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Pastimes : Got A Great Recipe To Share????
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To: William H Huebl who wrote (23672)10/18/2012 8:04:58 AM
From: maceng2  Read Replies (1) of 25073
 
Sourdough starter update. Experimental results.

I use a starter made using water and a 50:50 mix of organic spelt and rye flour. No other ingredients are used to make the starter yeast cells hardy to that environment only. It been running for a few months now.

Although the starter is very active, running amok on each new addition of flour and water, I still only get one good rise out of it making bread. The second rise runs out of steam, and I am used to running three rises to make fluffy bread without using any oil or fats.

The bread I make does not use any salt or sweet ingredients like sugar. I wanted to know the effects of these ingredients. Previous reading suggested salt inhibited the yeast activity. naturally sugar would be expected to promote it.

METHOD

I put a level teaspoon of starter onto four wine glasses. I added a level teaspoon each of rye flour and spelt flour and a teaspoon of water to each glass as well. I then left one glass as is (control) added a quarter tspn of salt to the next, a quarter teaspoon of sugar to the next, and a quarter tspn of both salt and sugar to the final glass. The glasses were left in a warm place overnight.

These concentrations of sugar and salt are high, much higher then would be seen in a normal bread mix.

RESULTS
The amounts used were small and the contents still liquid so no rising was seen. The activity was measured the next day (approx 8 hours later) by listening to the crackling activity from the carbon dioxide bubbles given off. The results were clearly different.

The control was the least active one crackle every few seconds.
The next most active was the salt mix.
The sugar mix only was very much more active with a continuous stream of crackles.
The salt and sugar mix was very active indeed. The most active of the four glasses.

So it looks as if I will be adding a little salt and sweetness to my sourdough mix as I add the starter. The starter will remain without these extra ingredients to ensure its ability to react with the flour is maximized and it remains hardy to organic flour environment.

I will maybe refine this experiment to repeat with small amounts of dough instead of the minute amounts in the wine glasses. The results were clear though.
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