Sourdough

Name: Jennifer Wellington
Date and Time:

2017.Jan 30, 06:00 pm

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject: Refrigerated 1 cup sourdough starter in sealed container.

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Name: Jennifer Wellington
Date and Time:

2017.Feb 01, 10:30 am

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject: First feeding

Removed 1/4 cup starter. In Pyrex bowl, mixed with 1/4 cup tap water and slightly under 1/2 cup Arrowhead organic whole wheat flour.* (Following http://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/sourdough/how-to-feed-sourdough-starter/)
Covered loosely with cotton towel and placed in warm closet at 10:30 a.m.

*based on https://earlybread.wordpress.com/, should mix the wheat flower with rye "randomly" at earliest opportunity

-ambient temperature mid-70s
-around 8:30, will have been 10 hours (so can put back in fridge between 6:30-10:30 according to recipe)
-at 9pm, swapped out - put that one back in fridge in the sealed container. Removed the other half of the starter, mixed as before, and left overnight in cabinet under cloth.

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Name: Jennifer Wellington
Date and Time:

2017. Feb 2, 9:00 am

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:
Removed second fed starter from cabinet and recombined with first in sealed container. Refrigerated.

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Name: Jennifer Wellington
Date and Time:

2017. Feb 4, 11:15 am

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:

Removed from refrigerator. Starter is less liquid than before, smells sour, faintly of green apples.
Took 1/4 cup starter and mixed with 1/2 wheat flour, 1/4 water - very dry, so added another 1/8 cup water. Covered with cotton towel and set in cabinet. Returned remainder of starter to refrigerator in sealed container.
11 pm put covered bowl in fridge

Name: Jennifer Wellington
Date and Time:

2017. Feb 5, 7:00 pm

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:

Noticed both colonies still less liquid than before. Smell of green apples very intense in sealed container (more liquid than the other, fed less recently...)
7pm, removed from the refrigerator the bowl from yesterday that had been out for 12 hours:


Intend to bake this recipe http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/extra-tangy-sourdough-bread-recipe - removed 1/2 a cup to use in recipe.
Remainder smells like green apples, though not as sharply as sealed container.
Leaving the dough to proof in a glass bowl under cotton cloth - this recipe says for 4 hours, then refrigerate 12, then add 2 cups more flour. I can't fit in the refrigerator, and my apartment is very dry/drafty, ~70 degrees at night.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/32582885772/in/datetaken/

Alternative bread recipe:
http://www.theclevercarrot.com/2014/01/sourdough-bread-a-beginners-guide/ < suggests 3-4 hours but as many as 12 in winter, but at least 1 hour to autolyze
-bake in dutch oven


Meanwhile, using the apple-scented sourdough starter that’s been in the sealed container in the refrigerator since Thursday - http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-crackers-recipe
Crackers!

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Name: Jennifer Wellington
Date and Time:

2017. Feb 8, 10:00 am

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:

• Didn’t have a chance to take out the bread dough until today - total of 24+24+15=63 hours instead of 12 called for in recipe.
• I hoped that the extra time in the refrigerator would only mean that the flavors were better-developed, but when I mixed the next set of ingredients - 2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, and 2.5 tsp salt (adjusted to 3 tsp, or 1 tbsp, because I use kosher salt and the grains are bigger - common practice) - the flour was extremely dry and wouldn't mix, becoming flaky instead. I was leery of adding water. (Further research shows that a) it probably would have been okay to use more water.)
• I baked one baguette at 425 F fro 25 minutes. It was very dense and chewy. Probably more time in the oven was needed.
• I left the other baguette under plastic wrap on a floured cutting board to rise - the recipe suggests 4-5 hours, but I left it for 6.5 hours. I reshaped it into a boule because it stuck to the plastic wrape. I baked it for 30 minutes at 425 F and this time it rose, although not evenly.

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Name: Jennifer Wellington
Date and Time:

2017. Feb 11, 4:00 pm

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:

Realized that the King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour I had been using was not actually whole wheat. Swapped it out for Arrowhead Mills Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour. I have found rye flour, but have decided to keep feeding the starter only with wheat, so that I can experiment with rye ratios and other types during bread baking.

