Tag: Baking

A Yeasty Fix

It’s common to hear stories from people about how they started a yeast starter but forgot about it and had to throw it away.

Another common comment is about how finicky people assume starters are.

Yes, there are some things to keep in mind and understand about yeast when keeping a starter. However it doesn’t have to difficult to keep a starter. And yeast is much healthier than most people assume. You have to remember that yeast is found in the air around us. It lives on our skin and is an invisible friend. It was created to survive in the same world that we live in.

One of the common misconceptions that I find people perpetuates in starting and feeding yeast is that you have to have a wet starter. Ever since I posted about keeping a drier starter, more and more people are talking about how they now keep a dry starter. And before I posted on my blog, I talked about this in community pages. In one thread a microbiologist agreed that it made more sense to keep a drier starter of yeast.

The benefit of keeping a drier yeast is that you do not have hooch (a liquid layer on top of your starter) by week’s end.

I firmly believe that hooch is an indication that your environment for your starter is out of balance. Excess water created a home for bacteria and mold to grow and ultimately lead to a situation where you have to throw your starter out. Once mold forms, there’s nothing you can do to resuscitate your yeast. That is the one kiss of death to starter.

And mold loves water.

If you keep your water levels in check, you don’t have to do anything else to prevent mold.

How can I state that with surety?

Let’s just say that the Christmas season was so busy that I forgot about my yeast for an entire month! Perhaps over a month… I last used my starter for Thanksgiving and forgot about it until after the New Year.

My Neglected Starter

If you pulled this out of your fridge what would your reaction be?

This “black” layer is hooch that is showing that my starter is sick and anemic.

Usually I remember my yeast when I haven’t used it for two weeks. It has this layer of hooch on it, but it’s clear. This is the worst that I’ve been a bad yeast mom. BUT I did not kill it.

My initial thought was, “well it’s a good thing I have a freezer yeast back up.” (There will be a future post on this. Now that I have four years invested in this starter, I want to make sure that I have a back up starter that I can fall back on Incase I really blow it and lose my main mother.)

The first thing I did was remove the lid, look for mold and sniff test my starter.

With no mold, I knew I could recover this yeast. And the sniff test confirmed that I hadn’t killed off my yeast. It still had a sour dough tang scent with no additional scent (which would be an indication of a colony of something different from my yeast). My starter smelt weak/anemic. And that’s because it was.

Advertisements

Recovery

The hooch is guaranteed to be where additional growth, competing with my yeast, is living. So first things first, I poured off all the hooch.

As you can see here, there was still some discoloration with the presence of left over hooch.

When I fix neglected starter I always start with a fresh/clean mason jar. I do this because everything about healthy and unhealthy starter is microscopic. I want to minimize the transfer of anything but the yeast I’m rescuing.

Since I don’t want to transfer this tainted hooch, I take a spoon and scoop out this liquid and the top layer of starter.

It’s important to remove the top layer because it was in contact with the pooled hooch. It will be the part of the starter that has the higher counts of any of the foreign colonies (if any is present).

If you want to be extra careful about to continuing contamination, you’ll want to make sure and use a clean spoon with each scoop.

Advertisements

I didn’t take a picture after the first scoop, but this is after a couple of scoops. As you can see in this above picture, there is a distinct color difference between that sickly top layer and this more beige color.

This color difference is a good indication of what needs to be removed and what can be salvaged.

The white layer was watery, pasty, and had every indication of “do not keep me”. The beige layer beneath had a cake batter like texture and looked “healthier” even if this rich color is darker than the color of my normal starter.

Nature is good with communicating information by using layers. So I follow what my yeast tells be and grew confidence that I could absolutely save this starter without having to get the yeast out of my deep freezer and hope I could make that work.

Now that I had the information I needed, I finished scooping out all the left over hooch and the white layer.

With everything removed, I grabbed my clean jar and started scooping out starter from this jar and depositing it in the new jar.

Because I wanted to minimize anything that might be deeper in the jar, I only scooped out starter from the center. I was careful not to get starter from the sides of the jar or from the bottom.

The top left is the old jar. The bottom right is my new jar transfer.

Normally I try to transfer as much starter as I can scrape out of the jar. This is an instance where that was not going to happen. Again, my goal here was to stay away from any potential starter that was exposed to the hooch.

The good news is that even if all you have to transfer is a couple of soup spoons worth of starter, that’s enough to recolonize a starter.

The amount of starter that I estimate I put in the clean jar was maybe 1/4 Cup. (I’m not as confident about guessing how many grams as this is the unit of measurement that I didn’t grow up using. However because I use the metric system for bread making, 50-75 grams is definitely more than enough to restart your starter for the ability of having enough yeast in your colony for bread making in a day or two.) Even the tiniest amount of transfer starter is enough to get you going again. Just know that until you build your colony up, your raise time is going to be slow and weak. You do have yeast, it will just take time to build your numbers back up.

Advertisements

Next I added salt into the yeast that I just transferred. As you can see above, I used about a teaspoon worth.

In Meet Frankenstein I talked about the gluten free starter I made and how I had to bring that one back to health. That starter had a different issue that I was resuscitating it back from, but the treatment is still the same… salt. The reason why salt is your first aid for wild yeast starter is because the salt creates an environment that decreases the growth of everything that is competing with your yeast colony. And at the same time salt does not affect the growth of your yeast.

