You can read about this in detail in my free book called “The Sourdough Framework”. You can get it here: breadco.de/book. You can support the project with a donation, but there is absolutely no knead. I believe information like this should be free and accessible to everyone. The book is made for everyone who wants to understand the important details when making sourdough bread. Thank you!
I will be trying a stiff starter. My dad made sour dough bread all my life. I can't believe we never talked about it because I took it so for granted. He was a cook for the sheepherders in northern Arizona and New Mexico for 17 years so he had cooking out in the country down to an art everything was cooked underground in cast iron. I so regret not asking more questions because those secrets are gone from me forever. I've been working with sourdough for about 3 months now and have only had a couple of successes. My starter's name is Pedro, in other words, Peter Pan, pan is the Spanish word for bread and Pedro is the Spanish word for peter, thus Pedro.🤓
That would have been right up my ally to experience and see his cooking that way. Many primitive ways of cooking is so interesting. And different cultures cont. with that tradition passing it down generation to generation.
Oh your dad must have had wonderful stories to tell and great cooking ideas! I am in the same position - my dad was Italian, grew up in the countryside and knew how to make everything and stupid here did not learn from him and now it is too late. Still we were lucky to have interesting fathers!
I come from a long line of German bakers(and millers (the house in which the bakery was is from 1150 and our mill is even older) and love bread. I lived in Paris and Spain and always found the best bakers. Your explanations are extremely good and I hope many people get convinced to make their own bread. One thing: in the States 99% of the flower is bromated. That is illegal in the rest of the world because it is cancerous. I recommend King Arthur flours: never bromated, never bleached. They have fantastic flours (I use the super high protein Lancelot) and you will find better flour only in France (and spelt in Germany). The cheap flour here in the US is actually harmful. Your "stiff" starter is like pasta madre. I recommend Ian Spampatti's channel to all bread lovers.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, experience and wisdom! I have been banging my head against that wall with trying to figure out why my dough is so sticky!! God Bless you!!
Henrick, I've been following your journey for the past year, and I love how you have run the complete gambit from super watery to this new stiff starter method. For a lazy guy, you've achieved a Sourdough knowledge anthology! Thank you!
Thank you very much 🤗. It depends on what bread I am trying to bake. With my super expensive flour I can use the liquid starter, with the default one the stiff starter seems to work a bit better.
This really works!! One of my regular customers texted me saying that my "other" bread was "like steak" (and she loved it), but this week's bread made with the stiff starter was lighter "like bread", she said. My kitchen here in central Texas is quite warm, so not sure if it was due to the ambient temp or the starter, but it proofed fast and resulted in a super light dough.
I have two starters one is regular sour starter and the other has no sourness at all and i use them together 50/50. So it's fluffy and tasty. And i can increase one of them to have either more sourness or less.
One warning and note, after converting your starter into liquid starter you will permanently change your starter's microorganisms. I couldn't get back the acetic vinegary notes. This vinegary flavour is excellent though in case you are making rye bread for instance. So please keep this in mind and also make a backup. Also another note, some people who make the starter initially from fruit water never get the vinegary notes at all. It's fascinating and just shows one more time how unique every sourdough starter is. Sank you. Edit: Had fun with my new camera 🤣. What do you think? What can I improve? Edit 2: I also just wrote down the key differences of all the starters in my blog post. I hope it helps: blog.the-bread-code.io/recipe/2021/10/24/all-you-need-to-know-stiff-liquid-regular-starter.html
Would the extra adult balloon filling of the stiffer starter not be because there is more “fuel” with more flour? The available carbohydrates that can be decomposed into CO2 is much higher than a liquid starter even if it is a activity highway.
Honestly, your new camera is too good. The bokeh is so strong it makes you look like a cartoon character. But it is great for filming the starter and dough and bread, basically anything on the counter. Just not your face ☹️. Sorry to say.
I would like more silly German jokes and craziness please. Especially the scary voices. Very entertaining. I think it would be great to hear you speak in whatever voice you think the bread might be making or perhaps the micro organisms and wild yeasts. That would be such fun.
Tried the stiff starter and loved it! The result was way more spring than my regular sourdough method and it was much easier to work with as it was not at all sticky. Thank you very much.
Dear Hendrick, so glad I came across you channel. The level of detail, the experiments, the clear step by step instruction and the humor make your channel exceptional. Thank you so much for all your hard work
Love your videos. A couple of thoughts to thank you. Hope they prove of interest and value. 1. When scoring proofed bread prior to baking - dip the sharp thin blade in olive oil to lubricate it. It reduces the potential of tearing the dough. 2. Try short autolysis times - 1 to 30 minutes. Less destruction of gluten network, more improved taste than longer times.
Recently found your channel! As an electrical engineer , finding relaxation with bread- making in my kitchen, I absolutely luv your analytical style! Thanks to all your pointers I am finally seeing some success with rise and crumb, thank you so much! You are a terrific teacher. THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! I knew I shared many things in common with my many Germans friends , my Leica, my Eurasier puppy, and now its my sourdough! Hooked on your channel- keep up your great work! Cheers!👍🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
The best solution ever! I was tired to maintain a liquid starter and also the waste of flour it’s insane.!. I decided to give a try to the stiff starter and my relationship with sourdough starter changed for good. The Bread Code is the best resource to learn about sourdough. Danke schön!
I'm still experimenting with my stiff starter, and it has been a good experience so far! My last sourdough burger buns with stiff starter turned out incredible. They exploded in size after shaping. I never had such huge fluffy and delicious buns. I'm looking forward to my next bake, which I think might be the recipe in this video. Thank you and may the gluten be with you 😘
I actually started to use the stiff starter from when I first watched your yeast vs sour vs mild video and i super love my bread ever since! The tang that it gives is really right for me. I dont personally like too sour bread and it's especially hard before since it's easy to mess up the fermentation when living in a hotter climate. Using the stiff starter is truly a game changer! (I super love your videos and Ive probably watched your videos at least 10 times per video for reference 😂) Much love and greetings from singapore!
Haha awesome! Thank you. Also love your comment as it shows how much this all ultimately boils down to personal preference. To the others, this video doesn't mean this is the best option, it's just another alternative. Sometimes it's a little hard to put that all in one video 🤣
I gave up making sourdough bread in the past because it came out flat. Now I know why😃😃. Thank you for sharing this knowledge. Right now, I am on day one of stiff starter process. Wish me luck!!!
I just want to say I love watching your videos and enjoy all the information you provide! I just started my sourdough journey back in January this year and it blows my mind at how much I'm still learning about the whole process! I'm very intrigued by the stiff starter and am probably going to start converting some of my 100% hydration starter into a stiff starter tonight to start experimenting with it! Thank you for all the research you've done (along with your experiments) and for sharing it with us!
I used to experiment with low hydration starters as well. What I noticed is that they (at least for me) ran bad much quicker than 100% hydration starters. And as I sometimes leave my starters in the fridge for more than a month without feeding them the 100% hydration works much better for me. Never had any mold issues or bad smell with these. Probably because they are more sour I suppose.
