More on salt-rising bread starters...

R

richard-in-cincy

Well-known member
So I'm attempting salt-rising bread again and I went back to the recipe. 90-95F is the temp! Not 100-105F! No wonder I've had so many recent failures on the starter. I mixed up both starter recipes to compare-the stone ground cornmeal, sugar and scalded milk vs. the potatoes, salt, sugar, cornmeal and boiling water methods.

OK, it's 90F outside today.

I got this.

 
I'll be interested in hearing your results.

I had a great aunt who was a fabulous cook and she made salt-rising bread.

Her opinion was that the finished product was very tasty but the fermenting dough was rather redolent!

 
SUCCESS!!!!

24 hours later, the cornmeal-sugar-scalded milk is a foaming beautiful viable starter ready to begin making bread. That smell. It's like an aged cheese. The scent of salt-rising bread.

The potato base has not started fermentation yet. After the sun went down, I turned the oven on and heated it to 100F, then let them sit there for the night. So the temps didn't stay at 95F, but that didn't seem to matter to the cornmeal starter. The potato based starter is back outside in the sun for the day.

 
Update on Mission 'Salt Rising Bread'

The potato starter took two days outside, but it finally burst into foamy bacterial life on Sunday.

Unfortunately I couldn't bake yesterday because of a family picnic, so I fed them and tucked them into the warmed oven.

I got up this morning and started. The first thing is to take the starters and make sponges, to pump them up with food. Two hours later they were growing like mad: 1/3 to 1/2 increase in size, top is bubbling.

Since I made two starters, to follow this experiment through, I had two batches of bread to make.

So Mr. Potato was to the top of the bowl so he went first, took more flour than the recipe called for to get a nice dough, but with all of the earlier beating and gluten development (Recipe: "Beat until the arm rebels"--no problem with professional kitchenaid!) the dough was so smooth, satiny, and with just a little kneading out on the bread board, very pliable and non-sticky dough. Three loaves shaped and placed in the buttered bread pans.

Next, the corn-based version worked up just the same. It didn't have as much liquid so made a little less. 2 big loaves and a smaller round loaf. I wish you could smell the kitchen. All of that dough and the smell of a nice ripe Italian cheese.

I have 6 loaves of bread proofing in the warm oven (large hotel pan filled with hot water on the bottom shelf) and I'll be baking here in a couple minutes. I've been documenting the entire process with photos and I will post the start to finish soon.

I cannot wait to eat fresh salt-rising bread for dinner tonight!

 
Salt-Rising Bread Photos.

I did the cornmeal starter with Kentucky Weisenberger White Bolted Stone-ground cornmeal. The Potato starter with Idahoians from the grocery.

Right off cornmeal took the lead. Lovely foamy fermentation and the best deep aged Italian cheese scent. Potato sat.

Next day, day 2 of the 90F. Potato just went ballistic and bloomed an amazing fermentation. Potato takes the lead.

The recipes were a little different, and I kept the starters separate to follow the recipes Precisely! (those of you who know me, know how hard that it is!). However, since cornmeal starter was calling for lard. It was not hard keeping to that.

From the starters you build the sponges. The fragile starter needs to be fed! FEED ME!!!! They also have to keep warm. And today's baking day, the temps had fallen into the 70's early, but did manage to climb back into the 80's. Not at my required 90F. So I'm cycling oven off and on for a few minutes with my large hotel pan in the bottom of the oven filled with hot water. Oven was steamy.

The amazing thing about all the preliminary beating of the sponge and first knead was that both doughs were beautiful velvety satin. Very easy to work with and shape.

On the final bake, Potato did more rise (but the recipe baked differently. Potato baked at 350F for an hour. Cornmeal started off at 400F. for 10 minutes and then downshifted).

Final results, judge for yourself. I do not like the bicarbonate of soda taste in the potato bread. I'm wondering "WHY?" since it was such a robust starter of the two. The best taste, and closest to the Salt-Rising Bread of my youth goes to Cornmeal.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1927620543936146.1073741943.100000646571309&type=1&l=105182a892

 
I am hoping to visit my mother in July and make some bread, perhaps it will

stir some memories. One of her great aunts used to make it?

 
Do try it...

After my last failure, I thought, how hard is this since the pioneers making this bread didn't have heat pads, yogurt warmers, and ovens that one could program at 95F (mine only goes to 120F), etc.

It was a hot day. I put the starter outside and it just bloomed.. Under temperature just takes a little more time. Same with the pioneers. My failures were too hot. Good luck!

 
It's so funny, when mom moved up there she used to make sourdough from my starter

and after a while it no longer tasted like my sourdough. The wild yeasties up there are different than what is here, I guess that is what makes SF sourdough special. She no longer cooks much of course, due to the progression of her dementia, but she remembers a lot of things from the old days! My trip is set for 7/13 so I should start soon...

 
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