Hi all,
I’ve been following for a while but had very little experience with sour dough apart from having started my culture a few weeks ago. I have done some research, reading and baking since so I thought I should share.
My starter was made with rye bread mix from Liddle which contains dried sourdough starter and fed with wholemeal flour for the first few days. I left it open to the air for a week to absorb whatever yeasts etc. that it could. I then discarded the bulk of the starter and fed it with dove farms organic bread flour from then on.
Rye and wholemeal flour are great for getting a sour dough started but once it is healthy and active you can switch to feeding it white bread flour. If you stick to the other flours you will be introducing a strong rye/wholemeal flavour in to your pizza dough when you use it.
I have found that the starter survives okay in the fridge for a week or so at a timeso long as it is fed before hand. When need to use it I pull it out and feed it once more. All my feeds are with 50:50 water and flour by weight.
The secret (or so I have read) is:
Wait until the sour dough starter reacts and rises to its’ peak before extracting a small amount.
1) I would take about 50g of the primary starter and feed it with 100g of 50:50 flour/water mix. You can through the rest of the starter away unless you are emotionally attached
2) When it reaches its’ high point feed it a second time (optional)
3) When it reaches its’ high point feed it a third time (optional)
4) When it reaches its’ high point take some and make your pizza dough.
For 650g of flour I replace 100g of flour and 100g of water with 200g of starter.
Remove 100g flour & 100g water, then add 200g starter (which contains 100g water & 100g flour)
I don’t know if this is the correct proportion but it seemed to work for me.
Remember to keep some starter back, this is now your primary starter and the old one can be discarded.
I have read that in order to control when your starter will be ready you should adjust temperature and perhaps add a little salt to retard the sour dough starter. This is a little trial and error but I guess you would eventually get an understanding for it.
I simply worked on the sour dough starter’s timetable. When it peaked I moved to the next step. The first feed took about 6 hours the second took longer because I added a little salt and refrigerated the starter for a couple of hours.
So, for me it worked like this:
Extract & feed 1 (6 hours) ->
feed2 + salt & chill (14 hours) ->
make dough
proof at room temp for a couple of hours
Refrigerate overnight
Proof at room temperature for a few hours
Cook
I notice that using the same recipe as I normally do but with sourdough starter the resulting pizza was more substantial, more open crust and larger air cells, much puffier, I little chewier and much tastier and aromatic.
This was my first ever use of sour dough and I’m converted.
I am so sorry there are no photos but I just left the table after enjoying my spoils and kicked myself for forgetting to take photos.
I got most of my information from “BREAD, A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes” by Jeffrey Hamelman which explains the ins and outs of starters and sour dough very eloquently. I highly recommend it.
P.S. Some of the photo examples posted above look amazing. If I hadn't just eaten my own I would be on the way to the kitchen by now to start baking.