Ah! Now I understand why my new starter works so well. It's stiffer than my previous one. It doesn't stick (yeah!), and has an excellent rise. And so yummy.
Thanks for this video. I live in the bush in west Australia and it’s summertime now so my kitchen which is outside ranges from mid 20c overnight to upwards of 40c during the day. I agonised over failure after failure trying to create good crumb until I started to think about this yeast and bacteria balance. At last I’m making reasonable sourdough. With the info in this video I can feel greater success coming. By the way the dogs are quite happy with a bit of the gooey sour pancake bread. And the worms in my worm farm love it. 🙄
I made 2 loafs, one with my regular starter and the other with my first stiff starter. I did the stiff first, I kept your basic recipe as close as I could, 80% hydration using white bread flour and whole wheat BF. The day was hot, 77 (25) in the house, very unusual for April in upstate NY. They both fermented nicely with the regular sourdough inflating more than the stiff even though it was started an hour later. The most surprising thing is the ph of the stiff was much lower at time of baking, 4.05 vs 4.2. The spring was great, but I bungled the scoring on the regular starter loaf, so it isn't very symmetrical. Thanks for all the experiments you do! I usually make 2 loaves at a time since my oven will fit 2 dutch ovens so I can do my own experiments. I've started half baking one loaf and leave it in the fridge until I need it. It works great.
This really works! I just produced a fluffy loaf with lots of flavour. If you need a break from the slightly gummy texture of SD, this is the answer. Love it!
Hydration winter: 300g water +80g starter that contains 33,3 % water makes about 326g water to 400g flour: Dough hydration = 81,5% which is quite wet with the flour I use….so it may be a stiff starter but a wet dough? (Summer recepe is around 78,5%)
I have been baking with this method for a while now. Stiff starter made of 100% wheat whole grain, baking 80% white flour/20% whole grain breads. I use good flour and all, but lately my fermentations have been quite weak. Not as much gas production and mediocre oven spring. Not sure what it is, i feed it at least twice from the fridge before use. I will try out the doubled amount of starter in the recipe. In the coming days i will test, if you can store the stiff starter in a freezer and use it directly for standard recipes. I'd have several 10 g balls of stiff starter in the freezer. For each bake, take one ball, thaw it, feed it twice over 24 h at 1:1:2 (10+10+20 = 40 g; 40+40+80 = 160 g, or ~100 g of flour) and put everything into a standard recipe for a 500 g flour bread.
The best starter I have ever made was from the small piece of dough from the day before. It never grew in the little jar, but it turned into a wonderful active starter. This is actually the same method my great grandmother used over 80 years ago. She took a piece of dough and kept it under flour until the following week. She baked 12 loaves at once for the whole week
As a newbie, my first starters were either watery or at least thin. The results were hockey pucks. Even before I saw this video I started experimenting with thicker starter... not as thick as yours, however. The thicker starter (it hardly wants to come out of the jar!) resulted in more proofing and oven spring (by the way, I live at 4,300 ft elevation). So I know that you are on the right track for me! Thanks for the video!
I made a small loaf from a stiff starter and it turns out fluffy and delicious I don’t have a strong starter yet (mine is 2 weeks old) and all my bast loafs was failed so I think I’ll just stick to the stiff starter for now thank you so much (excuse my weak english)
Switched my starter from 100% hydration rye to 50% KA bread flour. Didn’t make liquid starter step. Baked 3 times with the stiff starter, great results. Flavor is not sour at all. Stupendous oven spring!
I'm from Costa Rica and love to learn from you. All I really understood about sourdough is thanks to you.
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I feed my starter twice a day at 100% hydration. I will definitely be trying out the stiff starter for a bit. The local flour we have in PR doesn't really work for breads above 65%, and I supplement with vital gluten to achieve that. Still, I've been baking daily for over two years now! It's really interesting to keep learning more about it!
Thanks Hendrik. I have experimented with a stiff starter for 2 months or so. I have had moderate, but not the "kaboom whay hey look at my bread, folks" sucess as with my 100 pc hydration starter. I find I have to pay attention to the fermentation more, and it is in danger of over fermenting, even with only 50pc expansion in bulk rise, with 12 percent protien.
LMAO. Thanks for this video. I have always used a thin starter, but I was living in California where temps were always moderate to warm. Now that I’m in Maine, my starter has been soo sad! 😢 I actually started increasing the flour at feeding instinctually, but I’m happy to hear that I’m on the right track. I may get this SOURDOUGH ART yet. ❤
It took a couple of seconds for me to realize you said "adult balloons". 🙂 Thank you for explaining everything so well and differently from other videos I have watched that were more basic that didn't go into the different ways of hydrating your starter. I have struggled over the years making sourdough .... I usually get very dense bread. I will give your method a try.
wow an excellent experiment. my previous starter died from neglect. beginning a new one so challenging 😢. but I want more yeast than bacteria so am following your Stiff Starter method. D1 results impressive, now into D2. Here in MY really difficult to find 15%hp flour so am waiting to see how this SS improves texture n taste of d 11%hp dough. Thanks so much for all yr bread engineering journey, can't find a more useful site than yours, keep up d good work Henrick 👍
Henrick, I'll admit after watching the video and making it, I was still very sceptical. After all, how could such a stiff blob of dough actually do anything other than just sit there like... a blob? Well, I wouldn't have believed it. After trying it, not only did it produce the desired activity, but it produced the best sourdough ever, with a perfect rise and ear.... Thanks!
Love from a new subscriber! I’m so enjoying your content and learning a TON about baking bread and raising starters. I traveled around Germany about 20 years ago and just loved the country and the people. I miss it! Gluten tag!!
I have a stiff starter aka lievito Madre and I can say it is an amazing starter! It is ready for bread making after even 4 hours! Although I like to wait til 6-7 hours. What I love about it is it's not sour and can be used in sweet doughs also.
I use Lievito Madre (Stiff/ Mother Dough) for all my breads since last year. This look like Lievito Madre minus the sugar water bath method. Tq for sharing Hendrik ❤
Unfortunately I already fed my 100% hydration sour dough starters so I will have to wait until tomorrow to transition one of them into a stiff one, thank you so much for this educational video!
Just love the monthztztz. English is also a second language for me and that is always one of the difficult ones, like schedule and sheets. (I still wouldn't say the last one in front of young children! 😅) Thank you so much for this video. All those different starters and uses for them can be very confusing. I'm going to try the sausage for me next bake. 😊
I've been experimenting with a way to get more Oven Spring Using a DO. After multiply trials, this works very well !! Before preheating DO, pour boiling water in half way up sides. Cover and place in oven @ 500°F. After 1 hr, carefully pour the water out but leave the insides wet. Place the dough inside and bake as usual. You get a very steamy environment with the water added prior to preheating, and then discarded and leaving water vapor behind before baking. Results are very similar to the Rofco and Anova Bread ovens which bake with injected steam.
