Sourdough Secrets That People Don't Tell You

if you are new to sourdough or if you're struggling with sourdough this video is for you because I'm going to be talking about nine secrets that people don't usually talk about when it comes to sourdough and if you're wondering why should I listen to this lady who is she and what is her claim to fame I grew up in Germany and I cannot remember ever my Mom's starting to bake was sourdough in other words she's always been making wasawa ever since I can remember and we have a family recipe that we use for our sourdough starters and first sourdough baking so I've been baking with sourdough for some 40 years I also spend a lot of time reading books and educating myself on sourdough and here are the nine Secrets or little myths that I want to dispel the first one and I love this one is there are a lot of people who will sell heirloom starters sour disorders that are 150 years old gold rush San Francisco Sourdough starters and I'm not trying to diminish those sourdough starters I think they're great people have been baking with them for decades however once you buy that sourdough starter bring it into your kitchen and have baked with it four times or you've done four discards and feeding if that's your method it will be completely different from the one that you originally bought because there are wild yeasts in your kitchen it depends on the flour you're using it depends on your water it depends on so many variables that yes it can be good to get an established starter to get yours going but this idea that you will continue this tradition it's not quite accurate and the other thing is that you can read as many books as you want and you can get really good instructions and most of them tell you exactly how many grams of flour and water and the temperature and the time however your very first sourdough starter will always be the most challenging to make I just talked about the ambient wild yeasts in your kitchen and since if you don't have any experience and since you don't have a history of baking with sourdough in your kitchen you may not have cultivated those wild yeasts in the air and so once you get your sourdough starter going the subsequence outer service will be a lot easier to make and that leads me to the next point and especially if you're new and especially if you're confused or frustrated because you can't get your sour disorder going is do not give up just keep on going there is a bit of a learning curve you want to get a feel for the sourdough starter and you know when you think about how in previous generations people learned how to make sourdough and more baked with sourdough it's probably because their mother taught them how to do it in their kitchen it's like oh this was what it looks like this is what it feels like and this is what you should do and these days if you don't have that in the absence of that you're going to rely on books or on recipes to teach you certain variables and say okay so you need this and that and that and that because they can't really show you what the sour pistard is going to look or feel like so that's the only thing you um can rely on so yes don't give up just keep at it develop that feel develop that sense for your sourdough starter and become more comfortable the other one is I feel like there's a lot of pressure to come up with a perfect salary starter and we've all seen those pictures and this one is actually not quite active yet it's um I've I've done something to it I've actually I have a method where I keep most of it in my refrigerator and I pinch some often I added some flour and some water I don't measure anything and I'll tell you know then why I don't do that and I need to put this back on my heater so that it can actually get I mean there's some bubbles here but in essence this one is not quite where I want it however you've seen those photos of sourdough starters overflowing and that's great but I think there's an it's overrated that you need this you know big expansive sour or starter because yours can be a little bit more sluggish and you can still bake with your salad or starter and make good breads if you're very new and you're still like oh yeah that's all great what you're saying but I'm still a little confused or I'm still really frustrated and and I have not been successful in the past I actually get so many questions about sourdough baking and making this outer starter maintaining this outer starter that I decided to make an online course all about sourdough and I have a very simple easy fail-proof method that I'm teaching and you can find the link in the description box below this video if you'd like to learn more but so many people have been successfully baking sourdough Breads and making their sour starter after taking this course which brings me to my next secret and that is you do not have to discard this out or start and you do not have to feed continuously your sourdough starter in order to maintain a sourdough starter I have a very popular video which I'm linking here and I'm putting the link in the description box so you can check that out it's actually super simple and you can just bake on demand and you won't have a sourdough starter on your kitchen counter waiting for you to do something with it having said that you don't have