Misha's leaven (but I don't use his leaven, I have my own)
Leaven
There are many ways to make sourdough. With and without yeast. With holy water and organic flour. On grapes and on pineapple juice (for the latter, however, there are specific reasons). There are methods that take two weeks and require a sack of flour, there are those that give a working leaven in two or three days. In my opinion, the only thing that ultimately matters is how the sourdough is maintained, namely flour, moisture, temperature and frequency of feeding. My method (mostly from Peter Reinhart's "Bread Bakers Apprentice" and Maggie Glaser's "Artisan Baking") takes 4-5 days with minimal effort.
Ingredients:
whole rye flour, wheat flour 1 sec. (all-purpose unbleached), water.
Day 0. Take half a glass of rye flour (60 g), a third of a glass of water (85 g), mix, cover the resulting gruel with a lid and leave for a day. I always use boiled water (from the tap) when feeding the starter culture, although I know from experience that it doesn't matter.
Day 1. Open the lid. Most likely you will not see anything, maybe a random bubble of unknown origin. Add another half a glass of rye flour and a third of a glass of water, mix well and leave under the lid for another day.
Day 2. In theory, during this day the leaven should begin to grow. This may happen earlier, on the first day, and maybe later - on the third or fourth.
This is what my starter looks like at the end of day two:
It rose to the top of the vessel and fell slightly, a characteristic, very nasty smell appeared - something like quail grass. When the sourdough reaches this state, discard half, add half a glass of bread flour and a quarter of a glass of water. By weight it is 60-65 g and 55 g, respectively. Stir well, close, leave for a day.
Day 3. The leaven will not rise much, somewhere like this:
Again, discard half of the starter, add half a glass of bread flour and a quarter glass of water. Stir well, close, leave for a day.
Day 4.Again, discard half of the starter, add half a glass of bread flour and a quarter glass of water. Stir well, close. Now you need to watch a little more carefully - the leaven should already get stronger and rise faster.
Day 5. In my case, after 12 hours the leaven has tripled in volume and is uniformly saturated with bubbles. By this time, the smell should become fresh and pleasant, the taste of the leaven should be moderately sour. If you let it stand for another 12 hours, it will begin to fall off, but this is not necessary, the leaven is ready. Now it can be fed and stored according to the regimen described below, although it seems to me that it is better not to put it in the refrigerator for the first two weeks.
How to store and feed the starter culture
I keep 40-50 g of sourdough and renew it once or twice a day, taking 5 g for the next batch. This is enough to start bread at almost any moment. My starter culture always has a moisture content of 100%, i.e. the ratio of flour to water is 1: 1 by weight, this greatly simplifies arithmetic.
The starter should be stored in plastic or glass containers, avoid prolonged contact with metal, stirring with a regular spoon or fork is certainly possible. If you bake frequently, it may be easier to keep the starter at room temperature. Let's say you bake with sourdough once a week, on Saturdays. You can, of course, keep the sourdough in the refrigerator from Saturday to Thursday, but it's easier to keep the sourdough warm and renew it several times, it will only be healthier. Luda has a wonderful article in the magazine about keeping sourdough (now under lock and key). I agree with her - the aroma of a leaven living in a refrigerator will be poorer than that of a leaven that is not cooled below 10 C. This does not mean at all that if you are not ready to feed the leaven every day, then you should not mess with it. Yes, it may not be so fragrant and this will affect the taste of the bread, but still, as a rule, such bread will be much tastier than store-bought bread.
Take a clean jar and measure out 5 g of leaven. Add 20 g of water and stir well (with a fork). Add 20 g flour, stir well and cover. If the house is not hot (no more than 20 C), then maybe you will be able to get away from the second feeding a day. Look at the behavior of the leaven. The ripe starter culture will swell and bubble. If you pick it up with a spoon, it will stretch, and the gluten threads will be visible. The overripe leaven will fall off and lose its structure, but nothing terrible will happen to it, and after the next feeding it will return to its previous appearance and properties.
The feeding proportions can be changed depending on the temperature. Usually, as I already mentioned, I feed in a ratio of 1: 4: 4, but on a cool day, when it is 15 degrees at home, I can feed 1: 3: 3, and even 1: 2: 2. Conversely, at +25 I will increase the proportion to at least 1: 5: 5.
If you are going to use sourdough occasionally and store it in the refrigerator, then I advise you to keep two hundred grams, and add wallpaper or peeled rye flour to it. Take 20 g of leaven. Add 80 g flour (20-40 g rye and 60-40 g wheat) and 80 g water. Stir, cover and leave for 4-6 hours. When the leaven has doubled in volume, put it in the refrigerator. Once a week or two, the sourdough will need to be fed. Take it out of the refrigerator, let it stand for a couple of hours to warm to room temperature, take 20 g, etc. Before baking, it is very advisable to take the starter culture out of the refrigerator and renew it 2-3 times after 12 hours at room temperature. Refresh with the flour you intend to bake on.
How to make rye sourdough from wheat
To make rye sourdough from white wheat sourdough, or sourdough on wallpaper flour, it is enough to feed it with the appropriate flour two or three times. In the same way, for a few additional dressings, it is transferred back.
How to calculate the moisture content of the leaven
I always store my starter culture at 100% moisture. Moisture in this case is the water content expressed in baking percentages - a counting system in which all ingredients entering the dough (or part of it) are counted in percent by weight, with all flour being taken as 100%. Ie.in sourdough with a moisture content of 100% equal amount of flour and water by weight. In sourdough with a moisture content of 80% 4 parts of water and 5 parts of flour, 150% - 3 parts of water and 2 flour, etc.
In real life, 100% sourdough is not used very often. The fact is that the aroma of the leaven and, as a consequence, the bread depends on its thickness. Therefore, mainly thick starter cultures with a moisture content of 60-80% and liquid starter cultures with a moisture content of 125-150% are used.
It is very easy to change the moisture content of the starter culture. Let's say we need 100 g of starter culture with a moisture content of 65%. In total, the sourdough contains 100% flour and 65% water, i.e. the so-called dough yield is 165%. To calculate the amount of flour in the leaven, you need to divide its weight by the dough yield.
100 / 1.65 = 61 g.
the remainder of 100-61 = 39 g - water. We check:
39/61 = 0.64 (64%) due to weight rounding, a small error crept in, but, in general, everything is correct. Now again, let's say you renew the leaven in a ratio of 1 part leaven: 4 parts flour. Half of the leaven is water, which means that you have 4.5 parts of flour in total.
61 / 4.5 = 14 g is the weight of one part, i.e. the weight of the leaven. The weight of the sourdough flour is 7 g. In this case, the weight of the flour to be added is
61-7 = 54 g.
The leaven should contain 39 g of water. We have already added 7 g with leaven, that is, it remains 39-7 = 32 g. The final recipe in this case:
14 g sourdough moisture 100%
54 g flour
32 g of water.
Another option is possible - you do not want to deal with a sourdough other than 100% and just want to substitute the recipe for the one you have. Not really my approach, but still not a problem. In this case, it is important that the amount of fermented flour remains unchanged. Suppose you need 320 g of leaven with a moisture content of 125%. How much starter culture should be taken at 100% moisture? The test yield in this case is 225%. That is, in 320 g of sourdough with a moisture content of 125% will be
320 / 2.25 = 142 g flour.
Multiply this number by 2 - 284 g of sourdough with a moisture content of 100% will come out. But we took less water, this difference 320-284 = 36 g must be added to the dough. If we used a sourdough thinner than in the recipe, then the difference in weight would, on the contrary, have to be subtracted from the water going into the dough.
