Starters for WW loaves
Hi,
I'd love some advice about managing starters for WW bread. I only bake once a week: is it worth storing my starter at 50 or 60F, to maintain a bit more life in in? I also saw The Bread Code recommend using stiff starters for WW, to slow down the bacterial/acid development.
I'm regularly baking 85% WW and 15% white hearth loaves.
I'm aiming to catch my bulk fermentation at 1.5x but life gets in the way and I keep missing it until 2x. I think I'm losing a bit of oven spring, because of that. (I know, this is my fault...)
To slow down on my fermentation rate, I'm also wondering if I shouldn't use a levain at all, or significantly stiffen it up, instead...
Item | Flour g | Water % | Water g | Total g |
Starter | 13 | 100.0% | 13 | 25 |
Levain | 100 | 100.0% | 100 | 200 |
White | 138 | 70.0% | 97 |
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Wheat | 750 | 83.0% | 623 |
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Totals | 1000.5 | 83.1% | 831.6 |
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Mix H2O | 719 |
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White flour | 138 | KABF |
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WW flour | 750 | Sprouted WW Lindley |
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Salt | 15.0 | 1.50% |
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Yeast | 1.0005 | 0.10% |
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Levain (WW) | 225 | 22.50% |
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Bassinage | 90 | (in 3 mixings) |
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2 Starter refreshments, doubles
9am autolyse, DT=79F & mix the WW levain 2pm mix everything by hand, 4 S&Fs4pm bulk in fridge(Life happens)7:30pm over 2x rise, shape & retard
Thank you!Sev
Sev, sorry , I had trouble following your numbers, but did want to respond as to WW. I use 100% home milled whole wheat, and yes, WW ( store bought or home milled ) is much faster than AP or BF. When I refresh my starter, if I am using AP, I refresh in the morning at 1:1:1 and by dinner time it is ready. If using WW, even store bought, it is 1:3:3 and the starter is ready before dinner time. One thing I have found is that if the starter is ready and I use it, I don't get any sour tang. If instead , I refresh it, and once it is ready, I put it in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours before I use it in a loaf, it gives a nice tang ( though some don't like the tang ). My general maintenance is to refresh just once before baking, then once I have finished for the week, I put the spent starter in the fridge for the week, then repeat.
BTW, I made a few loaves with sprouted flour - I found that the taste was sweet, in a good way, but it was more challenging to get a good result, so i no longer bake with it.
I have the same experience as barryvabeach, and so also leave my starter in the fridge, taking as much as I need to make a levain for each loaf, and replacing the starter when it's finished (about a week or two). A few things I do to slow fermentation down: 1) use less levain in the dough; 2) apportion most of the white flour to the levain; 3) rise it in a slightly cooler place. The first method gives me the most control.
To my mind, using a stiff levain results in a less sour loaf due to less LAB, but I'm not sure it slows down fermentation significantly. Mixing your cold starter directly in the final dough, rather than using a room-temp levain of the same weight, would result in a slower initial BF due to temperatures, but eventually result in a significantly more sour loaf, especially if you only use the starter once a week. I see that currently 12.7% of your flour is pre-fermented and you're finding it too fast, so if you're trying the direct cold starter method (and I think the benefit of this is time and convenience, rather than slowing down BF), maybe it might be interesting to start with a more conservative 10% (176g) and go from there?
P.S. You can also slow it down by removing or reducing the amount of yeast added?
-Lin
Barry & Lin - thanks for the tips and the complement!
Lin - to your point, I wonder if a stiffer starter will allow me to retard the bulk fermentation a bit, while keeping the acid in check. Not slowing the down the fermentation speed, but rather, allowing me to cheat it by cooling it down without the usual spike in acid/tang.
I forgot to note:
I refrigerate my starter, then feed it at 1:2:2 two times before friday night. Then I make my overnight levain and bake on Saturday. I stopped using the yeast spike -- I should remove that from the formula.
Definitely going to try halving the levain!
Thanks for the additional details, Sev. Agree with you, a stiffer levain will result in less sourness, as will a higher % of AP in it. I suppose you have a clear idea of how much sourness you want in your bread, because there's always the option of not doing a cold retard after shaping. I wonder if halving the levain might be a little too much - especially because it seems to me you don't want additional sourness. Perhaps try with a smaller adjustment first?
I blew it and really underproofed my loaves during bulk. You were right, that was too drastic of a reduction in levain! Will have to try this again next week and report back.
That's a pity! Was hoping for some good news. Do let us know again how it goes next week.
> I also saw The Bread Code recommend using stiff starters for WW, to slow down the bacterial/acid development.
