When to use your starter for baking

I think that one of the hardest things to master with natural yeast baking is knowing the best time to use your starter for maximum results.  For beginners, I always suggest a set regimen of the 3-4 day period following a feeding (at least 24 hours after a feeding), but if you pay attention to your starter activity, you can learn to take your cues from the starter itself. 

Starter that is “happy” (as I like to call a healthy starter) is very active, and very bubbly.  After a feeding, the starter will bubble up happily, doubling it’s volume, and then recede as it consumes its food source.

 

The best time to use your starter for baking bread is the day or two it first begins to recede in the jar.

There are two ways to tell when your starter is “receding.” 

1. You will notice that the top portion of your starter has fewer bubbles than the rest of the starter.  That is because the starter is beginning to collapse on itself.

 

This starter was so happy it rose all the way to the top of my jar.  Can you see how there are more, bigger bubbles in the lower half of the starter than the top?

1. You will notice small streaks along the glass where the starter has slid down as it recedes.

 

Again, this starter was full almost to overflowing after I fed it.  Can you see the small streaks along the glass where it has collapsed some?

Let’s look at why this is the best time for baking. 

Starter organisms have metabolisms just like we do, only much slower because they live in the fridge.  (they can go for days between meals)

With our own metabolisms, the best way to stay happy and well-balanced in our diet is to eat the right foods at the right time.  Periods of extended lack of food, or excessive bingeing make us unstable and very cranky.  But, if we allow our bodies to consume what we have eaten, then provide more of the right foods BEFORE our blood sugar dips, our bodies will function at optimal capacity. 

The same goes for starters.  A starters metabolism is at its peak just after it has digested its food and before it gets overly hungry and cranky (sour).  When you use your starter in baking at this point.  You will get optimal flavor and optimal height from your bread.  In a bread dough, your starter will start gobbling up all the new “food” (it is hungry, after all) and producing big happy bubbles in your dough.

Here are two reasons naturally leavened bread will sometimes fail to rise:

1. Your starter has gone too long between feedings, and too many of your yeasts have died.  (look in the trouble-shooting section for ways to remedy this) There are simply not enough of them to produce good bubbles in your dough.  This bread will turn out dense and often sour from the imbalance of yeasts to lactobacilli.
2. You are using your starter too soon after it has been fed.  If your starter organisms haven’t had time to reproduce and consume all the food in the container, you may not be getting as much actual starter in what you measure out as you think.  For example you might measure out 1/2 cup for a recipe, not realizing that only 1/4 cup of that amount actually has starter organisms in it and the rest is just uneaten “food” (wheat and water).

So keep an eye on your starter (I keep mine in the fridge door where I can see it every day), watch for the signs, and you will be very glad you did!

This is one day after the earlier pictures were taken.  See how far it has fallen?  I can still use this starter well in a recipe and get fluffy, great tasting loaves.  Once it has started developing liquid on top (probably tomorrow or the next day) there is the possibility my loaves will be slightly heavier and stronger flavored.

Troubleshooting: Changing starter flour & Feeding a sick starter

Ok Helen, this one’s for you . 

I get a LOT of emails from people needing to troubleshoot their starters.  It is a process that takes a fair amount of dedication and I always do my best to help out.  Since so many of the emails are similar in their questions, I  decided to start posting the email conversations here, to help others with the same questions.

This one is from Suzanne, (who gave me permission to post our conversation) and encompasses the subject of many a trouble-shooting email.  It addresses two important questions:

1.  Will changing flour type affect my start?:  Wheat, white, spelt, kamut, oat, all of these flours can be used to “house” your start, what is the best way to make the transition & why?

2.  When my starter is not doing well, how often should I feed it? 

Dear Melissa,

I finally began the process of the start I received using spelt flour. I added water then flour in what I thought was the right amounts and left it on the counter overnight. It did not seem to grow. It became watery very quickly so I took some out and added even amounts of water and flour, but still no sucess. I am not sure what I did wrong.

Suzanne

The starter Suzanne received was made with hard white wheat.  She had immediately begun feeding it spelt flour, which is a cousin of wheat, but different in many ways.

