Sourdough Pumpernickel Bread

Here we go again, bread baking and its the sourdough stuff.  I've had a bread machine for years and love the results with it, but this sourdough starter I have just rocks and actually makes manual bread making fun again.

Just a note I do use regular all purpose flour for the starter maintenance.  The bread flour when specified is there to achieve a crumb texture different than regular all purpose will yield.  It is higher in gluten and delivers a larger, stronger crumb.

This recipe is an original from me.  It's a combo of flavor ideas and ingredient proportions from other recipes.  I liked the end result, very much a sour taste to the rye.  Can't wait to use it for some pannini's later today.

Sourdough Pumpernickel Bread

• 2 1/2 C starter sponge
  
• 2- 2 1/2 cups bread flour
  
• 1/2 C rye flour
  
• 2 T Dark baking cocoa 
  
• 1 T caraway seed
  
• 2 T olive oil
  
• 4 t sugar
  
• 2 t salt 
  
• kosher salt for sprinkling 
  

Before adding ingredients did you remember to reserve starter for the future?

To the sponge add 2C flour,rye flour, cocoa powder, caraway seed, olive oil, sugar and salt.  Knead with dough hook until a ball forms (called a boule).  This is a wet dough but if too wet add additional flour 1 heaping Tablespoon at a time until it forms a tight ball.   Very important that you touch and poke this dough.  Knead about 5 minutes with dough hook.  Even though wet it should have the feel of regular white or french style bread.  Do not over knead.

Oil your hand, take the dough and roll it into the middle several times until you have a smooth ball.  Place in a well oiled bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap.  Allow to rise in warm spot 2-3 hours until doubled in size.  

Remove and punch down the dough, knead a couple of times and start rolling folding into a tight smooth ball.  At this point in time you can do one of two things.  First is let it rise to bake now or allow it to sit refrigerated overnight to develop a stronger "sour" taste.  

Bake now.  Preheat oven with a pizza stone to 500F.  Place the newly formed boule on a piece of parchment paper cut to about 1" wider than the boule. Cover and allow to rise about 1 hour or until doubled in size.  When double slash top with a razor blade or cut with sharp scissors a series of gashes.  Brush dough with water and sprinkle on the kosher salt.

 Place the boule on its paper in the oven on the pizza stone.  Reduce heat to 400F and bake 60-75 minutes until golden brown and instant read thermometer reads 200F.

Bake Later:  Return the boule to the oiled bowl and place in refrigerator overnight.  Remove and give it a quick need then reform the boule by rolling itself into the middle until a tight smooth ball forms.  

Place the newly formed boule on a piece of parchment paper cut to about 1" wider than the boule. Cover and allow to rise about 1 hour or until doubled in size. When double slash top with a razor blade or cut with sharp scissors a series of gashes.  Brush dough with water and sprinkle on the salt of choice.

Preheat oven with a pizza stone to 500F.  Place the boule on its paper in the oven on the pizza stone.  Reduce heat to 400F and bake 60-75 minutes until golden brown and instant read thermometer reads 200F.

Hooch and keeping your Sourdough Starter alive

Sourdough starter really is a living creature.  The wild yeast that are in there feed on the water and flour in the starter, also sometimes referred to as the "sponge".  It gets the name "sponge" after it has been fed enough times to make it a large mass for your baking needs and  a little extra to store as "starter" for your next round of baking.

How old can a starter be?  I had one make it 20 years before it died due to a lack of electricity and refrigeration after the Northridge Quake.  Boudine's starter in San Francisco is documented at over 100 years old.  Urban legend in Paris is that the Poulin bakery starter dates to the French Revolution.  Not unlikely as well cared for starter used continuously has a chance of going forever with little care.

Storing starter in the fridge helps extend its life.  2 weeks is  your maximum storage before it sours, IE too much hooch built up that effectively kills it.  You can extend with a mid-term feeding and get a month out of it but I would not recommend.  Use it or lose it is the motto with a good starter.

What is "hooch"?  Hooch is alcohol, the remnants of the feeding cycle (excrement if you will) of the wild yeast in your starter.  It builds up first along the side of your starter and will eventually cover it if you don't monitor often.

 Its not bad for you.  In fact the old 49'ers and Sourdoughs skimmed it off and drank it.  I tried it once.  Bitter, burns and a nasty hangover as it has more than its fair share of bad alcohol in it.  An experiment not worth repeating.  But I digress and need to move on a bit.

I'll give you two recipes here.  One for keeping your starter alive.  Another for feeding to build a sponge for baking.  The latter, the one tool I cannot recommend enough is the use of a large pyrex measuring cup of 2 quarts and well marked.  IT will make the sponge building so much easier as guessing is pretty well eliminated.

