BEGINNING OUR FIRST EVER STARTER
November 10, 2022
Using white bleached flour, my cousin and I created our first starter. We decided starting was much more necessary than acquiring the ideal flour. We had the option of buying a dried starter, but opted to go the route of starting from scratch.
No, it’s not named at this point. It’ll get it’s name when we decide it’s mature enough to make bread with.
BY THE NEXT DAY, OUR STARTER MORE THAN DOUBLES… EXPLODING OUT OF JAR AND SENDING IT’S COVER FLYING INTO OUTER SPACE!
– LOAF NUMÉRO ONE –
MADE NOVEMBER 18, 2022
- Starter being one week old, and us eager to put dough in the oven, we went for our first loaf.
- Our starter had only doubled in size once, we never saw a hooch, it had minimal bubbles throughout, and it tasted fairly bland.
- For this loaf we tried out a 24 hour rising process. We made the dough from starter, and then waited till the next day to bake it.
- At this point we were completely unaware of the “stretch & fold” concept and how it would be so crucial in introducing air throughout the dough.
- We made the loaf with 80g of starter, 400g white all-purpose unbleached flour, 240g water, 8g of salt, then proceed to bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
The baking experience was sub-par at best. This oven’s gonna take some getting used to. It’s temperature runs about 25 degrees less than advertised. We ended up choosing a baking time from a different source than the recipe source, and so it was not the greatest experience. After it had sat for an hour to “cool off” as they say, we discovered just how under-baked it was, we then threw it into the oven for another half hour. This made it slightly better.
- Overall Taste 5/10
- Rise 0/10
- Exterior Crust 4/10
- Interior Softness & Chewiness 2/10
- Style Points 2/10
- Interior Baked Score 3/10
– LOAF NUMÉRO TWO –
MADE NOVEMBER 20, 2022
- WHELP! Starter still not what we would deem “mature” yet. But why would we let this stop us from making bread?
- We discovered a not too lengthy bread recipe online, we then distilled it into an understandable format. So this was the first loaf we did a 48 hour rise with. Also the first time we created a “levain” as they call it.
- We opted for this longer format because of hearing positive things regarding a longer fermenting time being more ideal for taste and digestion.
- Following the directions of an internet article, we used a much different method to bake. We started with convection bake at 500, and in the first ten minutes the top of the loaf burnt right up. It had big bubble pockets and wasn’t going very well. So, we turned the convection off and kept going, after the first 20m we lowered the temperature down 50 degrees, after an additional 20m we lowered it down another 40 degrees for the final 20m of the hour long bake.
Our knives are all quite dull, and we ended up squishing the bread more than neatly slicing the top just before putting it into the oven.
We were quite pleased with the taste, but my goodness did the loaf look terrible!
- Overall Taste 7/10
- Rise 1/10
- Exterior Crust 3/10
- Interior Softness & Chewiness 3/10
- Style Points 2/10
- Interior Baked Score 4/10
– LOAF NUMÉRO THREE –
MADE NOVEMBER 22, 2022
- The starter is still not showing much as far as signs of life. We missed feeding it on Sunday, and were late in feeding Monday as we needed to buy more flour. Had a little layer of mold on the top that we ever so carefully scraped off and threw straight into the garbage.
- With this loaf, we decided to experiment with a one-day rise. This would be the first loaf with strong baker’s flour, also known as “bread flour” in some countries (or so we’re told anyway).
- It was a smaller size than the previous loaf. And this would be the first loaf we’d try some olive oil in the dough mix. 25g to be exact.
This loaf we baked in a roasting pot, inside we put a few ice cubes (props for steaming points), and the dough on parchment. We kept the lid on for 20m, then took it off. This really seemed launch our bread crust into a new level.
Mixing in olive oil did not in our opinion help the taste any. For now we’ll reserve it exclusively for the crust.
- Overall Taste 4/10
- Rise 0/10
- Exterior Crust 7/10
- Interior Softness & Chewiness 5/10
- Style Points 4/10 (our best yet!)
- Interior Baked Score 8.5/10
– STARTER UPDATE –
THE DAY OF NOVEMBER 23, 2022
- Starter is now 13 days old. The day previous we fed the starter it’s first full cup of whole wheat.
- As it turns out that our starter seems to really like that!
Our typical feeding is to discard all but one half cup, then to feed one cup of flour, and half a cup of water. Usually once per day.
After this success, we’re continuing our feedings with 50% whole wheat and 50% baker’s flour. Once per day as it doesn’t seem hungrier than this ~ winter 🙁
Had a semi-sweet, and tangy flavour with lovely bubbles.
– LOAF NUMÉRO FOUR –
THE DAY OF NOVEMBER 23, 2022
- Nothing massively new with this loaf. Unfortunately this loaf does not contain our lively starter from the day previous. This loaf was officially started Monday night, with our older non-rising starter. Yippee.
- We used the 48 hour rise process. This loaf contains 100% strong baker’s flour.
I thought maybe that the top would not burn because I didn’t use convection, but that thought was incorrect.
- Overall Taste 5/10
- Rise 1/10
- Exterior Crust 3/10
- Interior Softness & Chewiness 3/10
- Style Points 0/10
- Interior Baked Score 8/10
– LOAF NUMÉRO FIVE –
MADE NOVEMBER 25, 2022
- The first loaf we feel comfortable calling bread! We actually got a good rise out of this – go figure with the starter now rising well!
- We now conclude that if the starter is not having good rise and falls, then it’s not great to use for bread yet. Nonetheless we don’t care too much about the past loaves, we’re just happy to be learning sourdough.
- This time we did a 50% whole wheat, 50% baker’s flour mix. We were pleasantly surprised with the taste. The whole wheat was not too over bearing in any way. We figure this is due to the fermentation period the bread goes through.
This was the first loaf we used a stone pan for. We had it covered for the first 20 minutes, then left uncovered for the following 40 minutes of baking. We’re thinking this helps the top not burn. The only problem we ran into is that part of the dough was squished under the edges of the pot we used to cover it.
Good to see air pockets through the slices!
- Overall Taste 6/10
- Rise 6.5/10
- Exterior Crust 5/10
- Interior Softness & Chewiness 7/10
- Style Points 4/10 (still think we can do better)
- Interior Baked Score 9.5/10
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