to become a slave to yourself or starter you can create this outer starter that is super flexible you bake with it whenever you're ready if that's once a week once every two weeks maybe once a month or let's say you have an illness or you're traveling and you don't need your sour or starter you can just tuck it away and then bring it back when you're ready to bake here I have a sour bread that I recently baked and it's a little bit older but this is what I just had and what I wanted to tell you is you do not need big holes in your salad or bread to have a very good sourdough bread and the reason I'm saying this is because I grew up in Germany this is the sourdough breads you get in Germany and this is the sourdough breads that people bake in Germany so they have a much tighter crumb they don't have the big holes because Germans also spread butter on their slices of bread for open-faced sandwiches and it's actually not super practical because the butter will disappear in the holes and so this is actually a much more practical bread for a nation that I heard eats bread with their bread so Germans eat bread sometimes three times a day so yes it can be fun and it can be great to have that perfect Loaf and yes I borrowed that term because I actually have that book and it's a pretty good book it's called the perfect loaf but I want to take a little bit of the pressure off and say if your bread comes out like this it's just gonna be as great and it's just gonna taste as as good as the other bread and it will still be not dense or it will be light and fluffy it just won't have those big holes also oftentimes people say you know use flour and mix it with water and do this and that and the other if you are new and if you really want to get your sour or starter going I cannot recommend more for you to use eye flour Rye flour for me is like putting your sourdough starter on steroids because there's something about the Rye flower that really activates your sour it really gets it going and if you are not a big fan of the Rye flavor what you can do is you can make this out or start it with your white flour and then gradually transition it by feeding it more regular wheat flour or whatever flour you're baking with and then over time it will lose its um hardier sharper pronounced Rye flavor some people really like that and you know you can bake entire Rye breads but these are two Rye flowers that I really like and especially if let's say you have a sourdough starter that's a little bit on the sluggish side or you haven't baked with it for a while just feed it a little bit of Rye flour and it will do wonders for yourself to start and then I want to give you the permission to just bake with your bread see what happens and do not be afraid if you fail and who says what a failure is anyways so let's say your bread doesn't rise as much I think that's great and then you just kind of assess does it need more proofing time or do I need to find a warmer spot for it or you know what are the variables do I need more sourdough starter and if it doesn't come out quite right there's always something you can do with it you can make croutons you can make bread crumbs you can use it in bread puddings there's always something you can do with a failed loaf of sourdough bread but I think it's really important to allow yourself to make mistakes or not create the perfect look right away so that you can actually learn from the previous Loaf and create the one that you really like I also have a recipe of a really easy sourdough bread and in this sourdough bread I add a pinch of yeast now another sourdough pure stuff there who will say but then it's not a pure sourdough bread and I beg to differ because all people had for thousands of years was sourd our starter and then they were able to isolate the yeasts which are part of the whole microbial makeup of your sourdough starter and create like two or three strains of yeast that are very reliable for baking and that is your baker's yeast so yeast is part of your salad or culture and I don't think there's anything wrong if you are not quite sure if my sourdough starter ripe enough or is it too young to bake and just add a little pinch of yeast to your Loaves and then with the next bread you can still try to make it an all sourdough bread and Omega the yeast but I think that will really encourage you to get baking and not be worried about dense breads that haven't risen and I've told you all about this sourdough method that I am using I am linking this video right here in which you can learn how to make your own sourdough starter without any measurings without any feedings and without any discards so I'll see you over in this video

Channel: Our Gabled Home

Views: 126,674

Keywords: sourdough secrets, sourdough myths, open crumb sourdough bread, oven spring sourdough bread, sourdough starter, how to make a sourdough starter, sourdough starter recipe, sourdough baking, sourdough for beginners, sourdough tips, better baking with sourdough, Sauerteig Tips, Sauerteigansatz, Sauerteigbrot, Backen mit Sauerteig, scourdough secrets people don't tell you, sourdough tips for beginners, our gabled home, sourdough secrets people don't talk about

Id: _E0F43ieLME

Length: 11min 43sec (703 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 07 2023