Friday, October 3, 2008

Sourdough Frustration

I do not know what the problem is,
but something is Definitely Wrong with my sourdough rye attempts.
The starter looks active,
but when I mix it up with flour, water, and salt as per the recipe,
this is what results:

If this were a just-in-the-pan view, okay.
BUT...
It won't rise.
I let it stay in a warm but not too warm spot,
for 30 hours (JUST IN CASE)
but it didn't rise.
Instead, it developed funny little white spots:



That is not the greatest closeup but the point is clear.

I have done this twice, and the dough wouldn't rise.
AARGH.
Is the problem the starter?
The recipe?
The flour quality?

There's no point in baking this.
It would be a brick and I would break my teeth
(if I didn't die of ergotism poisoning,
or whatever that white stuff is).

I think I'm going to look online for some commercial sourdough starter.
Or maybe try my current starter on a wheat recipe.
There's got to be some way around this dead end!!

2 comments:

GStaples said...

Croc,
My rye stater was hard to start, but I do like the book, "Local Breads", by Daniel Leader and followed his suggestions and recipe. At first it stunk and I put it in the refri one night and that took the smell but then I thought maybe I killed it as it wouldn't rise. So I just let it set out for the whole day and by 3 p.m. it looked pretty good, so I decided to make the spelt bread that I was going to make with it and it turned out. It is on my facebook under 'My Best Recipes'. Also there is a group called, 'Sourdough Starter Forum', in which I have been learning extra things. Pretty cool. I have 3 different starters going at the present time. I am having fun, but keeping 3 is a bit of work. Keep up the good work!

Dr. Croc said...

Thanks for the tips. I'm going to try some other approaches and I'll check out the Leader book and probably some web sources too.