Hello! Last year I purchased an old copy of Arizona Recipes from a thrift store. One of the sourdough starters used soured milk and flour. I'm both lactose and gluten intolerant, but decided to give it a try. I'm using whole rye flour and, instead of milk, I used the whey milk left over from making raw cream butter. Ironically, I have a tolerance for raw milk and cream... I'll let you know the results. The starter is still very new, but very tangy, like I like it!
Hey Jaki. Oh noes! In that case please try making a liquid starter. And - please try using ancient grains such as Einkorn. Let it ferment for a long time and then store it in a loaf pan. Wait for it to increase in size again then bake it. This way you will have as little gluten left as possible. Only take a tiny bite to see how it impacts you. The key is really to have a very long fermentation.
@@the_bread_code Thank you! I have 4 starters going: Stiff. 50/50 rye flour and spring water. Liquid: 50/250 rye and water Milk: 50/50 rye and soured milk The last is a combination of water and milk with the rye. They all taste different. Favorites so far for flavor are the liquid and the milk ones. I'll try to find einkorn flour. My local healthfood store can order I it for me. Thank you again!👍
Fascinating! Do you just keep feeding 1-1-2 everyday until you decide to bake? Then this “stiff” starter is used in the leaven? Thank you for any helpful comments 😊
Henrick, I LOVE your videos, and I'm making my first stiff starter. Two questions: 1. My regular starter was made with all-purpose flour, but I did my first feeding of the stiff starter with bread flour. I do want a more sour dough. Was that okay? 2. Can I put the discard from the stiff starter into my jar of regular discard? I use my discard in other recipes (i.e. brownies, pancakes, etc.). Thank you for all your great information. By the way, if you had a t-shirt with a large design or logo on the front, I'd buy one.
i thought the stiff starter was interesting. so i tried coverting my sourdough to the stiff starter. the first day was fine (10 g my starter, 25 g water, 50 g flour) left at room temperature. i doubled no problem. day 2 -- 10 g starter, 25 g water, 50 g flour -- put into fridge after feeding. day 3 -- disaster -- the starter was so stiff i had to pinch out the 10 g starter, added the 25 g water and can't get the 2 to mix, the starter refused to dissolve! what did i do wrong?
I have been baking 100 percent whole grain from freshly milled wheat for several years now. I switched to a stiff starter and got the best bread rise and ear I’ve ever had. The stiff starter did make me add a slap and fold technique after the autolyse to incorporate the stiff starter well, but it is worth the slight increase in effort.
@@the_bread_code, the health benefits of using 100 percent whole grain is that the glycemic index of the bread is much lower. This means you can eat it every day with less risk of diabetes or obesity. This is the reason I have made the switch to 100 percent whole grain breads. The health benefits are amazing. I would start with a 50 percent bread flour and 50 percent red hard spring wheat and work your way up to 100 percent loaves. Both your taste buds and your technique will have to adapt, but they certainly will. Getting a good bread rise and ear is the hard part, but with your skills, you will succeed. The combination of stiff starter, a slap and fold technique after a 45 autolyse, and leaving the lid on the cast iron Dutch oven 30 minutes instead of the usual 20 minutes, has given me terrific oven spring and a perfect ear that is hard to tell from my former bread flour loaves. Thanks for asking!
Hi, thank you for your videos! Can you tell me how to make a stiff starter from the very beginning without a regular starter? Or in any case I need to convert my regular starter for it? I'm new in sourdough making))
I personally am in love w/ stiff starter (60% hydration). It helps me tremendously since i live in the tropical Indonesia. 100% hydration doesn’t work for me coz i don’t bake every day or even once a week. Stiff starter is the one for me.
I'm new at making sourdough bread, but since the start i don't know why but I have always used the stiff starter, and I like it a lot, and since a like a more mild bread and I don't have easy access to really good flour it's a win win
from my previous comments you know how much we love you...two things to point out 1. when you do create your stiff sourdough starter you did not mention when it'll be ready to use for mixing my bread dough, is it immediately, do you have to wait till it reaches a certain ph or size increase or what, forgive me but I am a little confused...2. you said afterwards we'll have a little sourdough left and you suggested to put it in the fridge, alas your video show the freezer opening and closing to store your starter, well? Freezer or fridge? and what difference can you expect in either case? thank you
I would recommend to look on the edges of the container and check for some bubbles. That's a sign it's ready to be used! Also use your nose, it should have a great scent to it. Fridge if you want to bake in the next 7 days. Freezer for long term storage. Your microbes will sporulate and then become activated again when you add water and flour again.
I think you made an interesting point with the hydration. However you might not be 100% correct in your interpretation. There are some questions, which I would like to ask you: - Did you measure the inflation of the balloon with the same amount of each starter? Maybe the amount of the stiff dough was higher and therefore caused a higher inflation of the balloon? Moreover the bigger amount of CO2, produced by the stiff starter, could be caused by heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria as well as yeasts. Maybe the higher level of rising by the stiff starter can be explaned by fewer CO2 being solubilized in the water, as there is less water in the stiffer starter. That causes more CO2 to leave the sourdough an therefore inflates the balloon.
I have 4 starters right now, 50 % hydration wheat, 200 % hydration wheat, 100 % rye and 200 % rye that I feed parallely. They all smell differently but I cant notice a real difference in the final product. If i want max. fluffiness or the San Francisco style breads (like yours), then the easiest way for me is the 50 % hydration starter (also works well when fed with sugar or honey to be ideal for cake and canelbulle). If I just want a tangy rye bread (with seeds) the 100 % rye seems ideal. Too many variables to get a decisive result tho :P
Going to try the stiff starter, thank you! Just wondering though, the bread with the stuff starter be less better for you gut health wise? Great video x
Am I bad? My strange trick is just to put a tiny amount of regular yeast in alongside my starter ... maybe 0.5g, so the sourdough gets a good head start during the fermentation. Eight hours later overnight, all my microorganisms are living happily together, gives me good flavor, nice crumb, good oven spring, no more hockey pucks. I suppose it's cheating...but all I want is reliable good bread ...
I made the stiff starter and it came out great and made your "best sourdough sandwich bread" with it. The bread came out beautifully but I found it a little difficult to get the stiff starter completely incorporated into the autolysis. Maybe i need to only use the stiff starter with recipes that allow me to soften the stiff starter in the water before adding flour.
Stiff starter is way more preferred in Italy; especially for doughs as panettone. It is strong, less sour and "last longer" than the liquid one: once reached his peak does not collapse and can be used for the next 2 days!
Thank you so much for sharing all of this great info! I have learned so much from watching your channel. I am new to sourdough and am finally starting to get some decent/edible results lol
Great video, once again I learned something new. Currently I'm in a transition phase for my starter. I baked quite a few frisbees again the last few times, even with a stiff starter, as the bread then overfermented and there was no time to do some reshaping (also it would not have sticked together, as riceflour was already on there). Now I'm getting towards the fruity notes once again (smells like very ripe peaches) and hopefully I can get back to making amazing bread once more. Am Ende hilft nur eins - mehr the bread code videos schauen ;)
Haha. Oh noes! I would try to put your stiff starter on a healthy diet for 3 days. Then feed it one more time in the evening, in the morning use 20% stiff starter calculated based on the flour that you are using. You will be inducing a highly active starter with not too much long-prefermented flour. In summer times change this to 10%. With the 20% my bulk fermentation now in cold Hamburg takes around 10 hours to complete.
