I am doing four loaves at once.
So a few nights ago I decided to try a sourdough starter. I didn't have any whole grain flour. All I had was the Conagra "Minnesota Girl" baker's flour I bought at Costco. So I put one cup of one hundred degree water and one cup of that bakers flour in a four cup mixing cup and stirred well. I'd read that some people use a grape to innoculate with yeast and some just rely on the yearts present on the whole grain.
Since I didn't have whole grain I figured I should innoculate with something likely to have yeast on it. No grapes around so I used what I had in the refrigerator...blueberries and rasberries.
I took three blueberries and one rasberry and dropped them in the flour/water mix. I gently stirred the mix twice over the next hour. After one hour, I gently stirred again and then fished the undamaged berries out of the mix and tossed them.
I had also read that yeasts like a low ph and most bacteria doesn't. Since I was doing this whole thing in a somewhat odd manner I was afraid of "bad" bacteria being present in the bakers flour and taking over as the dominant speices of microrganism. So I decided to put a table spoon and a half of apple cider vinegar in the mix as well to bring the ph down a bit. I stirred again and lightly covered it.
The following (day 2) morning it had very tiny bubbles all over the surface. I stirred, pulled out a half cup of the mix and tossed it, and fed the starter a half cup of flour and a half cup of warm water. I did that again twelve hours later and have continued doing so every twelve hours since.
By that night (still day two) it was looking dead. No bubbles at all and a separated clear water layer on top. I fed it as before and went to bed. The next morning (day three) there were some bubbles again, not a lot, but the individual bubbles were bigger than they had been before. This morning (Day 4) I checked it and it looked better still, lots of big bubbles.
Here is my starter this morning (Day Four.)
It smells very nice and slightly yeasty. I think I'm on the right track in spite of doing everything a bit strangely???? Comments or concerns?
Bill
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