This is of course true. However, you can salt the preferment at 0.2-1% range to reduce activity. The reason I say this is softness of crumb. Based on some article I saw from Didier Rosada, I did 2 test bakes of an otherwise identical formula: one with with a 65% hydration biga and one with 100% hydration poolish. The total formula was identical. The difference in texture was remarkable to me - identical process, but the poolish one was softer, the biga one was chewier.
Now I salt my whole wheat preferment at around 1% and it's fine. I'm 100% sold now on 100% hydration preferment for whole wheat breads:)
I see that your question was not on the build, but storing the starter. My bad, my comment / test bake applies only to the build & it has nothing to do with storing the starter. Sorry. Serves me right for scanning TFL on the side while in boring work meetings:)
I think Sev wants to maintain a healthy starter and slow down bulk fermentation at the same time (without too much increase in sourness, I think). Your point would help with the latter without having to change the starter. I've never tried it; should give it a go!
Make that two re TFL and meetings :)
Agree with Lin. Your point is very interesting.
I have been experimenting a lot with SD 'shaggy' biga and found the technique very good for use with flours with idiosyncratic gluten development (e.g. white spelt, durum wheat/rimacinata, low protein AP). But with wholemeal (rye, spelt, wheat) I am not sure it helps as much, although the resulting loaves have been perfectly good.
I think I will experiment a little and compare across SD biga and liquid SD pre-ferment along the lines you suggest and see what can be learned. I like the idea of using salt to modulate the enzyme activity in the high hydration SD pre-ferment. I'll try it in my next bake.
What is the "shaggy Biga"? I've not heard this one before, can you pls point me at a reliable link? Thanks!!
Probably worth reading the entire (by now very large) thread about this, but to go to see what it is like, take a look at this posting. I also describe the process a little further up.
I have also posted on this in the blog.
GV - appreciate the salt tip, will try. Maybe I'll go back to building an overnight WW levain and salt it to slow it.
Lin - Yes, you got what I'm trying to do: slow down the ferment without going too far on acidity.
Renee - Looking forward to reading the thread. I haven't been doing bigas/poolishes, but that might be something to explore for my next steps.
Ultimately, I'm trying to open up a crumb a bit -- if you have tips beyond the starter, I would appreciate them! Maybe that's for a new thread, though.
Topline Results:
Nothing super enlightening.
Catching the bulk at 1.5x and a fridge-cold proof led to the best outcome in this batch.
Can't really tell if using an 80%-hy starter really made any difference. Perhaps it slowed down my bulk, a little bit.
Pretty mild taste, I miss a bit of the flavor from my overnight levain builds.
Keeping the white flour the dough, versus in the levain (as I did previously), didn't really give any noticeable white-flour benefits.
Next week goals:
Time the starter/levain to peak when I'm mixing.
78.5% total hy
WW stiff levain @ 80% hy
5.5 hr bulk
No autolyze
Mixed water in batches
No yeast spike (obvs..)
11:30 mix all
1:00 SF x4, DT=70, Room temp=75
2:00 bulking
3:00 some frog eyes forming at the bottom
3:40 many frog eyes
5:00 Risen 1.5x, shape a retard
Loaf 1 Retarded Proof @ 55-deg F
Domed, but flaccid in the pan and flat cook.
Loaf 2 Retarded Proof @ 40-deg F (fridge)
Ok shape.
Starter:
Stored at 55-F
Whole wheat from USA mid atlantic farms.
Two feedings: 40g starter : 80g flour : 64g water
(do we write this as 1:2:80% ?)
And mea culpa, when it peaked, I kept it in the fridge for 12 hours, before the build.
g
H2O g
%
White
Starter
12 g
10 g
80.0%
WW
Levain
70 g
56 g
80.0%
Levain H2O
56 g
Total Levain
148 g
WW
Flour
750 g
608 g
81.0%
White
Flour
138 g
90 g
65.0%
Salt
15 g
1.5%
Yeast
0 g
Water
697 g
Flour
Water
Hydration
TOTALS
970 g
763 g
78.6%
Doming after proofing:
Loaf 1: (retard proof at 55F)
Loaf 2: (retard in fridge, maybe ~40F?)
Hi Sev, thanks for the update. I've become really invested in your bread :) A couple of questions:
1) It appears to me that the loaf proofed at room temp might be overproofed. How long did you proof it? I wonder if the gluten had degraded too much leading to the spread.
2) You write that you miss the flavour of the overnight levain build. Remind me: are you not currently also building your levain overnight after two starter refreshments? I was under the impression that you'd made two changes to your levain this time: lowered the hydration and changed the % of white flour in it.
3) I am also a little confused about the composition of the levain. According to your formula and your text, your levain was all WW. I think a full WW levain actually leads to even more activity (for me it peaks faster), so to slow down fermentation I would actually increase the % of white flour in the levain. I think this is really only an interesting point if you tend to end up using the levain when it is already past its peak (and hence acidic); your % of PFF is quite low so I wouldn't be too concerned about how it affects BF per se.
