Author: Neek

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A new creative avenue? A scientific endeavor? Just hungry?

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I’m an artist. I paint. I like the creativity that baking and cooking provide, plus you get to eat what you make. That’s pretty cool.

I like to paint, because hours can go by and something beautiful has emerged while I didn’t even notice. When’s its on, its on. Its the same with designing and building a website, photography, knitting, building furniture, …gardening. The satisfaction is amazing.

Ceramics? Meh. No chemistry. Perhaps I shy away from the gritty clay that tears up your hands… or being wet and cold for hours. However, ceramics and bread-making share many similarities. At their heart, they’re both living mediums molded then baked, emerging as a changed structure ~ completely new and different from their origins. The life within the pre-baked form determines the end result.

Sorry ceramics. It’s not you. It’s me. At this point in life, I’m drawn to the warmth of my oven.

There’s also an intriguing science to bread-making. Only three ingredients are required, but our bodies can’t digest a mass of flour, water, and salt ~ unless that mixture is baked. With such a limited palate, shouldn’t bread be the easiest thing in the world to make? Why doesn’t it come out exactly the same (and exactly the way I want it) every time?

Plus there’s this weird, invisible yeast business.

Yeast is a living entity all around us ~ appearing powdery on red cabbage, living on our skin, and floating in the air. Even if I hadn’t added the cabbage leaves to jump-start June’s creation, there would’ve been natural yeast floating around the kitchen and getting into the flour and water mixture ~ enough to start the fermentation process. Cultivating and nurturing this living element is what intrigues me the most. That, and I’m hungry for a certain kind of bread.

I’m not ready to grow my own wheat, or harvest my own salt or anything (yet ~ ha ha).

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I’m determined to find a way to use more June Steinburg.

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A week of feeding yields about 800g (almost 4 cups) of starter, and I’m still put off by the idea of discarding any.

So. June is on a diet.

1 Tablespoon AP flour
+
1 Tablespoon WW flour
+
2 Tablespoons water

… and I’ve put her in the fridge.

I’m baking about twice a week — a loaf for home, a loaf for the hubby at work, and a couple give-aways for gifts and feedback from friends and neighbors. That means 400g of leaven a week (only 2 Tablespoons of June Steinburg).

You can see where this is going. Right?

Only 2 Tablespoons! Out of 4 Cups!

I want to use 700g of June in the next batch. I’ll try adjusting my flour and water ratios to get the same consistency of dough texture as the successful follow-to-the-letter recipe rounds. If I can get June to pass the float test on her own, without a leaven, I think that will work. Plus, I love that sour taste of really sour, sourdough bread ~ I’m hoping more June with cold fermentation will yield more flavor.

Given that her feedings make her half flour and half water, I should be able to adjust each recipe to accommodate using a high amount of June vs a leaven.

We. Shall. See…

Oh yeah. I’ve started running.

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I’ve been confused.

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Starter and leaven (also known as a Biga) are not the same thing, at least for my base recipe. I’ve been feeding June Steinburg thinking that was enough, but not mixing a leaven.

A leaven is a small amount of starter mixed with a 50/50 blend of flour and water. You let this rise overnight at room-temperature, allowing its volume to increase by about 20%. A spoonful of leaven should float in room-temperature water, and that’s how you know it has enough gas in it to provide good fermentation for your bread.

Creating a leaven also provides a measured water-to-flour ratio that you wouldn’t necessarily get by just using starter.

The problem is, you only need half of the leaven for a recipe that makes two loaves.

FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

I’ve tried two things:

1. Feeding June with the unused half
2. Cutting the recipe in half and mixing a leaven with 100g 50/50 flour + 100g water

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“Wild yeast eats sugar and excretes lactic and acetic acids, producing carbon dioxide during fermentation.”

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Starter fermentation ratios are affected by:

1. Ambient temperature (the ideal temperature is 65-75°F)
2. % of seed amount (how much flour and water you start with)
3. Frequency of feedings

Lactic Acid: Sweet/mild flavor »
Un-refrigerated starter with more water, fed often.

Acetic Acid: Sour flavor »
Store starter in fridge and feed with less water.

NOTES: June has been living on the counter at room temperature and fed once a day with smaller seed quantities (1/4 cup 50% AP/50% WW flour + 1/4 cup water). I’ve been pouring off the liquid that accumulates on top of the starter, then adding and stirring in the new for a runnier mixture than what I had before.