The hardest thing to remember for me when baking with Sourdough is that when I start the first step ALWAYS must be to pull off 1 cup of the sponge to store as starter.  Really, get in the practice of doing that as the first step and life is always easier.  OF course if you forget you can always beg someone you gave some too or you got yours from initially for a new starter.

There is a debate between measuring by weight vs good old imperial measuring cup.  The weight people argue it must be equal weight as flour can have different moisture content and anything else is heresy.  Pffftttt...I learned with the good old imperial measuring cup and it worked for me all these years so why change is my motto.  Henceforth, all my stuff is by measuring cup when I refer to stuff in my sourdough recipes.

Starter (Staying Alive)

1 cup starter 

1 T Flour and Water

Stir in flour and water at the 2 week and 3 week mark.  Stir in whatever hooch has developed as it really is just character building for your starter.  Do not extend feeding without using beyond one month as your risk of death by hooch building increases.

Always store your sourdough in a well sealed, non-reactive container in the coldest part of your fridge for maximum life of your starter.  Do not freeze as that will kill it.

The sponge building part is pretty easy.  Remember you are constantly doubling the size of your starter until you get a sponge quantity in the amount needed for your recipe.  Your starter will start at 1 cup, you feed  equal 1 cup flour and water to bring to 2 cups total sponge.  Cover with plastic wrap or a tea towel for 3-4 hours later at room temp when it is bubbly repeat the feeding, this time with 2 cups each flour and water for a sponge of approx 4 cups and let it sit at room temp 3-4 hours until bubbly).  

At that point you look at your sponge vs recipe needs and feed enough to have 1 cup starter for yourself and enough to cover recipe needs.  (You can even add extra flour/water combo to give starter as a gift to someone).

Sponge Building

• 1 cup starter
  
• water
  
• flour
  

Feeding 1:  In large volume marked non-reactive bowl add 1 c each water and flour to starter.  Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit at room temp 3-4 hours until bubbly. (approx volume 2 cups of sponge starter)

Feeding 2:  Add 2 cups each flour and water.  Stir until just mixed.  Do not over mix as you will develop gluten which you do not want at this point.  (approx 4 cups volume)

Feeding 3: Add up to 4 cups, equal volumes of flour and water to get the amount of sponge needed plus 1 cup to reserve for future starter needs (for yourself and others).

Of course I had a little brain barf while typing this and thought of the old Bee Gee's song "staying alive", how appropriate for the starter post.  Enjoy, hope it gets stuck in your head as it did mine.

Sourdough...its what you had before packaged yeast

That bowl of puffy and bubbly stuff is not drek rather it is the humble beginnings of sourdough starter. Each feeding it gets more food and becomes increasingly bubbly and ready for bread. Not that white stuff at the market, but gloriously chewy porous and crusty sourdough bread.

Its the way bread was made before the invention of packaged yeast. Its the way bread has been made the last several centuries.

I got my starter from a friend who remembered I did a lot of sourdough cookery back years ago. I lost my starter in the Northridge Earthquake and could never get one going again and gave up. The starter I had was 20 years old at the time it croaked...over fermented, rotted if you will as we had no electricity for days and with the relative heat (80's during the day) it just went to hell. Bummer.

This starter has all the right odors and I think it will be perfect. I'll do a bread in the next day or so then move forward with pancakes, sticky rolls even a chocolate cake all made with sourdough in the coming weeks and months. Carb heaven here we come.

If you are daring there are two ways to get it started. Both are very dependant on the weather and natural yeast in the air. Once the yeast lands in the mix you will know in a couple of days if you have real sourdough starter or rotting mix. One is has the softly sweet back ground notes of fresh bread with a tart note as well. If its bad you will know...it will smell like dirty socks, feet or fish. If you get any of those toss and start over.

Starter 1

• 1 c flour
  
• 1 c bottled water
  
• 1 T sugar
  
• additional flour, water and sugar if needed
  

Mix well. Place in uncovered bowl in cool place not in direct sunlight. Watch for a couple of days. As soon as you start seeing bubbles forming cover and move to fridge to allow it to grow. Feed every few days with 2 T flour, 2T water and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. On 4th day if it is all thick, full of large bubbles and smells right you have an active starter ready to begin its life as natural leavening for breads and all sorts of baking.

Starter 2

• 1 c flour
  
• 1 c nonfat milk
  
• additional flour, water and sugar if needed

Mix well. Place in uncovered bowl in cool place not in direct sunlight. Watch for a couple of days. As soon as you start seeing bubbles forming cover and move to fridge to allow it to grow. Feed every few days with 2 T flour, 2T water and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. On 4th day if it is all thick, full of large bubbles and smells sweet with a slight yogurt air about it, you have an active starter ready to begin its life as natural leavening for breads and all sorts of baking.

Then again if all else fails, beg someone for a cup of their starter and they can get you going that way. Much easier than trying to catch the right yeast in the air and making your own from scratch.