August 27, 2024 - 10:23pm
The Taste of Bread - Calvel's 54-Hour Levain - Questions
For reference, the 54-hour levain formula I used is on page 90 in this book snippet: The Taste of Bread
I am unable to store this culture at the recommended 8-10 degrees C (48-50 degrees F). Is there a way I might store this culture without refrigeration and without damaging the flora that comprise it?
Is there a step missing in the linked book snippet between producing the culture and using it to leaven dough? If so, what is that step?
Thanks in advance!
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Is there a way I might store this culture without refrigeration and without damaging the flora that comprise it?
Brod & Taylor's Sourdough Home – Brod & Taylor (brodandtaylor.com) provides a way to store dough at the temperature range that you specified.
Petek,
Awesome! I didn't know someone had commercialized such a thing. Thanks!
Do you also happen to know where I might get an accurate kitchen scale, preferrably readable to .1g and a max weight capacity of 5-11kg? My current model doesn't work adequately for my purposes. There're some specific tests I'd like a scale to pass:
Does such a scale exist, or am I expecting too much?
I think the answer to my other question is that despite the lovely fermenting smell of the levain (I was truly amazed) I actually failed to produce any, or sufficient, active yeast in it so I'm going to be doing recreating it sometime when I have 54 hours to spend on it.
Not sure why TFL threaded my scale selection comment below at the wrong point, however in the interest of site cleanliness I will not duplicate that here.
For your specific questions though I think you have some contradictions in your requirements:
Then we get to settling time. All modern scales [1] with baking range capabilities are going to use some form of strain gauge as the measurement device. A strain gauge is some form of beam supporting the load; the strain is measured in the beam and translated to force applied to the support plate. Another term for a beam that has a load applied fairly quickly is a spring, and a spring is going to bounce back and forth before it settles into a range below the limit of interest. If you look at industrial and laboratory scale specs you will note that the more sensitive the scale the longer the setting time. And once you get below 0.05g resolution additional feature will be added such as wind shields and mechanisms to gently lower the load and gently release the plate to reduce settlement time and also reduce wear/damage to the measuring element.
What I do is use two scales (both myWeigh): a 5000g x 1g with good repeatability, and a 300g x 0.05g. The 0.05g is marketed as a jeweler's scale and has units not ordinarily seen on kitchen sales, but it works fine for salt, yeast, and other small amount ingredients.
When you think about it 1g out of 5000 is 0.02%, and that's not much of an error.
[1] I'm not going to get into the argument about what is a scale and what is a balance -
I followed the levain formula on page 90 (referenced in the OP) to the letter, or so I thought. I used Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye Flour for the rye, and Bob's Red Mill Unbleached Enriched Artisan Bread Flour (has malted flour or enzyme) for step 1, and the Artisan bread flour and Walmart Unbleached Enriched Bread Flour for step 2, and from then used the Walmart bread flour at each step. I used filtered water at room temperature for most of the later steps, and sea salt (I might have used refrigerated filtered water for earlier steps). I used my Instant Pot's sous vide function to hold the dough at 81F throughout this process.
However, my scale doesn't work quite as well as I had hoped so I can't swear that the proportions were exactly correct, just correct up to the limits of my equipment. In particular, I can't say that the salt was exactly what was called for but I also can't say it wasn't exactly correct. I just don't know.
At the final step, the culture smelled amazing - I thought it smelled like ferementing pepper sauce, or kimchi; I had no idea bread flour could produce such scents. But, when I tried to leaven some bread with the result, there was no rise - at all - after 12 hours.
Here's where I think I went wrong. As I said, I followed the formula as precisely as my equipment allowed. But after 22 hours for the first ferment, there was no rise in the dough, and there was no rise at any subsequent step either.
Should I have waited for the proofing levels listed to be attained before moving on to the next step? Or what should I have done? Can anyone see any obvious errors besides using cold water on the initial and maybe next step or two?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give!
The problem is not in being off in some measurement by a trifling amount. It's not going to be in the exact mix of flours. The error is something in the process, and it is probably at the very beginning. I couldn't see some crucial information in the sample page in Google Scholar so I'm nor sure exactly what was supposed to go into the formulation. If I remember right, some of the information was in "Exhibit I", which I couldn't find.
But if you thought you would go from flour and water to a fully established sourdough culture in 54 hours, even at the warmer temperature, well, I would say you'd have to be very lucky. Yes, I read that Prof. Calvel wrote that it never failed him, but he didn't say that he had ten other novices try and it never failed them either. We've had many, many people ask for help with establishing a new starter here on TFL. They are doing all the steps that always worked for me (or for other people) and yet they weren't working for this person.
If you want more help you should write down for us just what you actually did, not just refer to a snippet online somewhere.
Even if you thought you followed the steps from the reference just as they were written, you couldn't have done so. Your flours and water are different, your environment is different (for all we know Calvel's lab and bakery were saturated with microbes that grow in France but not somewhere else). The precision of his measurements was different from yours, which I doubt made any noticeable difference but still. He may and probably did have little techniques he used when he sensed things were drifting off the planned path, things he hardly noticed after so many years of intense work in this area.
