posted 2 years ago
Hello.
Let me share what I've found in the last year about the starter.
Wild yeast, which I suspect you are talking about, is surprisingly resilient. Even when your starter looks spoiled, it is still alife. The only thing a starter needs to come back to a healthy life is fresh food, meaning flour and water.
Then, the starter produces acids which in small quantities are fine, but in excess they become sour. There's lactic and acetic acids mostly. If you keep your started at room temperature (20-25ºC), then lactic acid is dominant and the flavour becomes milky. If you keep it in the fridge, then acetic is the dominant and the flavour becomes like vinegar. Normally, this doesn't matter for the starter, although it may smell folly: When you add all the flour for making your dough, the vinegar flavour is less noticeable. But this is important when developing flavours in the dough; for this reason I don't ferment my dough in the fridge anymore. I do it at room temperature, and only when the dough has risen I put it to rest in the zero zone of the fridge, where fermentation is almost halted.
If your family doesn't like the flavour, try this:
- Use only white flour for a while. Whole grain adds sour flavour.
- Refresh your starter before using. This is, start with a very small quantity, say 5 grams of wild yeast starter, preferably a biga with 60% hydratation (don't worry if this starter looks bad), then refresh it with 10 grams of white flour and 10 grams of water. When it bubbles (remember, at room temperature), refresh it again with 25 grams of flour and 25 grams of water. When it bubbles again you'll have 75 grams of a very fresh starter, perfect for a 900g bread.
- Batch your dough when the starter is at its peak of activity. Let your dough ferment at room temperature until it rises. (In this step I'd take 5-10 grams of the dough to be used as starter for the next one and I'd keep it in the fridge). Keep the dough in the coldest zone of the fridge until you can bake it, but avoid long fermentations in the fridge since this adds more sour flavour.
- Use more salt, up to 3%. Salt slows down fermentation, it will take more time to rise, but on the other side it will be tasting good for longer.
- Use a little bit of fat. Fat also slows down fermentation. I usually add a couple of olive oil spoons, but butter or lard might do too.
- If you are going to use salt and fat, then you can speed up the process by making a prefermentation without the additives. Just one hour is usually enough. Then you can add your salt, fats and extra water until the dough is elastic but still maintain the shape.
- Do not overbake it, if your crust is too tanny, it will be more sour too.
- Let it cool completely after baking, since baking is still happening outside the oven. But as soon as your bread is cool, eat what you want and freeze the rest. If you leave your bread outside it will continue to develop acids (which is good, allowing this kind of bread to stay in good shape for more days, but your family might not find the flavour pleasant after a couple of days).
Currently I'm baking a big sourdough bread every week, then I slice it and freeze it. I have an almost fresh slice to eat for several days. I've tried without the fridge, and it can be eaten for five days, maybe six, but the flavour is not the same.
- If if is still too acid, maybe try adding some soda to the dough.
It's a lot of work, I admit. But once you can sell your mild bread to your family, you can slowly let them eat it slightly more sour every week, until they like it. It's a learning process. Sour flavours are hard for the kids, but they eventually learn.
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