First sourdough starter feeding
NAME: Sofia Gans (and Celia Durkin)DATE AND TIME: Thursday, 2.5.15, 8:42pm
LOCATION: 4th floor apartment in Astoria, west-facing
SUBJECT: Feeding sourdough starter
Room conditions
: 68 degrees, dryTable of Contents
- The starter is room temperature. It's been out of the fridge since 8:30am today
- I decided to feed the starter for 3 days leading up to the baking of the bread because I wanted it to be as robust as possible, given that early modern starters would likely have been used almost every day. Also the 16th c. recipe I found doesn't call for much time at all for the dough to rise, and I want it to have as healthy a starter as possible if it's given so little time to rise.
Starter's condition before feeding
- this morning when I took it out of the fridge it became quite fluffy and enlarged after about an hour at room temperature. It had raised its level a few centimeters, and there were many bubbles both on the surface and within the body of the starter. It had last been fed Tuesday night at 10pm before going into the refrigerator. By the time I returned home at 7pm, the started had lost volume, though there were still noticeable bubbles. It has consistently smelled pleasantly sour since I received it.
Process of feeding the starter and observations:
- I removed the paper towel and lid from the jar, and filled a 1/2 cup measuring cup with starter. It had a beautiful fluffy, whipped consistency, like whipping cream when it's half-way to whipped cream.
- I dumped out the rest of the starter in the jar into the trash.
- I returned the reserve starter to the jar
- I added half a cup of lukewarm tap water
- I added 3/4 cup of organic stone ground whole wheat flour
- I stirred vigorously, and seeing that the consistency was still too thick, I added about 1/4 cup more water (didn't measure, just eyeballed until it was a thinner consistency that I liked)
- I placed a fresh paper towel over the mouth of the jar and screwed the lid back on
Second sourdough starter feeding
NAME: Sofia Gans (and Celia Durkin)DATE AND TIME: Friday, 2.6.15, 7:35pm
LOCATION: 4th floor apartment in Astoria, west-facing
SUBJECT: Feeding sourdough starter
Room condition: 68 degrees, dry
- The starter is room temperature and has been out of the fridge since yesterday
Starter's condition before feeding:
- thick layer of translucent brownish liquid over the top, hasn't risen much at all and fewer bubbles. Returning home at 7:30, the apartment smelled like starter. The smell was more pungently sour than yesterday.
Process:
- I poured off the liquid from the top of the starter
- I added a heaping 1/2 cup of the same flour as yesterday
- I added 1/2 cup warm water
- I stirred vigorously, at which point it was slightly thicker than yesterday
- I recovered with paper towel and lid
Third sourdough starter feeding
NAME: Sofia Gans (and Celia Durkin)DATE AND TIME: Saturday, 2.7.15, 4:45pm
LOCATION: 4th floor apartment in Astoria, west-facing
SUBJECT: Feeding sourdough starter
Room condition: 68 degrees, dry
- Starter is room temperature, has been out on the counter since Wednesday.
Starter's condition before feeding:
- a small amount of brownish liquid on top, fewer bubbles and less fluffy than previous feedings, smell is still sour, but with a strong floury note. Starter does not float when dropped in a glass of water (I read online that this is a good test to see if it's active enough to bake with). Starting to get concerned that it's dying.
Process:
- I poured slightly over 3/4 cup of starter into a measuring cup
- I discarded the remaining starter and rinsed out the glass jar with warm water (a step I've never done before).
- I returned the reserve starter to the jar (which was now warm from being washed)
- I added slightly more than 3/4 cup of warm water and stirred vigorously
- I added a loose 1 cup of flour and stirred vigorously to combine. Starter is slightly thicker than previous batches but I decided to leave it.
- I rubber banded a clean paper towel to the lid of the jar
OBSERVATION:
- at 7:30pm, after having roasted a chicken in the oven (which made my kitchen warmer), my starter had exploded. It was so robust that it puffed up out of the jar it was in. So I transferred it to a larger jar, and by 9:10pm it had grown twice its size. It's aliiiive!!!
Baking Bread Mold
Name: Sofia Gans and Celia DurkinDate and Time: 2.8.15, 10:00 AM
Location Astoria apartment
Subject: Baking Bread Mold
Condition of Starter: inactive
Recipe
- "The making of fine Manchet" from the 1594 A Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin
- "TAke halfe a bushell of fine flower twise boulted, and a gallon of faire luke warm water, almost a handful of white salt, and almost a pinte of yest, then temper all these together, without any more liquor, as hard as ye can handle it: then let it lie halfe an hower, then take it vp, and make your Manchetts, and let them stande almost an hower in the ouen. Memorandum, that of euery bushell of meale may be made fiue and twentie caste of bread, and euerie loafe to way a pounde beyside the chesill."
