October 13, 2021 - 6:15am
Greetings from Hagersville Ontario
Fermentation is what I love. Have fermented vinegar for more than 40 years and am always looking for new ferments. At this time, I'm fermenting Butter Milk Fermented Wheat Flour and getting some very pleasing results. A bit different than sour dough as I think this method offers more flavours.
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That sourdough is just one flavour - sour. One can make a bread that yeasty with no tang, or very tangy and everything in-between. That's in the hands of the baker. From time, hydration to temperature and flour the flavour of sourdough can be tuned to what the baker is looking for. Have you tried baking with a sourdough starter? How's that raisin yeast water coming along?
Glad to have you aboard the good ship TFL and hope to hear of your baking adventures.
Here's a tip to help you get more out of your time here (although it will probably cause you to spend more time here): use the Search tool. See that white box in the upper right-hand corner of the page? The one with the Search button immediately to the right of it? That's where you can type in your search term. Maybe you'll have a question about pumpernickel. Type the word pumpernickel in the Search box and click on the Search button. You'll get more than 100 pages of posts that contain the word pumpernickel since the beginning of the site. Odds are pretty good that someone has already had a question about pumpernickel that aligns with your question and that there are a lot of helpful answers for that question. If not, ask away and someone will pipe up with the information you are looking for.
Paul
Welcome aboard!
If you're into fermentation, the biology behind it, and baking, you've come to the right place! I'll be interested to hear how you went about fermenting with Buttermilk. Always interested in learning/trying something new. As for fermenting in general, just put a batch of sauerkraut going last night. Should be ready in about a month!
Thank you. Here is my process for the butter milk fermentation of wheat flour. I find this much more flavourful than regular sour dough.
Butter Milk Fermented Wheat Flour
Ferment:
1 litre butter milk 1012gm
200gm flour
TW 1212gm
Butter milk = 83%
Flour = 17%
Contents of 1 probiotic capsule.
A large 1700ml mason jar will suffice for these values
The ferment temperature is an average 24ºC
Add the flour to the butter milk and whisk smooth. Whisk until a good volume of air is introduced into the batch making it an aerobic environment. The added “dissolved” air will assist the yeast within the flour to grow in numbers. When the dissolved O2 is depleted, the yeast will convert the available sugars within the flour and butter milk to Ethanol. The now, anaerobic environment will then be favourable for the Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) to start fermenting the remaining available sugars within the flour and butter milk to Lactic Acid.
Slowly and gently, warm the butter milk to approximately 25°C – 27°C
Blend thoroughly in the mason jar and cover lightly so as to allow gas to escape or use an air lock (Best option). Wild yeast within the flour and Lactic acid bacteria in the butter milk will activate. The Lactic Acid producing bacteria will eventually create enough Lactic Acid to cease the yeast activation. The final product will contain lactic acid and a small amount of alcohol. After approximately 4 days, the fermented flour settles to the bottom of the jar and leaves a small volume of cloudy supernatant (The liquid above the settled solids) above it. The mass will slowly settle leaving more supernatant. Allow the ferment to continue until the food supply is exhausted approximately (6-7) days from the start. Pour off the supernatant for use in other bread making if desired. Keep the spent liquid like flour to make a sour dough type bread. Keep the supernatant and the spent flour in the refrigerator.
After the 4th day, the CO2 “burps” in the air lock are approximately 1 minute, 24 seconds apart. This will eventually slow down as the available food source becomes depleted. After 6-7 days, the ferment is sufficiently fermented. (Weight of Supernatant recovered + Weight of Spent Flour) after the ferment shows, approximately a 6% loss in weight due to the CO2 being expelled during the ferment. Use the fermented flour for baking bread. When making bread with this spent flour which is a sloppy liquid mass, use 45-50% Hydration value for the bread baking. The 45-50% hydration is based on the weight of the dry bread flour that will be added and not the total weight.
Thanks for the detailed instructions! The ingredients and ratios are a bit different, but the observations and timing of the observations are pretty similar to the starter I’m making now. https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/69087/creating-nancy-silverton-grape-starter
Please share as much as you can with us. Welcome 🤗🤗🤗 to TFL!
Yippee
Thank you
Roger welcome to TFL from a fellow Ontarian. It sounds like you are a very experienced fermenter, I’ve fermented only sourdough breads and fermented homemade miso. I’m looking forward to your bakes, hope you share them.
Benny