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I think it's an overstatement to define measurements by volume as "completely idiotic and stupid" given that the majority of recipes do not require the precision of weight measurements and many talented cooks do not measure their ingredients by either popularly accepted standard. Measurement by weight is ideal for baking, but volume and eye measurements are completely adequate for many other kinds of cooking.
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Mar 23, 2014 23:37
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Bob_McBob posted:I tried some "best for bread" flour and the dough fell apart even faster. This is after 3 1/2 minutes on setting 2 with my KA mixer. I'm guessing it's not about to become "soft and slightly sticky" if I knead it for 8-10 minutes like the recipe says? Without knowing anything else it looks like your dough is more of a batter, you can try adding small amounts of flour (very small amounts very slowly) to make it slightly more dry. Alternatively it could just be undermixed. An autolyse and a couple stretch and folds can turn a shaggy batter into a plumb dough.
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Mar 29, 2014 19:22
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Some people feed their starter fruit juice like pineapple or orange I believe. Mine lives on a diet of water and flour and is tangy enough but I find the most robust, tangy flavour comes when I feed it less often. Feeding every 12 hours leads to a "fresher" taste whereas feeding every few days or once a week results in a much more sour loaf. The only thing is I think your starter needs to be strong to live a long time without being fed. When I first started I would forget my starter on the counter and it would basically die but now I have one that's almost a year old and I can leave it for over a week. Usually what happens is a layer of hooch forms on the top and any residue on the edges of the container turns black and smells disgusting (like B.O and feet and stale laundry) but the starter itself stays pure cream coloured and the flavour is much stronger. It's interesting because you can actually see a "line" around the edge of the container where the bad bacteria can't cross. I don't know if this is because of the hooch barrier or because the good bacteria are so strong now that they just kill everything else. What I do to get the starter out is I use a wet napkin to wipe away all the nasty gross stuff, then pour off the hooch being careful not to pour out the starter, put half the starter into a new container and throw away half (I put it in a new container so the old one can be washed), then feed it and leave it alone again. I have no idea how safe this is because the bad bacteria smell just...vile. Utterly vile. But it's also interesting because my attitude about bacteria has changed so much now, it freaks me out far less. When I first started feeding my sourdough I was totally grossed out by it, I hated the smell and frankly felt weird about making bread with it. Now I love the smell of a good stanky sourdough starter and like the bread to be super sour whereas before I really preferred just a subtle tang.
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Apr 19, 2014 19:07
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therattle posted:I like a subtle tang which is why I can't be arsed with sourdough. I just got tired of feeding frequently, changing containers, etc, and tossing out so much when one feeds frequently felt inexcusably wasteful. Leaving it be resulted in a weaker starter with too much tang. I would never be able to maintain it on the counter forever, I put it in the fridge most of the time where it can be left without any care for a long time, and only really take it out and wake it up when I want to make bread. I'll usually leave it out for a few weeks at a time just to develop the flavour. Also it definitely gets weaker the longer it's left without feeding but you could resolve that by a period of more frequent feeding before making the bread.
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Apr 20, 2014 02:36
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XxGirlKisserxX posted:I've made some lovely loafs based on Ken Forkish's methods. This brings tears to my eyes.
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Jan 30, 2015 22:02
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