Sourdough is the best.
I just really like it...
Sourdough bread is made by the
fermentation of dough using naturally occurring lactobacilli
and yeast. It uses biological leavening rather than using cultivated
baker's yeast. The lactic acid produced by the lactobacilli gives it a
more sour taste and improved keeping qualities.
For many of us home bakers, making a good loaf of sourdough bread feels
like striving for the World Cup or an Olympic
gold
medal. It’s the challenge to top all challenges and takes real
commitment, but it’s also something that’s completely achievable.
What Makes Sourdough Bread Sour Sourdough bread is made entirely using
wild yeast — with a strong, active sourdough culture of wild yeast, you
won’t need any commercial yeast at all. Wild yeast need a little more
coaxing and works a little more slowly than commercial yeast, so
sourdough breads are normally mixed, shaped, and baked over the course
of a day, or even multiple days. Besides giving the wild yeast time to
do its job, this long, slow development time helps tease out more
complex, nuanced flavors in the finished bread — far beyond those of
your average loaf of sandwich bread.
While the wild yeast is certainly the star of this show, it’s not
actually what makes the bread sour. That distinctive sour flavor comes
from two kinds of friendly bacteria — Lactobacillus and acetobacillus —
which grow alongside the wild yeast in the sourdough culture and help
ferment the sugars in the dough.
Also, note that sourdough breads don’t always necessarily taste sour.
Depending on how you develop your starter and make your bread, the sour
flavor can be quite pronounced or it can be more subtle. The recipe here
strikes a balance — it’s a touch sour, but it’s balanced by a nice range
of sweet, earthy, and yeasty flavors.
If you want to know more, FoodGeek has a great website here.
So the starter is pretty much the key element and after carefully maintaining it for ages it can be devastating when you find out it has died. while you can often succesfully revive the starter by pampering, sometimes its just a lost cause😭. So since my starter came too close to death, I decided to make some backup. I put a small portion in the fridge and I dried out the rest. I aquired quite a lot of dried starter, so for a short time I decided to share my starter for free. So please leave your name and email by clicking the button and I will contact you shortly.