@@the_bread_code I gotta bake a discard loaf first with your recipe, as it would be a heck of a waste/waaay to much flour to feed the starter rn for 3 days in da row. I'd feed the starter close to 1kg of flour.. in 3 days this is to much for my 1 person bread needs. Thanks for the tips :)
Wow, I loved when I got my starter going, but neither my wife nor me are into the vinegary notes or too sour flavors, so I´m currently switching to liquid starter and in a couple of weeks switching to stiff, so looking forward to see and taste the results.. Thank you for the tips
@@the_bread_code I finally finished going from regular to liquid to stiff and yeah, is just like you said, you need to check how the smell changes, but in the third day after switching to stiff the starter more than doubles once fed, and the bread is really soft and even fluffier than if you use regular dry yeast. Lovely oven spring considering I only cover it with a steel bowl since I don't have a dutch oven yet and it still has some acidity but not excessive and no longer tastes vinegary, my wife loved it. Oh, and it tastes incredible with Nutella (hope I don't wrath the bread gods hehe). Thank you so much.
Hi Hendric Thank you for this awesome video. I have been baking sourdough breads for some time now, and have newly found some new bread type, I did not know about, it is called shokupan sourdough bread,very conmon in Asia, they use some method called yodane or tze thong. It is when you use water and flour, in a pan, over heat, mix it till it stiffens, and cool it down in the fridge, then you allso use your sourdough starter, and flour, and water,you can those to use eg, cream and butter as well. It is a very floffy, and sweet bread. Would you consider trying to make it,and doing a video on that type of bread, since you are so awesome a baking nerd, (meant positive)😀👍 Thank you again, new supper!🤩👍 From Denmark 🇩🇰
I know this video is two years old, but I'm really hoping you see this question and can give me an answer. I'm gluten intolerant. Not bad enough that I can never have gluten again, but enough that I can realistically only have full servings of gluteny wheat pastas/breads/pizzas a couple times a week. I understand that sourdough breaks down gluten and has been found to be easier for gluten intolerants to digest. My question is: What would you recommend to get a product you can make a sandwich or toast with that has the least gluten reasonably possible? A stiff starter with low gluten flour? Or a higher hydration starter with longer ferment?
Whenever I watch commercial bakers make sourdough for their bakeries on TH-camr, I notice almost all are using a stiffer starter. So I was actually surprised to see that the “normal” starter that is made with a 50/50 ratio is like sludge and not stiff.
I always use stiff starter, but I really don't measure the %.. I just feed my starter and make sure it's quite stiff by feeling it with the spatula. It's really a game changer... When it's on its peak, it looks like a sponge.
Hi there, Firstly, thank you so much for your wealth of knowledge, teaching us about sour dough! I would like to ask, I watched your other video, The LAST Sourdough Bread Recipe You Ever Need, and in there you autolyse your dough for an hour first. Would you still recommend doing that when using the stiff starter? Also around how long does it take for 1:5:2.5 feeding take to reach the peak state (ready for baking)? And also, if I am consistently using a stiff starter, how would I adapt the stiff starter for other sour dough recipes? I also remember you said we could use the stiff starter in non sourdough recipes? How does that work? appreciate your help!
@the_bread_code I am confused as to how are you able to make different recipes with the stiff starter since it's very little. Can you assist? Much apprecated!!
I tried this out and it like exploded out of my bowl it was so bubbly. I just took a little starter from my main jar, mixed it with the ratios here put it in a little bowl and used the entire lump as my levain and WOW.
I just use starter scrapings left in a jar in the fridge. I remove jar and add 50ml of water. Put lid back on and shake the jar till the scrapings are suspended in the water. Then I add 50g of flour. Mix it with a spoon. So 100% Hydration. In 12 hours or so it has doubled in size and I use it. Quite sour but very light starter. It floats on the water I use before mixing the dough. I will try your stiff 50% starter but I am perplexed by the 500% step you use. What is the point of that ?
Question: when building starter up before use, why is so much discarded? Seem like I could just add water and flour at each feeding. However, there must be a reason. My guess is that it creates too much acidity. Thanks
Apologies if you've covered this in another video, but i was wondering how many days of shifting to a liquid starter it takes in general to sufficiently select for those lactic acid bacteria? Also after re-adjusting to a stiff starter, do you ever find you need to tame the vinegar-like bacteria back down afain by doing another phase of liquid starter?
About two hours ago I made the stiff starter. But sorry, a donut... (No sausage for moi). 😅 It already grew at least twice it's size. I was going to leave it overnight... I think it will have to wait for me in the fridge until morning. Great thing. It goes crazy!! 🤪
You can read about this in detail in my free book called “The Sourdough Framework”. You can get it here: breadco.de/book. You can support the project with a donation, but there is absolutely no knead. I believe information like this should be free and accessible to everyone. The book is made for everyone who wants to understand the important details when making sourdough bread. Thank you!
did you know, that the active yeast in a panetonne is as well 100 flour to 50 gr water.
I will be trying a stiff starter. My dad made sour dough bread all my life. I can't believe we never talked about it because I took it so for granted. He was a cook for the sheepherders in northern Arizona and New Mexico for 17 years so he had cooking out in the country down to an art everything was cooked underground in cast iron. I so regret not asking more questions because those secrets are gone from me forever. I've been working with sourdough for about 3 months now and have only had a couple of successes. My starter's name is Pedro, in other words, Peter Pan, pan is the Spanish word for bread and Pedro is the Spanish word for peter, thus Pedro.🤓
Hey Ernie! How’s the bread coming along?? Your story is sad and educational. I hope your dad is looking down to zap that bread into a great loaf!
That would have been right up my ally to experience and see his cooking that way. Many primitive ways of cooking is so interesting. And different cultures cont. with that tradition passing it down generation to generation.
I would really like to talk to you mu husbands family is from young and I've heard alot about the Pleasant Valley War
Oh your dad must have had wonderful stories to tell and great cooking ideas! I am in the same position - my dad was Italian, grew up in the countryside and knew how to make everything and stupid here did not learn from him and now it is too late. Still we were lucky to have interesting fathers!
I come from a long line of German bakers(and millers (the house in which the bakery was is from 1150 and our mill is even older) and love bread. I lived in Paris and Spain and always found the best bakers. Your explanations are extremely good and I hope many people get convinced to make their own bread. One thing: in the States 99% of the flower is bromated. That is illegal in the rest of the world because it is cancerous. I recommend King Arthur flours: never bromated, never bleached. They have fantastic flours (I use the super high protein Lancelot) and you will find better flour only in France (and spelt in Germany). The cheap flour here in the US is actually harmful. Your "stiff" starter is like pasta madre. I recommend Ian Spampatti's channel to all bread lovers.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, experience and wisdom! I have been banging my head against that wall with trying to figure out why my dough is so sticky!! God Bless you!!