Fed the starter: 1/3 cup starter, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup whole wheat flour. Left unrefrigerated beneath loose cling wrap in a glass bowl.

The remainder of the starter was also about 1/3 of a cup. Following the modern sourdough recipe for practice, I mixed it with a full cup of flour (thereby keeping the 1:3 ratio of the recipe) and half a cup of lukewarm tap water and left it on the counter in a glass bowl, under a loose cotton towel.

At 2 a.m., ten hours later, I put them both in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile, questions: I have rye flour in order to make the recipe found here: https://earlybread.wordpress.com

"if you are a reasonably prosperous yeoman farmer:
wholemeal wheat flour, which you should mix with rye flour in random proportions
(this mixture is now known as maslin)"

-In keeping with the spirit, should I really mix the rye haphazardly, thereby following the spirit but not tracking my results as easily? Or should I measure? Given that I've been feeding the sourdough only wheat (and earlier, bread flour), I'm not sure already of how much flour is there compared to the dry rye and wheat, so maybe it will be haphazard already.



Name: Jennifer Wellington
Date and Time:

2017. Feb 12, 11:30 am

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:
Removed the dough from the refrigerator and remixed by hand slightly because it had developed a dry crust. I also used a dollop of oil to coat it this time to prevent the crust from re-forming as it warms up.

2:00 pm

Mixed 2/3 cup of whole wheat flour, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp Kosher salt in keeping with the thirded recipe. Kneaded, but some flakiness/dryness of the dough. I rolled it into a relatively smooth ball and loosely placed cling wrap over it. The recipes suggests 2-5 hours to rise, but emphasizes that this will depend on many factors. Based on my experience, I think it will need 6-7 hours in my dry apartment with noncommercial yeast.

Date and Time:

2017. Feb 13, 12:45 pm

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:

The bread dough was taken out of the refrigerator and set on the counter to warm and rise.

11:00 p.m. - still has not changed in appearance. Decided it was too dry. Mixed in water to moisten and put back in the fridge.

N.B., Saturday - The lump never rose or changed. Having to toss.

Date and Time:

2017. Feb 18, 2:00 pm

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:


Realized the recipe I had been planning to work off of for authentic bread was actually unleavened. I’m having difficulty finding a straightforward English bread recipe (not gingerbread, “French” bread that’s eggy, or other specialty breads that seem unlikely here), so going to follow my previous recipe, but with “maslin.”

http://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2012/04/08/maintaining-your-sourdough-starter-food-water-and-time/ <used this to feed the starter again, pm. The starter was bubbly and smelled of apples, but tasted very bitter/slightly alcoholic

Since I messed up previously with whole wheat flour, I want to salvage some starter - feeding with the bread flour this time.

I only had a small amount of sourdough, so after taking 4 oz and feeding, I had 1/6th cup of starter left.

Not much to try baking with!

Back to the King arthur sourdough recipe, only 1/6th this time

So, 1/6th cup of starter. 1/4 cup water, and 1/2 cup flour, beat for 1 minute,
Combined the starter, water, and 3 cups of the flour. Kneaded & covered. Left on the counter for 5 hours, then refrigerated overnight.


Date and Time:

2017. Feb 19, 10:45 am

Location: Brooklyn Apartment
Subject:
Took out dough and allowed to warm up for 45 minutes. Added the remaining ingredients: 1/3 cup whole wheat flour (no rye, so this is a fancy bread), tsp sugar, tsp kosher salt. Kneaded, and this time added water - just a little, to moisten the dough. This seems to have done the trick as opposed to last time. Allowed to rise until 6:15 pm. Then I made a mistake: I cut the dough in half, because I was paying attention to the recipe and not thinking about the molding. So I have two very small loaves. I let those rise for an hour, then baked them for 30 minutes at 425 F.




Then I cut the fresh loaves in half, used a spoon to hollow out the four parts, and squeezed the warm pith around two objects - a pendant for a double sided mold, and a brooch for a more complicated single-sided mold. Allowing to dry overnight.