My new French starter
I recently bought some French Foricher T65 flour whilst shopping for some other flours.
I hadn't got a particular recipe in mind when I bought it, but then it became obvious that the first thing to try was an authentic "pain au levain".
I became rather interested in the original method for making pain au levain which dates from 1778 (or earlier) as detailed in Parmentier's "Le parfait boulanger, ou Traité complet sur la fabrication et le commerce du pain (Éd.1778)". The method is known as "travail sur trois levains", or work on three levains.
Basically it's a way of building up a levain in 3 stages and is similar in concept to the German Detmolder Dreistufenführung method for rye bread.
Anyway, I digress! The first thing I needed was a starter. Although I already had one, it seemed appropriate to make a proper French one - ie French flour, low hydration. A book from M. Calvel provided a suitable method, as detailed in this table:
I shrank the quantities down as detailed here and had a working starter in about 3 days. An interesting starter - 50% hydration and salted from the start (to reduce proteolysis).
So I went to on to make the pain au levain; sadly it wasn't that good! - rather bland and with a tight crumb.
I know it's heresy to say it, but I've decided I don't actually like T65 flour very much! It makes a sticky dough and I think it's too weak for sourdough use - best results I've had are with a poolish. Maybe it's just the brand I've used (though it's well respected....).
On the other hand, I've ended up with a great starter! - it has become my main starter and gives great rise and good flavour. Previously I could see my loaves spreading when I put them in the oven, but not now.
I usually do 3 levain builds - 4pm (1/1/0.5 25C), 10pm (1/6/3 25C) and a "booster" at 8am the morning after (1/1/0.5 29C), all salted at 1%. I do the builds with strong Manitoba flour to minimise gluten degradation.
I use the levain at about 33% of main flour with a minimal autolyse of about 10 minutes.
Not much to see in a starter (apart from those overflowing jar photos....), but here is mine when I'm taking a bit out to use - peeling back the crust (a bit like a bound lievito madre):
Only 30g in that jar - my normal weekly refresh.
And here's a loaf I made recently with this starter:
Lance
Comments
What a gorgeous bake, it is pretty much the ideal. Picture perfect!
A couple months ago, I made a low hydration white starter from scratch and am quite happy with it. It has all but replaced my old rye starter. No salt in mine though, it is refreshed twice daily.
Good to hear you are also on a low hydration starter - what is the hydration?
And yours must be even better than mine if you are running at ambient with twice daily refreshes. Mine lives in the fridge.
Lance
Hydration has been between 55%-60% depending on the humidity, and these days I've been splitting the difference at 57.5%. As it gets more humid over the summer, I'm sure I'll have to drop the hydration below 55%, maybe as low as 50%. I don't mind the twice daily refreshments, with the kneading it's almost meditative, and the dough has a milder flavor that we prefer. How acidic does yours get under refrigeration? I'm wondering how the salt affects that, if at all.
Well I like to ferment the refresh fully before fridging it. 8 hours at 1:1 25C, so the pH is low when it goes in the fridge. It can get quite acidic after a week in there; when I come to refresh it, it tastes sour and the last pH I checked at this stage was 3.63, so the salt probably makes no difference in that respect.
When I bake, the levain pH is usually 4.2-4.5 and it tends not to produce a sour bread, which is my preference.
Lance
Well at least you got a very nice starter that is great for pain au levain. Nice bake. I've made a pain au levain with whole wheat before and loved it. The stiff levain build is 60% hydration made with bread flour and 5% medium rye. I "seed" the levain with some of my regular stiff rye culture. The total formula is Bread flour 75%, whole-wheat flour 20%, and med rye flour 5%. The overall hydration is 68%.
Cheers,
Gavin.
That sounds like a good recipe for a pain au levain and I bet it works well with your nice Aussie flour!
Lance
I'm confused by the timings on Calvel's system. 21h, 5h, 17h, 7h…. On its face it looks arbitrary. Long short long short? Wouldn’t the short phases be under fermented or the long ones over, given they’re all at the same dough temperature? What is the theory here?
Why does one single refreshment out of six in the middle have no salt-- Huh?
So why is one fermentation 5 and another 17 hours? How can the same factors and proportions produce such swinging fermentation times?
Can anyone clear up what is behind this composted to the more common 24h 24h 12h 12h… ?
Lance,
Could you explain the notation in your modified starter recipe document, such as "4e6," "6m9," and "frij"?
Which Calvel book is your table from?
Thanks in advance!
Shorthand from my brewing days; 4e6 is simply day 4 of the month, at the hour evening 6 or 6pm. 4M6 with m standing for morning would be 6am on the 4th of the month.
Frij is my abbreviation for fridge - quicker to write!
I believe the Calvel book is "Raymond CALVEL, Fermentation et panification au levain naturel, publié en plusieurs mensuels dans la revue "Le boulanger-Pâtissier" de l'année 1980". However I found the table in a book called "Handbook of Dough Fermentation".
Lance