So what he wrote was important then and can be a great reference now, but you should consider it as a starting point, not as doctrine.
TomP
Hi Tom,
I've included Table 10-1, the formula I followed, from the link I provided. This is what I actually did. For reference, step 1 is 300g rye + 300g bread flour, in my case, the dark rye flour and artisan bread flour (which contained malt or an enzymatic subsitute at 1-1.5% by weight) I mentioned previously.
I guess what I would like is someone who has succeeded in using this formula to advise me on where I might have messed up, in reference to what I wrote in the previous comment.
Thanks!
When I used the Instant Pot sous vide function, set at 81F, I just put the dough straight into the Instant Pot, so that it would have direct contact with the heated bottom of the pot, as opposed to putting water in the pot, and the dough in another container, and then immersing the container in the water. I wonder if that might have affected the resting temperature of the dough, which would have critical effects upon the development of the yeast and other bacteria.
It could have gotten the bottom much too hot, since as I understand it Instant Pots only heat from underneath. Without a water bath the temperature control may not have worked well even aside from the bottom heating. Sous vide usually implies a water bath.
Hi Tpassin,
I think you're right. I'll test that today.
Thanks!
I don't understand this table. What is the "cultivated seed"? Does that mean to take 300g of the dough from the last interval and add the new flour and water, or does it mean to take 300g of some pre-existing starter and add new flour and water to that? I'm going to assume it means the first.
I also don't understand the last line. If my assumption is right, then each time you are taking 300g of the last piece of dough and adding four and water to it. After 7 hours it supposedly will have risen , "2.3", "4.3", etc., whatever that measurement means. But in the last line you have 300g of (presumably) the previous dough, you don't add anything to it and it's supposed to rise nearly the same as it did the last time. What were you supposed do to the 300g of dough before starting that last 7 hours?
In addition, does "wheat flour" mean whole grain or low-extraction white flour? And the same for the rye? I realize that you used high-extraction rye and white wheat flour, but what did Calvel mean?.
Hi Tpassin,
"Cultivated seed" is the result from the previous step.
I am assuming "proof level" is the observed rise of the dough, with the numbers being multiples of the initial dough level (ie, I am assuming "proof level 2" means the dough should double in volume). On the last line, having let the dough from the previous step rest for 6 hours, you're done; you have 300g (actually more like 980g - it's implied you throw away the rest) of levain and can start cooking with it.
Prior to the table, it was explained that levain could be produced by "innoculating bread flour," which I took literally; the mixture was explained to be rye and wheat flour. I had also missed that there were a couple of footnotes prior to the table in the text, one explaining the composition of the rye, and the other repeating the information in the table note explaining the hydration in the table, which is higher than Calvel described in the text - it says:
The usual reasons for this is starter related - as in it's not developed - at least not enough to meet your expectations. If it takes that long - it could be weak or not enough - compared to your instructions. Enjoy!
PS - I did not read the book.
So far, we seem to have identified at least two potential issues that might have prevented me from getting usable levain from this formula.
And I have been assuming that "proof level" refers to final dough volume as a multiple of initial dough volume. If anyone has Calvel's text - which I cannot presently legally access without breaking my budget - how does he define "proof level"?
I found a guy on Youtube doing this formula; he's using a proofing box for temp control, but otherwise he seems to be using the same types of flour as I did.
The interesting parts for me are the initial volume of the dough and the final volume at each step. He implies flour type isn't important, which seems to narrow the problem down to the resting temperature.
The type of flour most likely isn't very important. What I see here is an attempt to compress 5 - 7 days of room-temperature development of a new starter into those 54 hours by using a higher temperature. But the culture still has to go through all the stages that a room-temp one does. The initial gas production has nothing to do with yeast, and is the product of unwanted bacteria. The bacteria lower the pH (make the culture more acidic) and a different set of bacterial start to flourish in this more acidic environment. The culture keeps getting more acidic, and at some point the dormant yeast can wake up and multiply. Only the desired LAB continue to thrive at this low pH.
So that first day's rise would depend on what bacteria are present in the flours and how gassy they are - probably nothing to do with yeast.
TomP
like Tom, I would not think the issue is the grade of rye flour. But, to complicate matters, I've had some bad experiences with BRM dark rye and have switched to exclusively using a local brand here in NY, Farmer Ground Flour. Much, much, much better.
Rob
Up until today (02-Sep-2024) I would have recommend looking at the Old Will Knot Scales web site. They sell a wide variety of household and commercial scales, and have several charts and tools for selecting one that meets one's needs. In your case you have some specific and somewhat contradictory requirements so you could contact their customer service dept to help you select one that gets closest.
Unfortunately when I checked their site today they are having a Store Closing sale. So you may not be able to get individualized customer service, but OTOH you might get a good deal on a technical scale that meets your needs. Very sad day for the home scale-using community.