---

Suzanne,

maybe don't give up on your new starter right away.  I know its hard to use perfectly good flour on what seems like a lost cause, but the yeasts and lactobacilli in a starter sometimes will go dormant if they sense a new food source.  They do this just in case the food source is not "friendly."  Sometimes just being persistent will bring them back out of dormancy after a week or two.  I usually suggest to people that they change flour type slowly, over a few feedings so it doesn't "trip the alarm" and send the yeasties into hiding. 

Melissa

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Melissa,

So how often should I feed it? Every time I see the water?

Suzanne

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Suzanne,

Actually, feed it every 3 days.  When you have to reduce it (so the feedings dont overflow your container) make sure not to dump out more than half the starter.  Here's why:

The liquid is actually a sign that your starter is alive.  It is a byproduct of the lactobacilli.  What you are trying to do is coax the yeasts out of dormancy and encourage them to grow.  The organisms are not always evenly distributed throughout your starter, so dumping out too much starter at a time could mean you are dumping out most of your yeast population. 

You can also leave your starter out on the counter for about an hour (not more than that) before or after a feeding for a couple feedings to help speed up the growth of the yeasts.  Let me know how things are going after a couple weeks!

Melissa

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Hello Melissa,

Well it worked. Thanks for giving me the guidance I needed to get it working. I just made bread for the third time and the family said it was better that the last. In between the 2nd bread and this last one we made lots of crepes which the kids love. The waffles work and taste great too. In fact I had so much that it did overflow and I now have two containers so I suppose I need can make that one sour.

Thanks, Suzanne

The Perfect Cornbread (a non-starter recipe)

Sometimes you just want cornbread, you know?  I for one, am very picky about the quality of my cornbread.  I can’t handle the dry, crumbly stuff, or the super sweet cake-like concoctions.  I want moist, barely savory sustenance that can handle a good smear of butter and honey on top.  Bread that is the perfect compliment to a steaming bowl of chili or barbequed chicken hot off the grill.  I’m drooling already.

And since I am more a child of the moment than is good for me, that craving for cornbread usually means I don’t have the time to use natural yeast to properly soak the cornmeal and flour like I should.  This recipe is cheap, easy to make, and utilizes a lot of ingredients that can be purchased in bulk to be used for food storage.  It’s a real winner.

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup plus 2 T flour (whole wheat or all purpose)

1 tsp corn starch

1 T baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp salt

Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl.  Then in a separate bowl, cream together butter, sugar and syrup.

4 T butter (or earth balance spread)

2 T sugar

1 1/2 T maple syrup

Add eggs one at a time, then add remaining wet ingredients.

3 eggs

1 can corn kernels (or 1 cup defrosted frozen kernels)

2/3 cup buttermilk (or yogurt/kefir)

1 cup milk (or plain soy/rice/almond milk)

Add dry ingredients to wet mixture, combining until just moist.  Do not over-mix. 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and grease an 8 inch round pan.  Pour batter into pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Smother and enjoy!

When Bread gets Crumby- Make Dinner!

Over the next few weeks I am hoping to post some great ways for pinching pennies when it comes to meals using whole grains.  This week’s focus: using leftover bread to make your own bread crumbs!

How often do you throw away the unwanted “ends” of a loaf of bread?  If you are learning to bake with natural yeast (or learning to bake at all, for that matter), you may have entire loaves that don’t quite make the cut.  When this happens, don’t throw anything away! 

Odds and ends can always be quickly transformed into a very useful kitchen staple: bread crumbs.  Here’s all you need to do:

1. Toast the bread (the more thinly sliced, the better)

2.  Set it out on the counter to cool and harden.

3.  Once it is COMPLETELY dry, put it in a food processor and pulse a few times until you have crumbs of the desired consistency.

4.  Store the crumbs in a labeled ziploc bag or tupperware container.

My cookbook has more ideas for seasoning and using these bread crumbs, but alas I can’t share all that here. 

The other night I used bread crumbs from the remnants of a few different loaves to make Chicken Fingers for dinner.  The recipe was super quick and easy.

