Oh Judy, a question...

R

richard-in-cincy

Well-known member
As one of our established home brewers and baking goddess extraordinaire ...I thought you were the perfect person to ask this. I am reading the Martha Washington Cookbooks and am struck how they skimmed the froth off the fermenting ale to use in the bakehouse for leavening. I had never thought to do that. Have you tried this yet in your baking?

 
Oh Richard, an answer....

Once, years ago, after meeting Joe Ortiz (The Village Baker) and discussing one of his recipes with him, I tried using the stuff on the bottom of the frementing bucket (trub?) to make a starter. It was a batch of cider that we were making hard cider from.
I mixed it with whole wheat flour and it did bubble and expand, but the bread wasn't something I'd write home about.
I do have a recipe for bread that uses beer and sepnt grains from the brewing process. I've also heard of a local bakery that gets the trub (?) from a small brewery and uses it to make bread.
Does that provide any insight?

 
Oh, but have you tried the frothy top?

Seems that's where Martha and her gal's scooped up their leavingings. Bottom=spent. Top=Bubbly Light Bread.

I dunno.

My previous use for the bubbly top ferment on the ale was Fricka The German Shepherd who used to stalk my fermenters and lap it up. But bread yeast from the flotsam and jetsam?

I'm also fascinated about stories from Cairo that tell about the Eqyptians making fabulous black flavored breads that they then used as loaves for the fermentation of the Nile Palace Pale Ale.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

 
Richard, ever used fermented grapes as a starter for bread?

I love the La Brea bakery breads- we actually can buy them here. Great texture, great crust and flavor to my taste. La Brea uses a fermented grape starter instead of traditional yeast. Somewhere I have their recipe if you want to try making the starter I could dig it up. It may just be that you are wanting a beer-type starter....

 
Nope, haven't tried that....

Rich uses a closed fermenting system, so most times I don't even see the frothy stuff, let alone try to get some to use.

 
Cathy, I had a grape starter for years....

I first made one when Nancy Silverton was baking with Julia on Master Chefs. My first attempt didn't do well, and it got tossed out. Several years later, when Nancy published her book, I tried again and was successful.
As a matter of fact, I dried huge quantities of that starter and shared it with many Epi chatters and swappers. Some may even still have a working batch from my original.
In the past 2 years, I have not baked much bread, lacking time and enough people to eat it living at home.
My favorite LaBrea breads are olive, rosemary olive oil, parmesan and plain country white.

 
And I have used Judy's starter!

Unfortunately, I didn't keep it going. It's a monster about feeding time ; )

And I just couldn't bake that much bread!

 
I had excellent luck with the grape starter too, Judy- I love the flavor it gives bread

My favorite La Brea breads are the 7 grain, French, oilve and the semolina white.

 
It's true- it is a voracious eater. I kept starter for about a year before getting rid of it. I was

getting fat from eating all that bread!

 
This may sound impossible, but...

I keep about 2 or 3 oz of sourdough starter in the fridge and only feed it the night before making bread. The next morning it's very active, ready to go. The remaining starter goes back in the fridge. I make bread at least once a week and have been doing this for years.

 
I used a modified feeding schedule....

and kept a much smaller batch of starter going than Nancy suggested. I had a container with about a cup of starter that I'd bring out of the fridge 3 or 4 days before I was going to mix up bread, and start on a twice a day feeding schedule, but I did not double the amount each time.
Most of the recipes I used called for more than a cup of starter and no other leavening, so I had to have a lively mixture and enough of it to bake with and save for the next time.
Sometimes I would use the extra starter for pancakes, or I dried it to save or share. However, a lot of it just got dumped down the drain.

 
Yeah, the dumping down the drain part...

bothered me a lot and was the motive behind finding another approach. I am more at peace with my starter now.

I make a large loaf of Jewish rye bread once a week. In fact, I have one ready to go into the oven.

Sourdough English muffins are kinda fun to make, too.

And Nancy Silverton's olive bread is one of my favorites. I halve the recipe to make 1 loaf and bake it in a Le Creuset oven (covered). It's fabulous but I always eat way too much of it.

 
Amy, I would love your recipe for sourdough English muffins!

I inherited my mother-in-law's sourdough starter (which we named Herman). "He" stays in the fridge and I feed him every 3 weeks -- a combination of milk, flour and sugar. We make sourdough pancakes and coffeecake.

 
Judy -- excuse my ignorance. How do you dry starter?

I have sourdough starter in my fridge that I inherited 9 years ago from my mother-in-law. Do you think that starter can dry, too?

 
Sure thing...

Although, your starter is different. Mine is only flour and water. So you can probably omit the sugar and dry milk in the recipe.

I posted the recipe and a couple of pictures on eGullet. These are the baked version. I recommend trying that first.

Cooking them on a griddle is a bit more tricky. You have to play with the temp and cooking time, but they're more like Thomas' English muffins when cooked on a griddle.

Please let me know if you try it.

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=77004&st=30&p=1050782entry1050782

 
Nancy Silverton has instructions in her book

I will get the book later and post them here.
I can remember the basics, but I'm certain that my memory won't provide some little, very important detail that should not be left out.

 
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