How to regulate the acidity / sourness of finished sourdough bread

[Mother Culture - Emphasis on Healthy Balance]

On the website of the manufacturer of household dough proofers I came across such a very interesting article (below). Itself has long puzzled over how to make sourdough bread less sour, since children do not want to eat sour bread. I also wanted to predict the taste of the bread at the exit. So, the translation of the article from English into Russian:


Having taken our own sourdough for making "Village" sourdough bread, we decided to use the recipe for two loaves of bread with completely different flavors. The first loaf is "less sour" with a mild but complex aroma and acidity that remain in the background, as well as a "more sour" loaf, which is more acidic and fully reveals the aroma of whole grains.

We took a slightly different approach to each step of the bread baking process. The description is detailed below - we brought the loaves as close as possible to the desired taste result without compromising the quality of the bread and with the preventive control of the reproduction of unwanted microbes.

Mother Culture - Emphasis on Healthy Balance

In order to ensure the continued health and balance of both yeast and lactobacillus populations (lactobacilli - acid producers) in the baking sourdough, we have made careful changes: cooler fermentation / maturation temperatures, white flour for feeding and peak maturity for our “less sour "loaf, against warmer temperatures, slightly stimulating the development of acidity of rye flour and a more matured sourdough for" more sour "bread. We fed our mother starter starter twice before the next kneading of the dough, but even after the first feeding in the created conditions, we noticed a difference in a stronger, more acidic culture flavor for a "more acidic" loaf.

If there is too little acid in the current leaven, unwanted microbes (such as Leuconostoc or mold) can multiply and infect crops. If there is too much acid and the culture is overripe, the yeast population is compromised and the enzyme activity can spiral out of control. To avoid this, during the preparation of the starter for our "more acidic" loaf, we limited the proportion of all rye flour to 20% and watched the changes in the bubbling and volume of the starter carefully so as not to go too far in the process of bringing it to a more mature state. ...

Ready Sourdough - Prepare for Salt in Recipe

We have made significant changes to the size of the finished leaven for these loaves. While our standard percentage of flour pre-fermented into finished sourdough for the Village Bread recipe is 16.6% of the total flour, our less sour version has a much lower percentage of flour in the finished sourdough at only 10.5 % of the total flour, and for our more acidic loaf, the percentage of flour in the finished sourdough is 35% of the total flour. The reason for the difference is the presence of salt in the main dough recipe. Salt inhibits acid producers more than yeast, which means that after the finished starter is kneaded into the main dough, the ability to produce acid is somewhat reduced. To achieve a "sour" taste in bread, it is important to add more acid and acid-producing bacteria to the main dough.

For a "less acidic" loaf, using a prepared starter with a low percentage of flour not only limits the amount of acid in the loaf, but also slows down fermentation.Slowing down fermentation allows the enzymes in the flour to convert starch into sugar, further limiting the perception of sourness.
In addition to adding salt, we used similar temperature approaches, flour selection, and readiness of the finished sourdough for two different loaves of bread, as in a mother's sourdough feeding. For the less acidic version, we use the prepared starter a little earlier in the cycle than we could for the mother starter - when it has risen well but has not yet reached its peak. This type of small, less ripe ready-made sourdough was popular with Chad Robertson and Ken Forkish in their baking books.

It is normal practice for many bakers to select the "less mature" leaven at this particular stage to create the everlasting leaven. That is, you take the part necessary for introduction into the main bread dough, and leave the rest to continue to ripen to full maturity before using it to create an eternal leaven (to perpetuate the culture).

Kneaded Dough - Maturity - Key to Flavor Control

We have decided to increase the percentage of whole grain flour in the overall formula for the "more acidic" loaf from 15% in the original / base recipe to 20%; for the less acidic version, we not only reduced the proportion of non-white flour to 10%, but also switched to seeded whole grain flour and moved away from the more acid-friendly rye flour. Raised whole grain flour can be easily obtained at home - simply sift it through a fine sieve to remove large bran flakes. As Debra Wink points out, whole grain bran is acidity buffers and allows lactobacillus acid producers (LABs) to produce more acid in a more mature culture. By the way, rye flour also produces sugar in the dough, which feeds the lactobacilli, which produce acetic acid, which has a more pronounced taste in the finished bread than the other main acid in the sourdough - lactic acid.

Ready to start your own sourdough acidity study? Overall, we found that 1) maturity (degree of ripeness), 2) choice of temperature (warmer for more acid, cooler for less acid), and 3) choice of flour (whiter for less acid) are the most effective factors in controlling acidity in a sourdough. , more whole grains, especially rye - for acidity). A key role in experimenting with parameter changes is to change them a little, one or two each time, to assess how much they affect other aspects of the test before deciding which to apply next and which to get rid of. Enjoy!

The article also has excellent illustrative tables regarding the flour / water ratio, ripening time, ripening temperature and percentage of flour from the main recipe in the sourdough for all stages - two feedings and kneading / proofing of the dough, but I can not insert them Maybe someone will teach And more there are photographs of fermentation of starter cultures, but they are from the Internet, so I did not dare insert, fearing the anger of the moderators. And I don’t know whether to give a link / thank the site to the author, since this is my second post on the forum - a completely newbie

Sveta, thanks for the article! I just needed this information about the acidity of the leaven. I can't figure out why it is sour. I don’t know either, you can insert links. If it's not difficult for you, send me this link in a personal message.

[Sourdough bread - so that it is not sour)]

Alla, by the way, is on the forum Topic "Sourdough bread - so that it is not sour)) ", by Admin (Tatiana). Here is the link

https://Mcooker-enn.tomathouse.com/in...on=com_smf&topic=389522.0

Unfortunately, I came across this topic after I published my own. The same question is considered, but more photos, much more clearly.

Thank you, I read this article by Elena Zheleznyak in Khlebomolakh. Actually, she gave me the idea that we must look for the cause of this acidity.

"Sourdough bread - so that it is not sour))"

Can't find this topic, please give me a link!

Can't find this topic, please give me a link!

https://Mcooker-enn.tomathouse.com/in...on=com_smf&topic=389522.0

There are quite a lot of works by this author on our forum - see here CONTENTS OF THE SECTION "BASICS OF KNEADING AND BAKING"