Talk to me about sourdough - The Fermentation Club!

[Chicky]

That's so pretty p_d!

I saw on facebook that the pastry chef of a local restaurant has taken their 14 year old sourdough starter home to look after it in lockdown. I don't think I'd like the pressure, imagine if you killed it

[olive]

That looks great, purple. I’m about to make a starter using your instructions!

[Mountain Goat]

Oh that loaf is gorgeous! It looks just like the one I expected to be delivered to me today that didn't arrive.

I wasn't sure if I had damaged my starter with neglect while I was ill but it seems to be ok (I fried up some discard) - a little weaker than I'd like but I think will be fine - I fed it a while ago and just waiting for it to be ripe enough to use. I am dying to try making bagels but I think I need to just get a loaf out tomorrow so we have one, and do the bagels in the week once the basics are catered for.

Good luck olive!

[Mountain Goat]

And that's my last pack of strong white flour opened.

(I am checking the various mill websites regularly now).

[ParisGal]

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Flour supplies at my supermarket!
They also had 25kg sacks, I guess usually used by their bakery.

[Mountain Goat]

Oh, that's interesting! I read that the problem wasn't supply of flour, but supply of consumer facing packaging (hence bread still being on shelves as bulk purchases to bakeries are carrying on fine)-looks like they've improvised.

I have realised I can at least leave the house on Monday, and we have a zero waste shop (where you book a 15 min slot to shop) that was claiming to have flour, and there's also one about 30 minutes walk away that said this morning that they had eggs and flour (also all my 4 boxes of eggs from different sources have been cancelled. I ordered all of them as I knew some would be cancelled, and could share with others if by some miracle they all arrived, but didn't expect all of them to disappear. )

[olive]

I made my first sourdough! My followed purple’s starter recipe and it took a bit longer to grow in size than I thought but it was bubbly almost immediately.

It was slightly underbaked and holes could have been a bit bigger but it went down a storm. We had half the loaf hot from the oven with butter slathered all over it.

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[Ella77]

Looks good!

[purple_dress]

Looks great!

[Rosa]

Ooh, good bread!

[olive]

Thank you! I need to be less worried about getting a much darker crust on it next time plus my folding technique could really use some work.

Thanks for posting the YouTube video as well, purple. It was really helpful. Between that and the bread ahead bakery instagram page I learned loads.

[Skips]

I have been gifted a sourdough starter! So this morning I tried crumpets with my discard. I didn't have a suitable ring but they tasted really good.

[Lily]

Was it a Hobbs one? My friend sent me one last week. The first loaf I made was a "swan" - could break a man's arm - but I'm hoping for a better one today.

[Skips]

No, my friend Caroline! She safe distanced dropped one off yesterday with some other groceries I'd run out of. I'm going to try a loaf over the weekend.

[Lily]

That's sweet of her. I love the idea of sourdough going across the world (gradually).

I've got another one proving at the moment. This is my first. I have no shame.

[Mountain Goat]

I've seen worse. Did you take a photo of the inside?

Crumpets are making me hungry.

[Lily]

I couldn't cut the stupid bastard.

[Mountain Goat]

Do you know what went wrong?

[Lily]

The dough didn't rise at all - I don't think I fed the starter enough before launching it on an unsuspecting mixture. This time the starter was going mental and the dough rose really well, so fingers crossed!

[overthehill]

I found a really useful YouTube video with a basic formula for sourdough bread - for any amount of flour - 80% water (1g = 1ml), 15% starter, 2% salt - which, for me, works out about double the weight of starter than I had been using and about 30ml more water. The resulting dough was much wetter than mine and the guy (I've forgotten all details about who it was) just stretched and folded the dough four times, for each repetition. He was a bit vague about the number of times he folded his dough or over what period, but - for me, folding every 10 mins over about an hour and a half - the resulting dough was ridiculously soft, only barely maintaining it's shape when I turned it out of the banneton. I could hardly score it. Even so, the bread was one of the best loaves I've baked. I've since adjusted the water content a little bit but I'd be interested to know how wet your dough is and what your folding routine is?