[chrissie B]

Ah yes with butter of course .
chrissie b

[Scribbler]

If you're into trying new flours, recommend Khorazan. Very old, going back to the fertile crescent, ancient Egypt etc. Using the biga technique you can make a wholemeal loaf so light your wife won't notice it's wholemeal!!

Also allegedly more digestible for those who may have problems in this direction.

And while I'm on, the last lot of sourdough starter I made was with equal parts of strong white flour, spelt and rye. Worth a go. I keep it in a jar with a label saying "575g empty". This way I subtract 575g from the total weight to find out how much starter I've got.

[chrissie B]

Not heard of that one sounds good , regarding  sour dough i would have night mares thinking about this thing in ajar and i would worry about it dying and it would and then my hubby would worry about my blood pressure , im sure you can see where im going , im a born worrier and worry about stuff that might never happen so thats why i dont do sour dough .
ive never tasted sourdough so dont know what im missing .
gosh where did that all come from sorry .
chrissie b

[allotmentann]

Sourdough is gorgeous and after baking sourdough l have never wanted to eat commercially yeasted bread again. Except for pizza. I prefer a standard yeasted dough to sourdough. A starter is very easy to look after and almost impossible to kill.
To anyone in the UK interested in bread baking l used to buy all my flour in bulk from Shipton Mill. The range is outstanding and the quality excellent. Delivery is free if you order over £35 and the flour works out cheaper than a lot of supermarket brands. Michelle Roux junior and Richard Bertinet recommend them at the back of their cook books too. I don't have any connection to the company by the way. It is just totally amazing flour. (They do korsan). I miss it so much. I cannot find anything near the quality here. Grind my own wheatberries now! 

[snowdrops]

Between my daughter & I we did kill our first sourdough, I think those 2 elements were why, it was the first & my daughter & I were doing it, I think it is better if it is looked after by one person.

[allotmentann]

Funnily enough my daughter has killed them too. Neglect l think. It must be serious neglect. I only keep a tiny bit of starter and it only gets fed once a fortnight when l bake! So they take quite a lot of neglect. She must have left it months or something.

[hamstergbert]

Most sourdoughs will go into hibernation in the fridge for a week or two and suspended animation in the freezer for months.  Gentle warm up over a day or two and then a few days feeding in the normal way and they are back to staus quo ante.

However I inadvertently allowed mine to become contaminated by a different wild yeast, I think (sloppily failed to cover it properly once or twice so dust probably got in).  Whatever the cause, it became rather nasty and the nastiness persisted through subsequent feedings etc suggesting that I was simply maintaining an unpleasant alternative wild yeast.  It remained lively enough to use in terms of dough fermentation it is just the sourdough bread result would have been inedible so I reluctantly had to take it round behind the barn and shoot it.  (Well, flush it down the  downstairs loo actually).

Can't be bothered at the moment to start another from scratch.  May have another go in the autumn.
Glad to see I am not the only one to have failed though - I was starting to think I was!

[snowdrops]

I now take Johnboy out of the fridge on a Wednesday morning, start a sponge mix off weds night,feed him, leave him well covered overnight, feed again Thursday & put back in the fridge Friday unless we need more bread making. I made a sourdough pizza base last week & prefered it to a 'normal' dough mix.

[oldgrunge]

I just keep 'Mother' on the worktop, and feed her once a week. She seems happy enough, bless her! 😄

[New shoot]

Augustus, my spelt sourdough starter, has lived on the top shelf of my fridge for years. 

He gets out once a week for feeding time, or if I want to make a loaf, I pour half the jar into a clean bowl and leave him out (covered) during the day, so I make a sponge that evening, prior to bread making the following morning.

I made a sourdough pizza base last week & prefered it to a 'normal' dough mix.

I like the sound of that    Can you supply a recipe   

[snowdrops]

Yep it was just my usual sour dough recipe which I think is a Hugh F W one.
150ml of starter,
250g of strong flour
275ml warm water, mix all 3 together & leave covered overnight.
Next day add 300g flour,1tbsp olive oil & 10 g sea salt. Need for about 10 mins then leave in an oiled bowl until double in size.
 I make double this recipe & normally halve & put for a second prove in 2 lb loaf tons. So I just took off what dough I needed for the pizza,then halved what I had left for my bread tins. I did prove the pizza again but not until doubled.
Sounds a faff but it really isn't, really quick but just over a couple of days.
P.s NS, I know you would know the finer details but put them on to make it clear for anybody who hasn't made sourdough or bread before.

[New shoot]

Thank you 

[Blackpool rocket]

I thought I would pop by here, I'm really new to bread making so don't be too unkind, coz I don't really know what I'm doing 
Anyway, I'll have more questions than answers!!

225gms white
75gms wholemeal

It tasted Ok but was a bit "stodgy"
I used the dough setting on the bread maker ( ) (20 mins) to get everything mixed and then kneeded by hand for about 7-10 mins.
I expect this is cheating but as I say, I don't know what I'm doing!
It rose for about an hour then I kneeded it again for a few minutes, put it in the tin for an hour or so then in the oven.
Why would it be stodgy?

All very basic for you experts but we have to start somewhere!!

when I say "kneeding".......well I pushed it about a bit & my hands got very sticky!!

[grendel]

texture looks good, homemade bread is never quite as 'light' as shop made, you do have to tweak the bread machine recipies to get a perfect loaf, I have found increasing the oil gets a lighter softer loaf, but the important thing when experimenting is to just alter one ingredient at a time. If you loaf was a bit wet and sticky you could use a little less water, and maybe a couple of minutes longer cooking. I will say its only taken me about 3 years of making loaves every other day to get mine to perfection as I see it, and I still get odd dodgy ones. to me yours looks nigh on perfect, the other trick is knowing when it doesnt appear to have quite risen enough before putting it in the oven, there is no shame in giving it an extra 10 or 20 minutes rise, at worst you can knock it back down and give it a third rise.
Grendel

[snowdrops]

It looks very good to me particularly if it's your first loaf, I find a bit longer in the oven helps also to get it out of the tin as soon as you can & let it cool with plenty of air flow around it so it doesn't sweat helps too.