u/BreadBakingAtHome — reddlx

Naturally Leavened (Soudough) 50% Millers Choice Landrace - Home milled

Just sharing the small joy of this bake.

I've been baking bread for a very long time and bake every three days.

I fell into a rut. A good rut, but a rut never the less.

This last couple of months I've been shaking things up a bit.

This has 16% leaven in it. Used straight from the fridge. Yes, it works, that bubbly starter thing is a bit of a myth. It is the microbe levels that matter and also the leaven not being too acidic.

I did a lot less slap and folding and cut an hour off the bulk fermentation time. Down to 5 hours including proofing. The crumb is a lot better. I had been overworking the dough before without realising. The bran can cut up the gluten network like small knives.

The other thing I did was dropped the fermentation temperature to 24C which is a lot slower than my usual 28C.

The loaf was baked in a cast iron cloche at 230C for 38 minutes, my usual time. This loaf is much darker than usual because there are more sugars in the dough from the cooler shorter fermentation. I need to cut a few minutes off the bake next time.

I must be a slow learner, but I still enjoy the adventure of bread baking.

u/BreadBakingAtHome — 2 days ago

▲ 1 r/qobuz

Can anyone tell me what custom sorting is on the PC app in playlist sorting?

In have been trying to get my head around the new PC app.

Favourites (heart) seems to be all but dysfunctional with no way to select it for playlists and selecting it as a filter seems to bring everything up

My main issue is what is the custom sorting in playlists? How can I customise the list? How do I use this?

Any help appreciated. Thanks

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u/BreadBakingAtHome — 4 days ago

▲ 10 r/HomeMilledFlour+1 crossposts

Heritage Wheatmeal with No-Feed Natural Leaven (Sourdough)

This is made from Millers Choice a Heritage Landrace Wheat. It's home milled.

I like lighter loaves and so mixed it 50:50 with a White Bread Flour of moderate strength.

Heritage flours give loaves with much more flavour, though they cannot develop gluten as strong as a modern flour and the loaves tend toward lower volume.

3% Butter was added to soften the crumb and extend its keeping qualities.

This loaf was made from a Natural Leven (Sourdough starter in the States) that had been stored in the fridge for 4 days. It was taken from the fridge and used without feeding and ripening. It was simply incorporated into the dough build.

By flour weight 8.5% natural leaven was used. That is 51g in 600g flour total. Yes, it worked well even at that low inoculation.

This is my standard method. The advantage is that I get that feed and wait time (4 hours) to increase my fermentation time to 6 / 8 hours. That gives me more time to develop more loaf flavour. There is no discernible difference in the end result doing it this way as oppose to feeding and ripening before building the dough. The reason is that what counts is the microbe population, not how active it is.

After using the leaven I feed it and put it back in the fridge at 5 deg. C. Where it ferments away very slowly building up a microbe population for the next bake. I bake every 2-3 days.

The loaves are not sour, but that comes down to fermenting the dough at 24C - 25C. Fermenting at 28C - 30C would make the loaf more acidic.

I hope someone finds this interesting.

u/BreadBakingAtHome — 8 days ago

▲ 2 r/Breadit

No feed starter bread

This is a no-feed starter Emmer loaf with 3% butter added to preserve it's freshness. 10% starter was used by flour weight.

Simply put the starter is removed from the fridge, mixed with the flour and water and the dough set to ferment. There is no starter feeding stage before baking.

It is very simple. The natural leaven continues to ferment in the fridge, but very slowly. As soon as it warms up it is fully active. When we feed our starter before baking we are producing a larger yeast and lab population ready to ferment our dough. However, if there is sufficient starter already in the fridge, then no feed is necessary as the microbe population is already there. Yes, the starter does not look bubbly and lively and yes, it is still good to go.

A bubbly starter is just a really rough measure that we have built up enough microbe population to use it. If we leave it too long it is still as or better than when it was bubbly as there is even more microbe population present. The only time it is no longer good is if the yeasts have turned into spores. I explain that below. (Yes, the bubbly starter at peak is a myth.)

This is not a shortcut, or a bodge that is not as good as doing things the traditional way. It is simple science and the dough ferments exactly the same as with a fed starter.

Here is a twist. Use your starter straight from the fridge to make your dough and then feed what is left and put it into the same warm space as the dough. When it is bubbling put it into the fridge for the next loaf. Remember it will continue to ferment very slowly in the fridge. So, if you are not baking for a few days put it into the fridge before it fully ripens.

When will this not work?

Yeast and LABS are seriously tough. Heat will kill them (above 45C - depending on the varieties). In a domestic freezer they are killed in a month or two. A starter that is let go too far becomes too acidic for the microbes. They then go into their dormant, or spore, state. In the right conditions of warmth and food, the spores become active microbes again, but this takes too long for baking. So, if you let your leaven become very acidic in the fridge this will not work. The yeast will have formed into spores, this happens at about pH3. You cannot measure this with a pH meter as there is something called buffering where acids are present but not measured with a pH meter. Titration needs to be used for this. But with a little practice a pH meter could be used as a rough guide. It will read less acidity than what is present. It is better to use taste. Vinegar has a pH of 2.4 - 3.4. Your starter is no good if it tastes as sour as vinegar, but it can be rescued.

Practically our starters never get this sour unless we are pushing the envelope in a very extreme way or neglecting them.

I would be very interested to hear people thought on this.

https://preview.redd.it/61kvwxoak87h1.jpg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07308fb5198df11a805c3f29c6117ec7e5c88816

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u/BreadBakingAtHome — 1 month ago