Sourdough

[Natasha]

Chery, how do you make a sponge with the starter?

[Run Amok]

So, I ended up using my starter discard to make make the "no knead" rolls and it was a great addition. They have a great flavor to them, even though they are raised with regular yeast. Kind of a cheater sourdough. Still only making them one day at at a time and the whole point was to make something that would last a couple of days.

[CheryG]

Sponge:
1C starter, unfed
1C water
1C flour(s)

I let it sit for 6 hours, warm room temp.
Then I add 2.5C flour(s), 2t salt and a splash of something sweet.  Sugar, honey or whatever...  A little oil if for a more sandwich type bread than a crusty bread.  More flour if necessary while mixing, but usually not much.

First rise is usually 2 hours, second rise only takes a half hour or so, I like it a little underproofed going in the oven, so it kind of explodes.

[CheryG]

Tons of oven spring, still a fine crumb. This had olive oil.

Edited cause pic was probably huge...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/CheryG/IMG_20190409_164308_757_zpshelfefjk.jpg

[diablita]

wow, gorgeous (and yuge!)

[CheryG]

wow, gorgeous (and yuge!)

Is the pic yuge? I can't tell on the phone.  I can edit to do a link instead as it looks impossible to resize it.

[Natasha]

It looks amazing on my phone! Book quality. What kind of pan did you use? How did it get so dark? Mine don't darken much at all.

[CheryG]

I used a cast iron dutch oven. Oven not quite preheated to 450 (not intentional), 25 minutes with the lid on, 10 minutes with the lid off, then I dropped the temp to 350 for another... 10 minutes until it thumped hollow.

[diablita]

it was pretty big.  It's fabulous.

[Natasha]

I'll try that tomorrow. I've been using a convection oven. Maybe that's why my breads don't brown.

[CheryG]

Do you double check your oven temps with a thermometer?

There is also a certain kind of pale that goes along with a bread being overproofed, and that's the trouble I was running into before I went with the sponge method.   I still haven't figured out where I was going wrong, it was like the dough never rose, but was overproofed at the same time.

[Natasha]

No, i wing it. I'll try the thermometer tomorrow.

[Run Amok]

You make the prettiest bread, CG! You really should open a bakery.

[CheryG]

Thank you RA.  The masters on thay sourdough FB page inspire me.

CheryG's CBD Bakeree...

[Natasha]

Thank you RA.  The masters on thay sourdough FB page inspire me.

CheryG's CBD Bakeree...

I want to join!

The groups are all I use facebook for nowadays.

[CheryG]

How did autocorrect turn the into thay??  Oh geez.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/perfectsourdough/

Those folks are amazing.

[CheryG]

This dude...
https://www.facebook.com/Josep.Pascual.forner

[Run Amok]

Here is my dad's insta--he doesn't post often but sometimes he posts his R & D stuff which is pretty fun. I should, of course, just ask him how to make bread. But, what would the fun of that be?

https://www.instagram.com/bassnmando/

[CheryG]

Following!

RA, I'm sure it thrills him a little when you do ask?   I've comw to think of asking someone's advice as being one of the highest compliments one can give.

[CheryG]

Some good discussion here about inoculation and rise and temps....

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/keyword/inoculation