Bread

I also suspect that your neighbours might go a bit "wtf" when you do this at late hours..

Indeed - the frequency is a fair bit too slow for sex noises so I suspect they'd be at a loss.

Good tips coming out here, thanks!
So, next time I make it, I will be starting with my starter from the fridge, which I fed and rested a few hours before refrigerating, but otherwise hasn't been touched for a week.

Anyone fancy sharing what sequence of feeding, proving etc you would go for now?

With my starter, usually stored in the fridge, I take the starter/mother out of the fridge and feed the starter, with 50grams of each flour and water, I go for tepid water that has been boiled and cooled. Or more what is in the kettle ;) I await then for the mix to get bubbly.

How do you add the starter to the dough mix? Do you add the starter to the tepid water and then add the flour.

When your starter is in the fridge does it look like this? Before feeding of course.

Cheers for that. I've only just started, so I don't do anything, yet. What would you advise? Any sourdough habits, bad or good, are yet to be formed :-)
Away for a few days so will just feed and keep in fridgo.

No idea about sour dough habits, apart from don't forget to feed it ;)

Advise is to find a recipe that you like, there are loads out there quite like hugh-fearnley-whittingstall find a kneading technique that you like and gives the bread texture that you like. Sometimes the bed will fail and you wont know why. Best bet is to continue as sometimes that just happens.

Retarding the raising by using the fridge makes the bread taste even more sour.

Oh the cast off makes brilliant sour dough pancakes, or even sour dough (english) muffins with eggs benedict. If you like that sort of thing.

Am going to do a few experiments in long term storage; am going to stick some just fed refrigerated starter in the freezer and then some that has been fed and left in the warm for 12-24 hours then stuck in the freezer for six - eight weeks. Then see if the starter comes to life.

There is a bread thread? Who knew!

I've been making sourdough for about 4 years now......I've found that just quality of my loaves improved through a slow evolution of technique. As I learned how the dough should feel in the different stages of the process then you can adapt and correct any problems that arise. Here are a couple of my nicest looking loaves from my last bake:

I can't recommend Chad Robertsons 'Tartine' enough. Reading that and following his method made my bread go from nice tasting bread but flat and ugly to well risen loaves with a great springy texture.

Ollie, looking at your blog I would say your dough looked a bit low on hydration - generally the wetter the better. Getting a banneton or two will make a bit difference as when the dough is looser it needs the walls to help provide the structure as it rises - if the banneton is ridged then it also makes the loaves look nicer too.

Has anyone made bread using the yeast leftover from fermenting beer?

@Bainbridge, thanks - I'm sure you are right about it being wet. Banneton #need.

@Kat-Balou. Yes, I did try a couple of years ago. It was okay, probably reflection on my bread skillz, made the dough too dry I think. Nice beery taste though.

oo thanks, I will try it with my Saison yeast once it has eventually finished!

@Olly398 banneton wise you can experiment with the metal poundshop bowls lined with a wet tea towel to see if that helps, it is a cheap way.

With bread books, every bread book seems to have people saying oh thats is amazing and then when someone reads that book and doesn't have the same experience it can be a little deflating. Hence my comment of finding the recipe and style for you.

Oh I recommend french bread flour, even the cheap hyper market stuff gives a nicer white bread, but that could be all in my head. Also try some of the freshly ground flours from the mills. Quite fancy a ride up to wrights mill in north london, see if you can buy fresher flour there at the factory shop.

@lynx I see your point about bread books, but we are talking specifically about sourdough here, and 'Tartine' is purely about making great sourdough at home. I have recommended it to quite a few friends and the ones who actually have the patience have all ended up making great bread.

Have you read it?

even the cheap hyper market stuff gives a nicer white bread

Here in Germany the cheapest fucking flour you can buy works the best for white bread (and pizza dough) as well.
Shame it's as nutrtious as cardboard.

Not read the book, but this evening have been googling and he does come up with some interesting points about wet dough, temperature of dough, and the folding technique. Will look it to his book to see what I can learn.

Believe that the french have a different milling and mix of flours, I believe, hence a different flour. No idea about german flour, but I believe a similar thing happens.

French hard wheats generally have higher protein content than English flour which makes them ideal for bread baking. Ditto Canadian wheat.

That is interesting as sainsburies have a finest canadian what bread flour.

Does this look for a bread making - http://breadmakingblog.breadexperience.com/2011/02/tartine-country-bread.html interesting as they way to test the starter in water. Note that in the book that takes 11 pages.

^ I often buy that sainsbury Canadian wheat bread flour mostly because it's convenient (ie the local shop is a 2 minute walk from my front door) but it also works. I have thought about buying those large 25kg commerical sacks of French flour but storage is an issue and I can't imagine how long it would take me to go through one.

A friends son has done a bread baking weekend course and makes and sells bread at a local farmers market. He uses this flour http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bacheldre-Watermill-Organic-Stoneground-Unbleached/dp/B005FPYAUQ/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1412070281&sr=8-4&keywords=flour for baking and rates it highly. Also it gets delivered to your door!

The son, at 14, makes £60 odd even slipping his 'rents £20 for bills and transport. Beats a paper round!

^ I need to put my son to work!

Richard Bertinet recommends Shipton Mill flours if you are doing the mail order / delivery thing. Haven't tried them myself but been tempted, pretty broad range of offerings.
http://www.shipton-mill.com

Flour share?

Often wanted to get a group together to but sacks of veg morrisons are doing bags of potatoes for £2!!!

@lynx @Bainbridge I've read that book, having gotten into baking after buying it for a mate (on the basis that it looked like a 'nice' book) a coupe of years previously.

It does seem to hinge around/depend upon the use of a dutch oven, though the reasons for doing so are outlined in enough detail for this to be understandable.

I don't own a dutch oven, but I did see an improvement in my bread after following some of the other principles that are outlined. It also provides some really good info on how starters/sourdough "works", so I'd say it's definitely worth looking at.

It's most useful if the first section of the book is read start to finish before you make your starter though. It's not written in the same way as your normal recipe book so in order to start to understand everything you need to take in the theory first. Or at least I did :)

Haven't baked in ages but I think I might need to get stuck in this weekend. My starter's been hobbling along in the fridge (with a weekly feed) for about 3 months :(

Crust is also excellent. My copy came with quite a useful DVD - helped me understand his slightly unusual fold/kneading technique.

Oh I think I've heard of that! Just had another peep and it looks pretty good!