CRUMBY CHICKEN FINGERS

1. Defrost as many chicken breasts as you will need for your family.

2.  Slice each breast into strips or nugget-sized pieces.

3.  Crack a few eggs into a ziploc bag and add the chicken pieces to the bag.

4. Close the bag and shake the chicken around until each piece is well coated in egg.

5.  Pour a cup or two of homemade bread crumbs into a shallow pan.

6.  Add salt and pepper, as well as any other seasonings that might suit your meal.

7. One by one, remove chicken pieces from bag and coat in bread crumb mixture.

8. Place finished bread crumbs in a greased pan or on a baking rack.

*Optional: for extra crispiness, place a small pat of butter on each chicken finger to melt and crisp up the crumbs.

9.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes (depending on thickness of chicken fingers) or until the chicken is cooked through. 

I served this dinner with lightly steamed fresh green beans and food storage potatoes grilled with garden vegetables tossed in Italian seasoning and crumbled asiago cheese.  It was a huge hit!

Christmas Neighbor Gifts: Bread Geek Style

Well, I did actually survive Christmas.  With only one photo shoot left to go, it looks like I might actually survive being published as well.   

One side effect of all these pricey photo shoots is that cash is a little thin on the ground around our place.  This was our first Christmas in our new neighborhood, and despite our apparent poverty, I really didn’t want to send a less-than-friendly vibe to our neighbors by not participating in neighborly gift giving.  So of course, bread came to the rescue yet again.

Using what was left of our white flour supply, some commercial yeast I had at the back of the freezer (I had used all my ready-to-use starter for the photo shoots), and some sour cream, I went to work. 

I made the Cheaters Sourdough recipe I posted over the summer while on vacation, but added some Italian seasoning in place of the rosemary (I had used all that in the photo shoots as well).  By the end of the day I had baked about twenty small boules that looked wonderful and smelled delicious. 

Using what I had around the house, I cut up some brown paper lunch bags to wrap around the bread, secured it with red yarn from the craft bucket, and attached little tags I made from some sheets of old scrapbooking paper. 

My kids and I put on our santa hats, put the bread into baskets and went knocking doors until our gifts were all given.  As much as I love christmas sweets, nothing puts a look of awe and hunger on someone’s face as when they are handed a crackly loaf of bread still warm from the oven.  I think this may have to be my new gift-giving tradition, especially since anything less would be a disappointment now!

 

Getting Published: A dream and a nightmare all in one...

I don't know if I mentioned here that my manuscript was accepted by Cedar Fort publishing, and our book (my co-author is Caleb Warnock) will be released this next August. 

I don't know if the reality of it all has really sunk in.  The deadlines are real enough (we have to shoot all the photography for the book by the second week in January!!!) but I guess since I don't know what it "feels" like to be published, that part of my future still seems slightly fictional. 

The funny thing is, that when the reality does really start to take hold, I have the most incredible nightmares.  One nightmare had me on the local morning news snippet, and EVERYTHING went wrong.  None of the bread would rise and I ended up on television with a bunch of cracker-like loaves. I woke up in a cold sweat.

Last night I had the best one yet.  Giant, blood-sucking spiders chased me through my house and into my kitchen, where (horror of horrors) I found that my starter had died an ignominous death on the kitchen counter.  I woke up and ran to the kitchen to check on Peeta, who was sleeping happily in the refrigerator door.  Whew.  You really know you're a bread geek if the idea of blood-sucking spiders is an afterthought in a nightmare where your starter dies. 

Well, the run through the gauntlet continues.  Over the next few weeks I've got to do photo shoots for the whole cookbook (which means I have to cook everything first), select photos and decide where they go in the manuscript, and have christmas somewhere in between.  Wahoo!

The Nitty Gritty on Phytic Acid

One of these days, I am going to do a whole entire stinking long post about Phytic Acid and spill my guts about what I know.  I will save that post for when I finally get the internet in my new home and don't have to take up space at my mom-in-laws (or in the McDonalds parkinglot- free wifi...) to get anything done. 

In the meantime, this girl has done an excellent post about some of the most important aspects of Phytic Acid, and why natural yeast (she calls it sourdough) takes care of those problems.  check it out!

http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/04/02/do-bread-cereal-cause-cavities-reversing-dental-decay-with-food/comment-page-1/#comment-148045