I agree with your next steps: catch levain at peak or slightly before peak, and really make sure it has got good activity. In terms of flavour - will await your clarification on the overnight levain build. I also think that reducing final proof time at RT compared to the most recent attempt might give you better rise and less spread.
-Lin
Pardon my imprecisions!
I'll start by saying my overall goal isn't great bread, per se, but the healthiest bread (for my family), which for me, means whole wheat. And then working within WW's constraints to make it as appealing as I can.
Q1: "Loaf 1" was given a final, retarded proof, overnight, in a fridge set to 55F / 12.7C using a PID power cord controller. (It wasn't a room temp proof.) Clearly totally overproofed, as soon as I placed it in the dutch oven. Although the doming looked ok in the banneton, to me.
Q2: My apologies, I was very unclear. I've been using 225g total preferment for about a year now, based on Vanessa Kimball's book. I started with white levain 25g:100g:100g, but I moved to WW with same ratios, to increase the WW in my breads. In the breads ABOVE, I got lazy and just used amounts directly from my starter jar! (Life interruptions are probably the biggest obstacle to this process....). Based on taste, I'll probably go back to building a levain, and look for other ways to slow the BF.
Q3: I agree that the WW levain ferments way too fast for my process. I moved away from the white AP flour levain so that I could use all the white flour in the main build, so that the gluten can help with the rise, rather than degrade during the levain fermentation process.
What I might also try next week is building a levain at 55F/12.7C, to slow it down and catch it at peak. Or salt. I have to restrain myself to only tweak one variable..... very hard..... And I might try to BF at 55F, as well. Just trying to explore the "grey" space between room temperature (70s in F / 20s in C) and fridge temperatures (40s in F / 4s in C)
And furthermore, my stiffer starter made all my discard recipes much more complicated. Might have to stop playing around with the starter, and do my experimentation with the levain.
Thanks, Sev. Seems like it's back to the drawing board.
1) Agree that using a fresh levain at peak or slightly before peak might give more reliable results than using the starter itself, especially because this is largely a weekly bake. So let's do that again.
2) I think it is possible to get the results you want with a 100% hydration WW levain, although I tend to prefer 80-90%. But more importantly we need to use it just before or at peak. I find that using levain that is as close in temperature to desired DT gives more reliable results. Why not vary the feed ratio rather than the temperature to control the duration of fermentation? Also note that letting the levain ferment at lower temperatures will result in more sourness. Also consider salting it, as suggested above. I know that adding a small amount of sugar goes a long way in reducing sourness and slowing down fermentation, but I know you might not want to consider that for your reasons stated above.
3) I really think that shaping at 1.5x and doing a cold retard in the fridge can remain part of the experimentation. I tend to do same day bakes because the family really dislikes sourness, but I think that if you like the flavour of the cold proof you should just stick with it. I think fermentation happens too rapidly at the in between temp you've described to give full control.
4) With these in place, and a lower levain %, your BF surely will slow down. And I think if we want to slow it down further, then this is the easiest variable to play with.
5) You mentioned improving the crumb while retaining a high % of WW. For a start, there is the option of kneading a lot more at the mixing stage. But really a lot more. I'm a somewhat lazy hand-mixer, so I always do too little of this, but when I do invest, I see the results. There are many other little modifications we could do, but I wonder if this will already help.
-Lin
I have to go back and try this again, since I wasn't working with my usual flour -- I wasn't able to dial in the hydration. But I was definitely able to catch the bulk much earlier than normal, by using a syringe for an aliquot jar. I think these were a bit under fermented (despite bigger holes at the top?) and under-hydrated but it was interesting to see the loaves hold a tighter shape.
Syringe is an easy way to squeeze excess air out and eye-ball the target point for ending BF.
Whole wheat starter on the left and white starter on the right.
Seems to me that there was less spreading and better rise compared to previous loaves! Under fermentation does give bigger holes near the top, but I think it was very minor here. I hope these tasted good!
P.s. Doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the two starters, or perhaps I can't see it properly from my phone. Do you discern anything?
-Lin
I could discern no differences that make it worth maintaining two starters. But I want to do this with my usual flour before really concluding. At this stage I'm beginning to suspect that -- at least for my bread -- the levain build has as much or more to do with flavor, than the starter.
Having just one healthy, not-too-acidic starter from the fridge that is refreshed at least once a week is sufficient, I think. That gives you lots of options to make active, diverse levains. I did find that changing the kind of levain did have an impact on the flavour of the loaf, even if % levain is low. I felt that the most strongly when making my durum loaves. Using a white levain resulted in a far flatter loaf than using a durum levain.
Waiting for your next update as usual.
-Lin