Henrick, I've been following your journey for the past year, and I love how you have run the complete gambit from super watery to this new stiff starter method. For a lazy guy, you've achieved a Sourdough knowledge anthology! Thank you!
Thank you very much 🤗. It depends on what bread I am trying to bake. With my super expensive flour I can use the liquid starter, with the default one the stiff starter seems to work a bit better.
This really works!! One of my regular customers texted me saying that my "other" bread was "like steak" (and she loved it), but this week's bread made with the stiff starter was lighter "like bread", she said. My kitchen here in central Texas is quite warm, so not sure if it was due to the ambient temp or the starter, but it proofed fast and resulted in a super light dough.
I have two starters one is regular sour starter and the other has no sourness at all and i use them together 50/50. So it's fluffy and tasty. And i can increase one of them to have either more sourness or less.
This is a brilliant idea! Thank you for the suggestion.
Wow
I would think you can mix the dry starter with fresh water and flour the day before to get the tang
How did you get the sourless one?
One warning and note, after converting your starter into liquid starter you will permanently change your starter's microorganisms. I couldn't get back the acetic vinegary notes. This vinegary flavour is excellent though in case you are making rye bread for instance. So please keep this in mind and also make a backup. Also another note, some people who make the starter initially from fruit water never get the vinegary notes at all. It's fascinating and just shows one more time how unique every sourdough starter is. Sank you.
Edit: Had fun with my new camera 🤣. What do you think? What can I improve?
Edit 2: I also just wrote down the key differences of all the starters in my blog post. I hope it helps: blog.the-bread-code.io/recipe/2021/10/24/all-you-need-to-know-stiff-liquid-regular-starter.html
Would the extra adult balloon filling of the stiffer starter not be because there is more “fuel” with more flour? The available carbohydrates that can be decomposed into CO2 is much higher than a liquid starter even if it is a activity highway.
Honestly, your new camera is too good. The bokeh is so strong it makes you look like a cartoon character. But it is great for filming the starter and dough and bread, basically anything on the counter. Just not your face ☹️. Sorry to say.
Yeah, I felt like it was almost like a green screen. The depth of field is very weird, either 100% or 0% blur.
I would like more silly German jokes and craziness please. Especially the scary voices. Very entertaining. I think it would be great to hear you speak in whatever voice you think the bread might be making or perhaps the micro organisms and wild yeasts. That would be such fun.
@@thaejsooriya3313 Great point! I accounted for that in the experiment. Each of them had the same amount of fuel.
Tried the stiff starter and loved it!
The result was way more spring than my regular sourdough method and it was much easier to work with as it was not at all sticky.
Thank you very much.
Great to hear!
Dear Hendrick, so glad I came across you channel. The level of detail, the experiments, the clear step by step instruction and the humor make your channel exceptional. Thank you so much for all your hard work
Love your videos. A couple of thoughts to thank you. Hope they prove of interest and value. 1. When scoring proofed bread prior to baking - dip the sharp thin blade in olive oil to lubricate it. It reduces the potential of tearing the dough. 2. Try short autolysis times - 1 to 30 minutes. Less destruction of gluten network, more improved taste than longer times.
Recently found your channel! As an electrical engineer , finding relaxation with bread- making in my kitchen, I absolutely luv your analytical style! Thanks to all your pointers I am finally seeing some success with rise and crumb, thank you so much! You are a terrific teacher. THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!
I knew I shared many things in common with my many Germans friends , my Leica, my Eurasier puppy, and now its my sourdough! Hooked on your channel- keep up your great work! Cheers!👍🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Hahah, thank you very much!
The best solution ever! I was tired to maintain a liquid starter and also the waste of flour it’s insane.!. I decided to give a try to the stiff starter and my relationship with sourdough starter changed for good.
The Bread Code is the best resource to learn about sourdough.
Danke schön!
Do you put it in the freezer or fridge?? And how often you feed it? Thankyou
I'm still experimenting with my stiff starter, and it has been a good experience so far! My last sourdough burger buns with stiff starter turned out incredible. They exploded in size after shaping. I never had such huge fluffy and delicious buns. I'm looking forward to my next bake, which I think might be the recipe in this video. Thank you and may the gluten be with you 😘
Hi, how long did it take you to create your stiff starter before it was ready to use?
I actually started to use the stiff starter from when I first watched your yeast vs sour vs mild video and i super love my bread ever since! The tang that it gives is really right for me. I dont personally like too sour bread and it's especially hard before since it's easy to mess up the fermentation when living in a hotter climate. Using the stiff starter is truly a game changer! (I super love your videos and Ive probably watched your videos at least 10 times per video for reference 😂) Much love and greetings from singapore!
Haha awesome! Thank you. Also love your comment as it shows how much this all ultimately boils down to personal preference. To the others, this video doesn't mean this is the best option, it's just another alternative. Sometimes it's a little hard to put that all in one video 🤣
Hello Random stranger from Singapore, greetings from Ireland. I love Singapore and think of it often.
I gave up making sourdough bread in the past because it came out flat. Now I know why😃😃. Thank you for sharing this knowledge. Right now, I am on day one of stiff starter process. Wish me luck!!!
Macht echt Freude, soviel Wissen mit so einer großen Portion Humor zu sehen. Echt cool.
Danke 🤣👍
I just want to say I love watching your videos and enjoy all the information you provide! I just started my sourdough journey back in January this year and it blows my mind at how much I'm still learning about the whole process! I'm very intrigued by the stiff starter and am probably going to start converting some of my 100% hydration starter into a stiff starter tonight to start experimenting with it! Thank you for all the research you've done (along with your experiments) and for sharing it with us!
I used to experiment with low hydration starters as well. What I noticed is that they (at least for me) ran bad much quicker than 100% hydration starters. And as I sometimes leave my starters in the fridge for more than a month without feeding them the 100% hydration works much better for me. Never had any mold issues or bad smell with these. Probably because they are more sour I suppose.
Love this! I myself stick with a 100% hydration starter, simply because I don’t want to choose between oven spring and sourness 😋
Ah! Now I understand why my new starter works so well. It's stiffer than my previous one. It doesn't stick (yeah!), and has an excellent rise. And so yummy.
Thanks for this video.
I live in the bush in west Australia and it’s summertime now so my kitchen which is outside ranges from mid 20c overnight to upwards of 40c during the day.
I agonised over failure after failure trying to create good crumb until I started to think about this yeast and bacteria balance. At last I’m making reasonable sourdough. With the info in this video I can feel greater success coming.
