Yeast Diary - April 22, 2020
Apr. 22nd, 2020 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nezchanSo before I get going on my revised yeast diary, I just want to give a quick post-mortem (in the literal sense) for my sourdough adventure.
Needless to say, it turned out poorly.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I honestly have come to hate the sourdough process, and I resent being pushed toward it by circumstances (i.e., the overall commercial yeast shortage, although I hear that's starting to recover). Sourdough is great if it's part of an off-grid lifestyle or for those who are really into the challenge of it all. For someone who just wants a damn loaf of sandwich bread, it's far too much complication, work, and an inevitable long string of failures. I'm not into that.
More immediately, i made some mistakes with the starter. Primarily to do with making it far too watery. I do understand where I went wrong. When transitioning from fermented raisin water to a flour-based starter, I should have not added a flour-water mixture, but rather replaced the water in that mixture with raisin water. But I had no idea what consistency I was shooting for, and ended up with a less useful product in the end. I suppose I still could have rehabilitated it, but I'd been basically throwing good ingredients away for more than a week at that point, and I had no appetite to keep doing it in service of a project I wasn't committed to in the first place.
So I threw it away.
And that was that for a few days. Until last night, when I was watching some cooking videos that went a whole different direction with a water-based starter.
So here I am, trying again. But not with bread in mind. Sourdough will remain an undiscovered country for me, and I'm at peace with that.
Therefore, on my desk now sits a litre bottle 3/4 full of ordinary tap water (I discovered last time that Ottawa water is not so chlorinated as to kill yeast) with a few raisins and a little white sugar resting in the bottom. The raisins are from the same purchase as my last attempt, so I know for sure they have a viable yeast living on them. Hopes are high!
My intention is rather than put the raisins in all at once, I'll add a few each day along with a little sugar. From what I've learned, you end up with a stronger culture if you ramp up over several days than if you just toss it all in at once. I expect by Sunday or Monday (April 26 or 27), I'll have a viable culture that I can then maintain by pouring off and topping the water off, then adding some more sugar.
Day Zero photo on Instagram. Not very impressive yet, I'm afraid. But it'll get there, I'm sure.
Needless to say, it turned out poorly.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I honestly have come to hate the sourdough process, and I resent being pushed toward it by circumstances (i.e., the overall commercial yeast shortage, although I hear that's starting to recover). Sourdough is great if it's part of an off-grid lifestyle or for those who are really into the challenge of it all. For someone who just wants a damn loaf of sandwich bread, it's far too much complication, work, and an inevitable long string of failures. I'm not into that.
More immediately, i made some mistakes with the starter. Primarily to do with making it far too watery. I do understand where I went wrong. When transitioning from fermented raisin water to a flour-based starter, I should have not added a flour-water mixture, but rather replaced the water in that mixture with raisin water. But I had no idea what consistency I was shooting for, and ended up with a less useful product in the end. I suppose I still could have rehabilitated it, but I'd been basically throwing good ingredients away for more than a week at that point, and I had no appetite to keep doing it in service of a project I wasn't committed to in the first place.
So I threw it away.
And that was that for a few days. Until last night, when I was watching some cooking videos that went a whole different direction with a water-based starter.
So here I am, trying again. But not with bread in mind. Sourdough will remain an undiscovered country for me, and I'm at peace with that.
Therefore, on my desk now sits a litre bottle 3/4 full of ordinary tap water (I discovered last time that Ottawa water is not so chlorinated as to kill yeast) with a few raisins and a little white sugar resting in the bottom. The raisins are from the same purchase as my last attempt, so I know for sure they have a viable yeast living on them. Hopes are high!
My intention is rather than put the raisins in all at once, I'll add a few each day along with a little sugar. From what I've learned, you end up with a stronger culture if you ramp up over several days than if you just toss it all in at once. I expect by Sunday or Monday (April 26 or 27), I'll have a viable culture that I can then maintain by pouring off and topping the water off, then adding some more sugar.
Day Zero photo on Instagram. Not very impressive yet, I'm afraid. But it'll get there, I'm sure.