Process
- Turned on oven and placed starter nearby in order to give starter warmer environment in which to "wake up". Fed it one half cup warm water and one heaping half cup flour
- After 1.5 hours, starter began to show bubbles
- Mixed 4 cups of flour/ 1 cup of luke warm water (which we interpreted as room temperature), 1/4 cup active starter, and a dash of salt (as per recipe)
- ingredients (whole foods organic all purpose flour, baleen sea salt) were room temperature when added
- recipe required significant reduction from original. We determined the relationship between the imperial bushel, gallon, and pint, which were standardized at 1:8:64 at least as early as 1638 (John Penketham's A Collection of several authentick accounts of the history and price of wheat, bread, malt &c: from the coming in of William the Conqueror to Michaelmas 1745, originally printed in 1638 and updated and reprinted through the 18th c. lists these ratios).
- after 3 mins of kneading by hand, mixture is consistency of plaster: stringy, sticky, and flaky--not very conducive for shaping
- although the recipe said to make the bread as hard as "ye can", we added a tiny splash of water, which was not in recipe. Basically Sofia wet her hands and continued to knead.
- after 8 mins of kneading, dough was much more consistent, stuck together much better
- -left dough in cloth-covered metal mixing bowl by warm oven to rise for 1/2 hour (as the recipe suggested)
- dough did not rise after 1/2 hour, so we left it for another 1/2 hour
- after a total of one hour, we shaped the dough and placed it in an uncovered dutch oven sprinkled with flour
- we baked the dough in the uncovered dutch oven, in an oven that had been preheated to 425 degrees, and then turned down to 400 degrees for 62 mins.
- Temperature was not indicated in the recipe. We used the typical temperature for baking bread in a modern oven as a guide. The recipe does specify to bake for one hour.
- when we removed bread from oven, it was nice and golden brown outside, and actually looked somewhat like a loaf of bread. We cut in half while still hot, and found the bread to be incredibly dense
- cut slices of bread, first attempted to press new york 1/2 marathon medal into an edge of bread
- did not work, as the edge of the bread did not offer enough spongy pith, and medal was a bit too large without any real raised detail
- second attempt used a middle slice, 2 inches thick, and a pendant
- pressed pendant into pith of bread, allowed bread to dry around pendant for 4.5 hours.
- removed pendant at 7:30pm. It seemed as though much of the detail had been taken by the bread. It was wrapped in tinfoil and placed in a tupperware container on the counter overnight.
Casting in Bread Mold
Name: Sofia Gans and Celia DurkinDate and Time: 2.9.15, 11:30 AM
Location Chandler 260 lab
Subject: Casting in Bread Mold
Room conditions: chilly and crowded
Ingredients and equipment:
- room temperature bread mold, become very hard after being stored out on the counter in my apartment over night
- separator: finely ground charcoal sieved through a cheesecloth onto the surface of the mold
- sulphur heated with lamp black until liquid
- Joel noticed that there was a crack in the bread that might impact the airtight nature of our mold
Process:
- In the fume hood, Celia poured the sulphur and lamp black slowly into the mold to attempt to block the crack in the mold with the sulphur itself as it dried.
- The first pour leaked almost entirely out the side, leaving a thin layer of sulphur in the mold
- Joel poured a second and third time, extremely slowly, at which point the crack seemed to seal itself and the mold filled.
- We left the mold to dry for approximately 20 minutes. A crystallization pattern had formed on the back of the sulphur
- when dry, we attempted to remove the pendant from the mold without damaging it. The separator proved not to have worked, and we had to break the mold apart. Even with breaking it, a significant chunk of bread remained glued to the surface of the pendant.
- We used wax carving tools to begin to carve away the stubborn remaining bread.
- Celia determined that sulphur is not soluble in water, so we continued scraping away the bread under warm running water.
- It took about 15 minutes to fully clean the surface of the pendant.
Result:
- When cleaned, it was clear that the bread mold had taken an enormous amount of detail from the pendant. We were able to see small lines in the plastic leaf, the legs and spots of the metal ladybug, the petals of the metal flower, and the individual rhinestones around the edge. It was impressive!!
ASPECTS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN MAKING FIELD NOTES
- note time
- note (changing) conditions in the room
- note temperature of ingredients to be processed (e.g. cold from fridge, room temperature etc.)
- document materials, equipment, and processes in writing and with photographs
- notes on ingredients and equipment (where did you get them? issues of authenticity)
- note precisely the scales and temperatures you used (please indicate how you interpreted imprecise recipe instruction)
- see also our informal template for recipe reconstructions