By the way the dogs are quite happy with a bit of the gooey sour pancake bread. And the worms in my worm farm love it. 🙄
I made 2 loafs, one with my regular starter and the other with my first stiff starter. I did the stiff first, I kept your basic recipe as close as I could, 80% hydration using white bread flour and whole wheat BF. The day was hot, 77 (25) in the house, very unusual for April in upstate NY. They both fermented nicely with the regular sourdough inflating more than the stiff even though it was started an hour later. The most surprising thing is the ph of the stiff was much lower at time of baking, 4.05 vs 4.2. The spring was great, but I bungled the scoring on the regular starter loaf, so it isn't very symmetrical.
Thanks for all the experiments you do! I usually make 2 loaves at a time since my oven will fit 2 dutch ovens so I can do my own experiments. I've started half baking one loaf and leave it in the fridge until I need it. It works great.
This really works! I just produced a fluffy loaf with lots of flavour.
If you need a break from the slightly gummy texture of SD, this is the answer.
Love it!
Hydration winter: 300g water +80g starter that contains 33,3 % water makes about 326g water to 400g flour: Dough hydration = 81,5% which is quite wet with the flour I use….so it may be a stiff starter but a wet dough?
(Summer recepe is around 78,5%)
I have been baking with this method for a while now. Stiff starter made of 100% wheat whole grain, baking 80% white flour/20% whole grain breads. I use good flour and all, but lately my fermentations have been quite weak. Not as much gas production and mediocre oven spring. Not sure what it is, i feed it at least twice from the fridge before use. I will try out the doubled amount of starter in the recipe.
In the coming days i will test, if you can store the stiff starter in a freezer and use it directly for standard recipes. I'd have several 10 g balls of stiff starter in the freezer. For each bake, take one ball, thaw it, feed it twice over 24 h at 1:1:2 (10+10+20 = 40 g; 40+40+80 = 160 g, or ~100 g of flour) and put everything into a standard recipe for a 500 g flour bread.
Some bakers used to store their stiff starter in the bag of flour
Thanks for all your tips! New baker here and it is mind boggling at all the information! 🤯
The best starter I have ever made was from the small piece of dough from the day before. It never grew in the little jar, but it turned into a wonderful active starter.
This is actually the same method my great grandmother used over 80 years ago. She took a piece of dough and kept it under flour until the following week. She baked 12 loaves at once for the whole week
Oddly enough, I have been doing this myself since the summer completely independently. I prefer it!
As a newbie, my first starters were either watery or at least thin. The results were hockey pucks. Even before I saw this video I started experimenting with thicker starter... not as thick as yours, however. The thicker starter (it hardly wants to come out of the jar!) resulted in more proofing and oven spring (by the way, I live at 4,300 ft elevation). So I know that you are on the right track for me! Thanks for the video!
Once again, amazing video my friend! I love how you're a German guy, making videos in English and your TH-cam is in Spanish! Cheers from Brazil.
😂 😂 😂
I made a small loaf from a stiff starter and it turns out fluffy and delicious I don’t have a strong starter yet (mine is 2 weeks old) and all my bast loafs was failed so I think I’ll just stick to the stiff starter for now thank you so much (excuse my weak english)
Switched my starter from 100% hydration rye to 50% KA bread flour. Didn’t make liquid starter step. Baked 3 times with the stiff starter, great results. Flavor is not sour at all. Stupendous oven spring!
I've never tried a stiff starter before...today is the day I try! Thanks for the tips 😁🍞
I'm from Costa Rica and love to learn from you. All I really understood about sourdough is thanks to you.
I feed my starter twice a day at 100% hydration. I will definitely be trying out the stiff starter for a bit.
The local flour we have in PR doesn't really work for breads above 65%, and I supplement with vital gluten to achieve that.
Still, I've been baking daily for over two years now! It's really interesting to keep learning more about it!
Thanks Hendrik. I have experimented with a stiff starter for 2 months or so. I have had moderate, but not the "kaboom whay hey look at my bread, folks" sucess as with my 100 pc hydration starter. I find I have to pay attention to the fermentation more, and it is in danger of over fermenting, even with only 50pc expansion in bulk rise, with 12 percent protien.
Loved this video!
Glad you liked it!!
I have let the starter sit in the fridge for months with only one feeding after 3 months. It still works even with this starvation timing
I pretty much decided to give up baking sourdough because all I could make flat sour pancakes. You have given me hope! I will try this method.
LMAO. Thanks for this video. I have always used a thin starter, but I was living in California where temps were always moderate to warm. Now that I’m in Maine, my starter has been soo sad! 😢 I actually started increasing the flour at feeding instinctually, but I’m happy to hear that I’m on the right track. I may get this SOURDOUGH ART yet. ❤
Hilarious! Love it. Thanks.
It took a couple of seconds for me to realize you said "adult balloons". 🙂 Thank you for explaining everything so well and differently from other videos I have watched that were more basic that didn't go into the different ways of hydrating your starter. I have struggled over the years making sourdough .... I usually get very dense bread. I will give your method a try.
wow an excellent experiment. my previous starter died from neglect. beginning a new one so challenging 😢. but I want more yeast than bacteria so am following your Stiff Starter method. D1 results impressive, now into D2.
Here in MY really difficult to find 15%hp flour so am waiting to see how this SS improves texture n taste of d 11%hp dough.
Thanks so much for all yr bread engineering journey, can't find a more useful site than yours, keep up d good work Henrick 👍
Henrick, I'll admit after watching the video and making it, I was still very sceptical. After all, how could such a stiff blob of dough actually do anything other than just sit there like... a blob? Well, I wouldn't have believed it. After trying it, not only did it produce the desired activity, but it produced the best sourdough ever, with a perfect rise and ear.... Thanks!
😂 that's awesome. My pleasure.
Love from a new subscriber! I’m so enjoying your content and learning a TON about baking bread and raising starters.
I traveled around Germany about 20 years ago and just loved the country and the people. I miss it!
Gluten tag!!
hahaha... my day... so many surprises in this video. Good one!
I’m so happy I found your site! Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Plus I appreciate your sense of humor! 😊
I have a stiff starter aka lievito Madre and I can say it is an amazing starter! It is ready for bread making after even 4 hours! Although I like to wait til 6-7 hours. What I love about it is it's not sour and can be used in sweet doughs also.
I use Lievito Madre (Stiff/ Mother Dough) for all my breads since last year. This look like Lievito Madre minus the sugar water bath method. Tq for sharing Hendrik ❤
VERY interesting...thank you!
Unfortunately I already fed my 100% hydration sour dough starters so I will have to wait until tomorrow to transition one of them into a stiff one, thank you so much for this educational video!
Just love the monthztztz. English is also a second language for me and that is always one of the difficult ones, like schedule and sheets. (I still wouldn't say the last one in front of young children! 😅)
Thank you so much for this video. All those different starters and uses for them can be very confusing.
I'm going to try the sausage for me next bake. 😊
I jus say linenihave trouble. With allot of words like sheep ships and sip is all the same to me.
I've been experimenting with a way to get more Oven Spring Using a DO. After multiply trials, this works very well !!
