April 25, 2022 - 6:09pm
Combining Yeast Water and Sourdough in One Bread
I'm planning to bake Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough and would like to incorporate YW alongside the sourdough but am not sure how best to go about it. I'm sure there's an answer somewhere in this forum, but content is scattered in many threads and I'm clearly not searching on the right keywords. Now that I finally have a couple free days to bake, I want to improve my chances of success.
- Should I mix my sourdough starter with YW to make the levain and then proceed as usual? OR
- Should I replace some or all of the final dough water with YW? OR
- Should I make a SD levain and a YW levain? If so, are there tried & true proportions for this? Say, for example, make a half-size SD levain and a half size YW levain? Or make them both full size ? Or one full size and one half size?
- None of the above? All of the above?
My hope is that the sourdough and YW balance each other out and produce a complex, well-balanced flavor without that sour finish. Thank you for any help you can provide.
–AG
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Easiest would be to just replace some of the water in the final dough with yeast water. One pro would be ease and not having to think about changing the recipe. One con would be because Hamelman uses a large sourdough preferment and a relatively quick final dough the yeast water might have minimal affect on the leavening unless you use a large amount of refreshed yeast water but then you'd have a large percentage of levain and yeast water. You could always combine them in the preferment to make a hybrid.
Hamelman does have a semolina bread with a double preferment, sourdough and yeast, which can easily be adapted for sourdough and yeast water (take out the yeast and replace the water with yeast water). That might be worth doing instead.
I hadn't thought to look for a recipe with a double preferment and that's a great idea; regrettably, I don't have durum flour on hand right now. However, your general point is well-taken. Maybe halving the size the SD levain and making a second one of the same (half) size using YW is the way to go. That way, I'll end up with the same amount of preferemented flour that Mr Hamelman intended. I can always play with the proportions in subsequent bakes. Thanks much, Abe. As always, your perspective is extremely helpful.
Might I recall you doing a gorgeous YW/semolina bread recently? I will keep that in my hip pocket for when I have some durum in the house. Thanks again!
A year ago almost to the day, I posted a little experiment evaluating combining RYW with SD not only in the same bake but in the same leaven. That is, I grew my SD leaven in RYW. It worked fine, though not yielding so fabulous an improvement that I’ve continued to do it. I never thought to substitute all of a bake’s final water with RYW. That’s a bold idea worth exploring.
Tom
Hi Tom, thanks so much for directing me to this post. I confess to being a bit disappointed that you found the reduction in sour flavor notes to be less than overwhelming, but that is exactly why I broached the question. I figured someone on TFL had already done this; I just couldn't find it among the many long, winding YW threads. Based on your experimental bakes of last year, I see that building the levain with YW and starter may not get me where I want to go so I will forego that experiment for now. Instead, I'll plan to do one bake using two half-sized levains, a YW and a SD; and another bake replacing the final dough water with YW. I'll post results in my blog. Thank you so much, your direction on this is very helpful!
–AG
Thanks.
fyi, my objective there was to elevate the leaven's yeast titre, not reduce sour. If your objective is to reduce sour, I should mention our house SD miche method because that bread is utterly un-sour. No tang whatsoever. Our starter is maintained in the fridge, at 80% hydration, 40% wholegrain and refreshed only once/week. It is deployed in our 80% hyd, 60%ww doughs at 15% total flour. Something in that setup results in zero sour, which suits us fine.
Tom
Lookup posts by trailrunner (Caroline). She does this. For example: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/70021/yw-rye
Thanks very much, Gary. I actually saw this post when I was searching for ways to accomplish this and somehow missed that the levains were mixed with YW. (I was searching on my phone while sitting in a gigantic waiting room of potential jurors, and my eyes are not what they used to be. I guess it was inevitable that I'd miss something.)
Trailrunner has been super helpful to me throughout these early stages of my YW adventure, so I was looking for her bakes in particular. One main difference is that I'm looking to "convert" my tried and true formulas. That might not be the best way to maximize YW's potential, but I like the SD breads I've been making; I just need to tone down the acidity to satisfy the one guy in the family (my husband) who prefers non-sourdoughs. They say there's one in every crowd and there goes your proof, haha!
Check out Benny's (Benito) posts on his sweet levain. He is producing great looking non-sour sourdough.
Thank you for mentioning this, Gary. Benny and some others called this to my attention and I'm working on a stiff sweet levain (already have one made, in fact, and am now maintaining it). I'm focused on the YW at this point because I got there first and the amount of time I can spend baking will be pretty limited for a while. I'm trying to be methodical and avoid biting off more than I can chew. I'm anxious to give the sweet levain a try, not least because I'm already accustomed to the sourdough paradigm and don't have to think so hard about it.
This forum is the best, isn't it?
Good for you staying focused. I'm easily distracted and abandon one experiment to go to the next too soon but I'm having fun.
Yes, this is a great forum.
I went through a patch where I was making up both a yeast water and sourdough preferment the night before and then judging which one to use. I usually just used both though.
This post is an example of one of these breads:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/69665/buttermilkspelt-large-preferments
I have had much better success always making a preferment rather than trying to use yeast water directly in the final dough.
Also, I have tried making a sourdough levain with yeast water but it didn't perform all that differently to just making a sourdough levain as normal.
-Jon
Holy cow, the bread you linked to is gorgeous! Beautiful moist crumb. It's helpful to know the percentages you worked with and your thought processes as you proceeded through the project. Thanks for sharing that.
After reading the posts, it seems like there is some anecdotal support for two levains, so I mixed a YW Build 1 and, just like that, YW-SD Trial Bake #1 is underway! I mixed extra to get a head start on Test Bake #2.
