Breads for today are Banana Nut and Essene with chopped dates and walnuts (sprouted wheat only, no flour or yeast/baking powder). Essene takes a day or two for the wheat berries to sprout so it won't go into the oven for a couple of days.

Big bakeries do things differently than the average home baker. I know they use various methods for maintaining their mother, but I've never worked in a bakery so I'll just tell you how I do it.

I use a maintenance method that requires no regular feeding, no discarding, and is always ready to bake in 12 hours.

I maintain a stiff 66% hydration starter - made my mixing of 8 grams starter, 56 grams flour, and 37 grams water, for a total of 101 grams.  This stiff starter will say healthy in the fridge for up to 4 months with no feeding, stirring, etc.  It's really hands off.

When I am going to bake, I take about 8 grams of the starter and mix with 50 grams flour, 50 grams water. This is a levain. I put it in my proofing box (a cooler with a heating pad and temp controller) running at 80F and it is fully active within 12 hours, often less. I will typically make the levain at 9PM and then use it to make dough at 9am the next day.

Since I am only using 8 grams at a time, the 100g starter in the fridge will make about 10 loaves. When I get down to about 15 grams, I build the starter back up as in the first step.

The 100 grams of starter fits nicely into a 8oz ball jar. I use the same size for the levain as well. If you bake frequently, you can maintain a larger starter, or just rebuild more often.  I've been using this method for over 2 years with starter that I've had for about 5.

Here's the levain after 10 hours.

We don't bake that often (other than pizza), so I have stopped keeping started in the fridge.
I have a freezer full of dried starter.
It takes about 3-4 days to revive and get a good healthy starter.
Just takes a little planning.
If we get on a baking binge, we will just leave it on the counter and feed twice a day.

reading through posts from today, and while I am here I figure i would just ask. What is starter, and how is it made or is it something like yeast that you buy and mix?

I may do a search, but thought I would ask here also.


How is sour dough or bread with the starter different than yeast bread?

Sorry, I am a hick from the mountains of PA, don't know nothin bout this fancy stuff.

reading through posts from today, and while I am here I figure i would just ask. What is starter, and how is it made or is it something like yeast that you buy and mix?

I may do a search, but thought I would ask here also.


How is sour dough or bread with the starter different than yeast bread?

Sorry, I am a hick from the mountains of PA, don't know nothin bout this fancy stuff.

Starter is simply flour and water mixed together. After a period of time the flour feeds off of natural yeast in the flour, on your hands, in the air etc.  It takes maybe 10 days of regular feedings to get one to rise everyday like clockwork. I feed mine once a day equal parts flour and water.

Like stated above, there are other forms and hydrations for starter. It's basically a way to naturally leaven bread. It's been popular forever, but during the beginning of covid there was a surge in sourdough baking because of commercial yeast shortages.

Sourdough isn't necessarily sour either. Depending on many factors, it can taste pretty much just like any other bread.  Or if you manipulate the variables you can get a tangy sour loaf.

I like the King Arthur "Extra Tangy Sourdough" recipe.
You add sour salt (citric acid) to the dough to enhance toe sour taste.

>How is sour dough or bread with the starter different than yeast bread?

Just adding to what has already been stated - besides yeast, sourdough starter also contains various strains of lactic acid bacteria, which is what gives the bread its sourness.  By controlling the feeding and fermentation temperatures, you can vary the amount of sourness.

A little humor...

Made some Cuban bread for Cuban sandwiches later.
Got a little overzealous with the new lame. 
Going to have to go back baking in my Pellet Grill, it give a better color.

Made some Cuban bread for Cuban sandwiches later.
Got a little overzealous with the new lame. 
Going to have to go back baking in my Pellet Grill, it give a better color.

Looks like it expanded nicely. My oven has an issue that with covid delays may not be solved anytime soon so I tried to bake baguettes in my cheapo pellet grill last night. It was 9 degrees or so. Total disaster, and all in the garbage. At the moment, I wish I would have kept one of my nicer pellet grills for baking.

Burger buns for tonight

Made some Cuban bread for Cuban sandwiches later.
Got a little overzealous with the new lame. 
Going to have to go back baking in my Pellet Grill, it give a better color.

Looks like it expanded nicely. My oven has an issue that with covid delays may not be solved anytime soon so I tried to bake baguettes in my cheapo pellet grill last night. It was 9 degrees or so. Total disaster, and all in the garbage. At the moment, I wish I would have kept one of my nicer pellet grills for baking.

Yeah, I used the oven for same reason, cold outside.
I have two 16x16 pizza stones that fit nicely in the Memphis.
I've got some starter brewing right now, so when it is ready, I will make some King Arthur's Extra Tangy Sourdough on the grill.

EDIT:  Rolls look great!!! 

Nice looking burger buns.  Looking forward to some burger pics in the sandwich thread

Bread adventure update: Instead of banana nut bread I decided to make garlic-cheese bread. It was a total flop, it tasted ok but after baking, it ended up with a great big hole in the middle. As for the Essene bread, turned out that after three days the wheat berries never sprouted, must have been too old. I bought new wheat berries and will try again. I'm thinking of dumping the bread machine and going back to the old fashioned way. 

Not exactly on point, but throwing it out there.  Any of you folks familiar with the Numero Uno Romano Puff Balls?  If so, do you have a recipe? I am willing to sell Bentley for that recipe.

Not exactly on point, but throwing it out there.  Any of you folks familiar with the Numero Uno Romano Puff Balls?  If so, do you have a recipe? I am willing to sell Bentley for that recipe.

Does he do windows?