Sourdough problem

[Eyal Bekerman]

I have sourdough starter which I made at home.
When I use it to make bread and spike it with some commercial yeast the bread comes out fine but sometimes lacks the sourness or have very little sour taste. My major problem is using the wild starter without any yeast.
Yesterday I prepared a sourdough bread, fermented it for about 8 hours, and it didn't grow in size . When I baked it, it blow out in the oven leaving open cracks .

Any ideas?

Eyal

[KyleW]

I wonder how 'potent' your starter is. A healthy, active starter should nearly triple in volume 6-8 hours after a feeding. It's at this peak when you want to build your dough. Once you build the dough, it should be about 8 hours before the bread is ready for the oven. This is generally 4 hours of bulk fermentation and 4 hours of proofing. To get the biggest oven spring, and the best crust development, sourdough breads like very high oven temps, 500º-525º.

If you can give us a little more info about your starter, like how often youfeed it before you bake with it? What amount you feed and what you feed it etc. Maybe we can find the source of your trouble.

[Cookie Lady]

Hi Eyal!

You only ferment your starter for 8 hours????? In the bakery where I worked our starter was 7 years old. We used some everyday but also fed it everyday to keep up the supply. Our sourdough breads were very tangy indeed. We fed it daily with Rye flour and High Gluten flour and water. The original base was Rye flour, High Gluten flour, yeast, sugar and water. We had customers asking for small conainers of it to feed to their existing starters for a boost. We kept it in a five gallon bucket at room temperature with a lid loosely on it. One hot August day we heard what sounded like a gunshot only to discover enough gas had built up inside the bucket to blow the lid off of it and spackle the entire room with starter. I don't need to tell you how difficult it is to clean up hardened flour and water! Good luck!

Suzanne

[KyleW]

My starter is actually about 4 years old. The first 8 hours is how long it ferments after a feeding, before it is used to build a dough. The second 8 hours is the fermenting and proofing of the finished dough.