Messin' With Sourdough

[ness]

On 10/6/2014 at 1:46 PM, ness said:

I bought a dried sourdough culture a few weeks back. It's supposed to be from Camadoli, Italy and passed down for generations.

I haven't made sourdough or any bread in a looong time. I've still got this culture, but it hasn't been fed in months. I've neglected it for months before, but this is the longest ever. I'm reasonably certain I can revive this and make some bread.

When these cultures sit, they kinda separate out. The flour gets gummy and sinks, the liquid, called 'hooch', which is partly alcohol, floats on top and takes on a dark color. I've seen two schools of thought on hooch: pour it off or stir it back in. Last couple times I've revived my culture, I stirred it back in. So, that's what I'm gonna do today.

Before:

Hooch, whole wheat flour and bottled water stirred in:

I guess we'll see how this goes, but I'm pretty optimistic. 

[ness]

On 3/29/2020 at 6:47 PM, bfishn said:

Last time I'm going to suggest it. Pancakes! If they aren't the best cakes you ever ate, I'll meet my cat. Hot, runny, brown sugar syrup.

...and I'm gonna do pancakes someday  

[BilletHead]

2 hours ago, ness said:

...and I'm gonna do pancakes someday  

Grandma Vi's ?

[tjm]

I always stirred it in.  I kept a culture going for years and started new ones from wild yeast  several times, too. I found that I'd rather start fresh if the stuff had set a long time.  I mainly did pancakes and occasionally biscuits. Only rarely put in the time to make real bread.  I don't think I've made any since the kids all left home, so it's been a while.

For pancakes I kept the mix batter thin all the time and kept it ready for daily use.

[ness]

34 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

Grandma Vi's ?

Gonna have to figure a sourdough recipe out I guess. 

[BilletHead]

My starter looks like yours @ness. Following closely for your results. 

[ness]

Better and quicker than expected!

[ness]

17 hours ago, tjm said:

For pancakes I kept the mix batter thin all the time and kept it ready for daily use.

Have you got a recipe you can share?

[tjm]

@ness I'll get back to this. More ideas and guidelines than recipes. The starter is different from day to day and number of people to be fed changes and so on, my "recipes" tend to be fluid. However, if you want sourdough recipes  the King Author Flour website is a good place to look. Out the door now.

[ness]

We’ll, turned out a nice loaf today.