Before preheating DO, pour boiling water in half way up sides. Cover and place in oven @ 500°F. After 1 hr, carefully pour the water out but leave the insides wet. Place the dough inside and bake as usual. You get a very steamy environment with the water added prior to preheating, and then discarded and leaving water vapor behind before baking. Results are very similar to the Rofco and Anova Bread ovens which bake with injected steam.
Great, succinct summary of so much good bread teaching. This video is a bit too slapstick for my taste, but I am glad you are having fun!! ❤️🍞 ❤️
Hello!
Last year I purchased an old copy of Arizona Recipes from a thrift store. One of the sourdough starters used soured milk and flour. I'm both lactose and gluten intolerant, but decided to give it a try. I'm using whole rye flour and, instead of milk, I used the whey milk left over from making raw cream butter. Ironically, I have a tolerance for raw milk and cream...
I'll let you know the results. The starter is still very new, but very tangy, like I like it!
Hey Jaki. Oh noes! In that case please try making a liquid starter. And - please try using ancient grains such as Einkorn. Let it ferment for a long time and then store it in a loaf pan. Wait for it to increase in size again then bake it. This way you will have as little gluten left as possible. Only take a tiny bite to see how it impacts you. The key is really to have a very long fermentation.
@@the_bread_code
Thank you!
I have 4 starters going:
Stiff. 50/50 rye flour and spring water.
Liquid: 50/250 rye and water
Milk: 50/50 rye and soured milk
The last is a combination of water and milk with the rye.
They all taste different. Favorites so far for flavor are the liquid and the milk ones.
I'll try to find einkorn flour. My local healthfood store can order I it for me.
Thank you again!👍
100% agree. once i started using the stiffer starter everything changed
Fascinating!
Do you just keep feeding 1-1-2 everyday until you decide to bake? Then this “stiff” starter is used in the leaven?
Thank you for any helpful comments 😊
Henrick, I LOVE your videos, and I'm making my first stiff starter. Two questions:
1. My regular starter was made with all-purpose flour, but I did my first feeding of the stiff starter with bread flour. I do want a more sour dough. Was that okay?
2. Can I put the discard from the stiff starter into my jar of regular discard? I use my discard in other recipes (i.e. brownies, pancakes, etc.).
Thank you for all your great information.
By the way, if you had a t-shirt with a large design or logo on the front, I'd buy one.
i thought the stiff starter was interesting. so i tried coverting my sourdough to the stiff starter. the first day was fine (10 g my starter, 25 g water, 50 g flour) left at room temperature. i doubled no problem. day 2 -- 10 g starter, 25 g water, 50 g flour -- put into fridge after feeding. day 3 -- disaster -- the starter was so stiff i had to pinch out the 10 g starter, added the 25 g water and can't get the 2 to mix, the starter refused to dissolve! what did i do wrong?
I have been baking 100 percent whole grain from freshly milled wheat for several years now. I switched to a stiff starter and got the best bread rise and ear I’ve ever had. The stiff starter did make me add a slap and fold technique after the autolyse to incorporate the stiff starter well, but it is worth the slight increase in effort.
Glad it worked out for you! Any tips for working with fresh milled flour?
@@the_bread_code, the health benefits of using 100 percent whole grain is that the glycemic index of the bread is much lower. This means you can eat it every day with less risk of diabetes or obesity. This is the reason I have made the switch to 100 percent whole grain breads. The health benefits are amazing. I would start with a 50 percent bread flour and 50 percent red hard spring wheat and work your way up to 100 percent loaves. Both your taste buds and your technique will have to adapt, but they certainly will. Getting a good bread rise and ear is the hard part, but with your skills, you will succeed. The combination of stiff starter, a slap and fold technique after a 45 autolyse, and leaving the lid on the cast iron Dutch oven 30 minutes instead of the usual 20 minutes, has given me terrific oven spring and a perfect ear that is hard to tell from my former bread flour loaves.
Thanks for asking!
Hallo Hendrik, great new look with the camera, love the zoom ins and the jump cuts. Keep the great videos and recipes coming…. Danke
Hi, thank you for your videos! Can you tell me how to make a stiff starter from the very beginning without a regular starter? Or in any case I need to convert my regular starter for it? I'm new in sourdough making))
I personally am in love w/ stiff starter (60% hydration). It helps me tremendously since i live in the tropical Indonesia. 100% hydration doesn’t work for me coz i don’t bake every day or even once a week. Stiff starter is the one for me.
I'm new at making sourdough bread, but since the start i don't know why but I have always used the stiff starter, and I like it a lot, and since a like a more mild bread and I don't have easy access to really good flour it's a win win
Thank You for the simple explanation.
Great combination of information and wit
from my previous comments you know how much we love you...two things to point out 1. when you do create your stiff sourdough starter you did not mention when it'll be ready to use for mixing my bread dough, is it immediately, do you have to wait till it reaches a certain ph or size increase or what, forgive me but I am a little confused...2. you said afterwards we'll have a little sourdough left and you suggested to put it in the fridge, alas your video show the freezer opening and closing to store your starter, well? Freezer or fridge? and what difference can you expect in either case? thank you
I would recommend to look on the edges of the container and check for some bubbles. That's a sign it's ready to be used! Also use your nose, it should have a great scent to it. Fridge if you want to bake in the next 7 days. Freezer for long term storage. Your microbes will sporulate and then become activated again when you add water and flour again.
My 88yo grandma used to do this type of starter since she was start to learning how to make bread
I think you made an interesting point with the hydration. However you might not be 100% correct in your interpretation. There are some questions, which I would like to ask you:
- Did you measure the inflation of the balloon with the same amount of each starter? Maybe the amount of the stiff dough was higher and therefore caused a higher inflation of the balloon?
Moreover the bigger amount of CO2, produced by the stiff starter, could be caused by heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria as well as yeasts. Maybe the higher level of rising by the stiff starter can be explaned by fewer CO2 being solubilized in the water, as there is less water in the stiffer starter. That causes more CO2 to leave the sourdough an therefore inflates the balloon.
Thanks for such an informative and considerately written video. 😊🍞
Wow, Pun-O-Rama... always good to laugh. Neat idea, going to try it for travel.
WTF!!?? A German with humor? 🤣🤣I really love your chanel, I have learned a lot about baking. Keep up the good work!
Love this technique. Gonna try it!
I have 4 starters right now, 50 % hydration wheat, 200 % hydration wheat, 100 % rye and 200 % rye that I feed parallely. They all smell differently but I cant notice a real difference in the final product.
If i want max. fluffiness or the San Francisco style breads (like yours), then the easiest way for me is the 50 % hydration starter (also works well when fed with sugar or honey to be ideal for cake and canelbulle). If I just want a tangy rye bread (with seeds) the 100 % rye seems ideal. Too many variables to get a decisive result tho :P
Going to try the stiff starter, thank you! Just wondering though, the bread with the stuff starter be less better for you gut health wise? Great video x
Am I bad? My strange trick is just to put a tiny amount of regular yeast in alongside my starter ... maybe 0.5g, so the sourdough gets a good head start during the fermentation. Eight hours later overnight, all my microorganisms are living happily together, gives me good flavor, nice crumb, good oven spring, no more hockey pucks. I suppose it's cheating...but all I want is reliable good bread ...