Everyone's thoughts in this thread helped me decide where to start. I'll do my best to document the process in a cohesive way and report findings in my blog.
–AG
I am bicycling in FL for the month of April. I brought both my apple yeast water and my AYW starter from my fridge with me and have had amazing bakes with them here in this coastal climate.
As far as utilizing YW as you are wanting to do I have done several different formulations. I always use a tried and true formula I very seldom make up a new formula. By this I mean I will take a formula that I have made as an intended SD bake , one that is from David Snyder or Ian etc, and I will simply substitute my YW in different ways.
I may make a YW levain using my YW starter from the fridge and adding the needed amount of YW and flour to equal how much levain the original formula calls for. That's all. I just sub for the original amount. no deviations.
I may make a YW levain from my YW starter using YW and flour to equal 1/2 of the called for levain and use my SD levain for the rest. So the amount of levain is still the same but it is now 1/2 YW levain and have standard SD levain .
I may make a full amount of YW levain and sub it for all of the called for SD levain and then also ADD YW for part or all of the called for water in the formula.
I may only use the called for SD levain for the total levain and then sub YW for all or part of the called for water.
I can honestly say that they have all worked perfectly. I never have had any failures with this and none are ever sour. My DH and I no longer like sour at all so I am always glad my YW answers that need while still giving me the crust and crumb and most importantly the flavor I want.
I think I have covered all the possible permutations above. If not let me know. The first and easiest way is to start with any SD formula you have used on TFL and sub according to your preference as I have noted above. They will all be successful.
I didn't note above but it is definitely worth noting that I have been in FL for 3 weeks now and have not fed my stored YW starter or my YW and they both had huge beautiful growth as levains for my two Challah bakes i have done here. I am very impressed now that I am back to keeping the orange rind in the YW . Every time I cut up and apple I take the cores and drop them in the YW container without removing anything. It is doing great and is staying in the fridge 24/7 and I have used it cold from the fridge without any additional feeding and I also always do only the one build never two. Hope this helps. If not let me know. c
That's awesome. It must have take some time to write all that up and I appreciate it! It's good to know you've had good results in tempering the sour notes with all of these methods.
My first test bake will follow your second permutation above ("...using YW and flour to equal 1/2 of the called for levain and SD levain for the rest"). Only difference is that my YW levain will happen in two builds because my YW is still pretty young and seems to have gotten progressively slower with each use. So this time, I strained the liquid into a clean jar leaving behind the bottom sludge and replaced the apples and orange zest. Then I left it on the counter for about a day or day and a half to up the yeast count.
I've been refreshing the fruit fairly often even under refrigeration because the YW doesn't seem to be super yeasty yet. As for the water, I've only been replacing what I use because it seems counter-productive to pour any yeasts down the drain. As you recommended, I've been using orange rinds (only zest, no pith) in my apple water. The orange rinds give the fragrance a nice zip.
Thank you for your detailed response. And on your vacation too! Sounds like you are having a great time cycling in FL. Enjoy!
I'm finding this thread SUPER timely because I just started my first YW on Sunday and intend to bake with it this weekend. I have utilized the search function on this site for YW but I don't always find the results to be the easiest way to zone in on what I need. Looking forward to seeing how your bakes turn out (as well as mine ;-). I hope you will post pictures and comments! I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to proceed but am glad for all the helpful comments that your post garnered.
Just a quick note: we prefer un-sour bread here at my house too, but my usual bakes using sourdough/natural yeast starters don't actually turn out sour unless I drag out fermentation and over-night proofing. There are definitely other factors that play into the end result (how often the starter gets fed, when it is used after a refresh, types of flour fed to the starter, etc). I'm exploring the YW options as a way to lighten crumb texture with WW breads as well as lighten the crust so that is more crisp...I have read YW can do both.
As another aside, which many here will deem heretical, you can always add a pinch of commercial yeast (I like Red Star Organic the best) to help temper any sour notes in your dough, as in a hybrid loaf. I've used this method in the past with good results.
My YW was started with a combo of dates, raisins and apricots...now I'm thinking I should tuck some orange rind in there for good measure ;-)
Naturaleigh, I'm glad you are finding this helpful... not to mention somewhat relieved that I'm not the only one struggling to home in on specific YW content using the search bar 😂. I might be on a wild goose chase with this whole project, but the goal is to create not just milder but actually different flavor profiles that everyone in my family loves. Seems like a long shot and it probably is one, but we'll see where it goes.
Good luck with your YW! I'll be watching for your posts.
This is the treasure trove of YW posts that you're looking for:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23441/yeast-water-amp-other-wee-beastie-bubbles-no-math
A host of great YW links from the past
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23597/yeast-water-examples-photos-tfl-links-only
Happy reading!
I'd seen the page behind the second link and clicked a few random links without finding specifically what I was looking for. The first link I have not seen before and you are correct, it is a treasure trove. Wherever you are Mr Ray, a grateful baker thanks you. You too, Jon!
Glad you have a starting point. Really can’t go wrong. I use the whole peel.. pith and all not just the zest. I don’t even worry if the orange is organic! It always works. I too just keep adding in to replace what’s use of the YW. I’ve stopped discarding the sludge as well. I found as Jon did that the sludge makes a great levain! I’m always learning new things here.
please post your results. Great cycling in the West Gulf Coast Sarasota and South area .
Is generally hopeless. If you go to Google and type for instance The Fresh Loaf Trailrunner Yeast Water you will get back a ton of info all relevant and so easy. Try it. Plenty to study with just that search
Thanks, Trail Runner! I will definitely check that out, and Jon's posts too...so much helpful information on this site!
Always ask if you need anymore info