Hallo aus Amerika! I will be this video is great, I look forward to trying this out. I will definitely be following your videos.
I made the stiff starter and it came out great and made your "best sourdough sandwich bread" with it. The bread came out beautifully but I found it a little difficult to get the stiff starter completely incorporated into the autolysis. Maybe i need to only use the stiff starter with recipes that allow me to soften the stiff starter in the water before adding flour.
Hendrik You are funny and you make watching you fun i love it
Stiff starter is way more preferred in Italy; especially for doughs as panettone. It is strong, less sour and "last longer" than the liquid one: once reached his peak does not collapse and can be used for the next 2 days!
The editing! 🤣
Great job! (I haven't finished yet but geez the editing was hilarious!)
Sanks!
Thank you so much for sharing all of this great info! I have learned so much from watching your channel. I am new to sourdough and am finally starting to get some decent/edible results lol
Thnaks for this great explanation
Great video, once again I learned something new.
Currently I'm in a transition phase for my starter. I baked quite a few frisbees again the last few times, even with a stiff starter, as the bread then overfermented and there was no time to do some reshaping (also it would not have sticked together, as riceflour was already on there).
Now I'm getting towards the fruity notes once again (smells like very ripe peaches) and hopefully I can get back to making amazing bread once more.
Am Ende hilft nur eins - mehr the bread code videos schauen ;)
Haha. Oh noes! I would try to put your stiff starter on a healthy diet for 3 days. Then feed it one more time in the evening, in the morning use 20% stiff starter calculated based on the flour that you are using. You will be inducing a highly active starter with not too much long-prefermented flour. In summer times change this to 10%. With the 20% my bulk fermentation now in cold Hamburg takes around 10 hours to complete.
@@the_bread_code I gotta bake a discard loaf first with your recipe, as it would be a heck of a waste/waaay to much flour to feed the starter rn for 3 days in da row. I'd feed the starter close to 1kg of flour.. in 3 days this is to much for my 1 person bread needs. Thanks for the tips :)
@@KingJL25 You can always just use way less starter too and do all on a smaller scale. I just used those numbers to make it easier 🤓
Wow, I loved when I got my starter going, but neither my wife nor me are into the vinegary notes or too sour flavors, so I´m currently switching to liquid starter and in a couple of weeks switching to stiff, so looking forward to see and taste the results.. Thank you for the tips
Please let me know how it goes. Good luck!
@@the_bread_code I finally finished going from regular to liquid to stiff and yeah, is just like you said, you need to check how the smell changes, but in the third day after switching to stiff the starter more than doubles once fed, and the bread is really soft and even fluffier than if you use regular dry yeast. Lovely oven spring considering I only cover it with a steel bowl since I don't have a dutch oven yet and it still has some acidity but not excessive and no longer tastes vinegary, my wife loved it. Oh, and it tastes incredible with Nutella (hope I don't wrath the bread gods hehe). Thank you so much.
@@richardmh1987 did you do the liquid for one day then to stiff for three days?
Hi Hendric
Thank you for this awesome video.
I have been baking sourdough breads for some time now, and have newly found some new bread type, I did not know about, it is called shokupan sourdough bread,very conmon in Asia, they use some method called yodane or tze thong.
It is when you use water and flour, in a pan, over heat, mix it till it stiffens, and cool it down in the fridge, then you allso use your sourdough starter, and flour, and water,you can those to use eg, cream and butter as well.
It is a very floffy, and sweet bread.
Would you consider trying to make it,and doing a video on that type of bread, since you are so awesome a baking nerd, (meant positive)😀👍
Thank you again, new supper!🤩👍
From Denmark 🇩🇰
Heinrich, you’re 🤣 😜😆hilarious
😂 sanks
I know this video is two years old, but I'm really hoping you see this question and can give me an answer. I'm gluten intolerant. Not bad enough that I can never have gluten again, but enough that I can realistically only have full servings of gluteny wheat pastas/breads/pizzas a couple times a week. I understand that sourdough breaks down gluten and has been found to be easier for gluten intolerants to digest. My question is: What would you recommend to get a product you can make a sandwich or toast with that has the least gluten reasonably possible? A stiff starter with low gluten flour? Or a higher hydration starter with longer ferment?
Whenever I watch commercial bakers make sourdough for their bakeries on TH-camr, I notice almost all are using a stiffer starter. So I was actually surprised to see that the “normal” starter that is made with a 50/50 ratio is like sludge and not stiff.
I always use stiff starter, but I really don't measure the %.. I just feed my starter and make sure it's quite stiff by feeling it with the spatula. It's really a game changer... When it's on its peak, it looks like a sponge.
Me too!
Hi there,
Firstly, thank you so much for your wealth of knowledge, teaching us about sour dough! I would like to ask, I watched your other video, The LAST Sourdough Bread Recipe You Ever Need, and in there you autolyse your dough for an hour first. Would you still recommend doing that when using the stiff starter?
Also around how long does it take for 1:5:2.5 feeding take to reach the peak state (ready for baking)?
And also, if I am consistently using a stiff starter, how would I adapt the stiff starter for other sour dough recipes? I also remember you said we could use the stiff starter in non sourdough recipes? How does that work?
appreciate your help!
@the_bread_code I am confused as to how are you able to make different recipes with the stiff starter since it's very little. Can you assist? Much apprecated!!
I tried this out and it like exploded out of my bowl it was so bubbly. I just took a little starter from my main jar, mixed it with the ratios here put it in a little bowl and used the entire lump as my levain and WOW.
😍
I have tried a couple of loaves with stiff starter and they have fluffier and lighter crumbs. Thanks for the informative video, you are funny too.
I just use starter scrapings left in a jar in the fridge. I remove jar and add 50ml of water. Put lid back on and shake the jar till the scrapings are suspended in the water. Then I add 50g of flour. Mix it with a spoon. So 100% Hydration. In 12 hours or so it has doubled in size and I use it. Quite sour but very light starter. It floats on the water I use before mixing the dough.
I will try your stiff 50% starter but I am perplexed by the 500% step you use. What is the point of that ?
hello from The Bahamas. Will give this a try!
Loaf from Slovenia!
Question: when building starter up before use, why is so much discarded? Seem like I could just add water and flour at each feeding. However, there must be a reason. My guess is that it creates too much acidity. Thanks
Apologies if you've covered this in another video, but i was wondering how many days of shifting to a liquid starter it takes in general to sufficiently select for those lactic acid bacteria? Also after re-adjusting to a stiff starter, do you ever find you need to tame the vinegar-like bacteria back down afain by doing another phase of liquid starter?
About two hours ago I made the stiff starter. But sorry, a donut... (No sausage for moi). 😅
It already grew at least twice it's size. I was going to leave it overnight... I think it will have to wait for me in the fridge until morning.
Great thing. It goes crazy!! 🤪