At a previous time I had used 2-3 teaspoons of salt for a starter that was healthier than this one. My starter bounced back quickly. It made my first batch of bread excessively salty. (So make sure that your first bread after a treatment cut back on the salt.) Even still there was no negative effect of the salt on my starter. So don’t feel like you can be too heavy handed. I still wouldn’t put in an absence amount. First you just don’t need it. Second, if you treat all your kitchen resources as valuable (whether they become scarce or just because it frees up a few cents to put elsewhere in your budget) you just use what you need to use to get the job down.

Now can you use too little???

I haven’t yet experimented on how little you can get by to bring your yeast back into health. Here’s what I would look for though if I suddenly ran out of salt and only had a pinch to put in. If my yeast became discolored, hooch formed again, if the hooch is not clear, there is an off scent to your starter… add more salt.

Once the salt is in the jar, give the starter a good stir. This gets the salt where you want it working. If you feed your starter first, the salt is going to be diluted.

When I first started on my journey with a starter I noticed that I don’t stir as thoroughly as I thought I did. Originally I ended up with starter kept on the bottom of my jar and hydrated flour on the top of my jar. That’s another story for another day. But that’s how I came to understand that just because you have a consistency that you think is right, it doesn’t mean that you thoroughly stir and blended everything.

So that is why when I treat with salt, I treat my starter first. Then I feed it.

After the salt treatment I start my feeding process. Water first!

I changed the way that I feed my starter. I now start my feeding with water because this dilutes yeast and ensures that it’s fully incorporated throughout the fed starter. There is no second guessing if I’ve stirred enough to completely incorporate the yeast into the flour. The colony is spread out entirely through all of the water. So when I stir in the flour, everything that is wet has yeast.

Advertisements

As you can see here, there is no doubt that my starter and water are fully incorporated. And it just takes a couple stirs, less than my eggs take when I scramble them.

Bread Recipe That Hasn’t Failed Me is the post where I share my bread recipe that I always use. And since I know how much starter that I need to make two loaves of bread, I know exactly how much to feed my starter. I use 300g so when I pour the water, I aim for 150g. And that means that I also start off with 150g of flour. Once I have that measurement in my mason jar I stir it and check my consistency. Depending on the humidity levels in my house, I tend to always add about 15-20g more flour. This gives me a thick brownie batter consistency. When I keep my starter with this thicker consistency I never have hooch (unless I neglect it for longer than 2 weeks–and that error is on me).

And as you can see with the picture on above right, I stir my flour in just enough to incorporate it into the yeast water. The flour is the food for the yeast, so as long as the yeast water is connected and mixed in with the flour the yeast will find its food and go to town.

As a little side note, I make bread one to two times a week. By the time I get to my yeast, these flour lumps are no longer there. The flour continues to hydrate during the rise time.

I keep my yeast in a quart jar. After a feeding, my starter fills around half the jar. I don’t keep a rubber band around my jar because I know that my yeast is ready when it reaches the top of my jar.

As you see here, my yeast still needed to rise a bit more. But the time in my day was running out and needed to make my bread dough, so I cut my time short.

TIP: My mom hack for making bread with no time to do it during the day is that I make my dough after dinner (right before I start to relax for the night), put it in my bread molds, and let it proof in my oven over night. When I wake up in the morning I turn on my oven (without touching my bread and deflating my rise) and let it cook. By the time lunch comes around, my bread is cooled and ready to slice.

Normally, when I leave my starter out on my counter to double, it takes anywhere from 1-3 hours depending on how cool my house is. When I took the above picture (directly before making a batch of bread) 9 hours have passed and it really could have used another hour our two.

My starter took this long to grow even that much was because the yeast was weak from being neglected. This didn’t concern me. I would have been concerned if there was no rise at all. But obviously I have yeast in there and they were doing their job.

I took a picture of the top of the jar, with the only thing I did was remove the lid, so you could see that there was no hooch. There was no discoloration. This picture tells you nothing as far as smell. But it was predominantly the sour yeasty smell. BUT there was also a flour smell to it. You will notice this flour note when you first feed your starter because you have unprocessed flour in the jar. The fact that the yeast had grown and ate the flour, the smell of flour tells me that the yeast is still weak and the flour hasn’t been all eaten up. This doesn’t raise any red flags. It just tells me that I should expect my proofing to take longer than if my yeast is healthy and happy.

Advertisements

What to Expect After Treating Your Yeast

As I mentioned above, the first thing you should expect is that your yeast is going to take longer to double. I mentioned that my yeast, in my home, normally takes 1-3 hours to double. If I feed my yeast and immediately store it in my fridge, it will double in about 3 days.

Because of how long it took my yeast to double after this treatment, had I put it in my fridge after feeding, it probably would have taken a 5-7 days to double. My guess is about 5 days because that’s how long it took when I treated my starter before after 2 weeks of neglect.

The point to this is that you should expect your yeast to double over a much longer time. There’s nothing wrong with your yeast. It just takes it a hot minute to start eating and doubling its colony population.

Once your yeast has come to a usable stage, the next thing that you should expect is that the flavor is going to be off. If your starter has a sour smell and flavor to it, this first doubling time is going to make it milder

almost no sour flavor

The mild flavor isn’t going to be an issue. What will be an issue is the fact that you will be able to taste the salt that you used to treat your starter.

If you choose to use your starter as usual, and keep true to your recipe, you will most definitely taste that your bread is more salty.

The time that I aggressively salted my starter and used my bread recipe as usual, the bread was inedible for sandwiches. I had to use the bread differently–namely as grilled sandwiches and as bread cubes or crumbs for a recipe.

INSTEAD go ahead and alter your bread recipe up front.

With the bread recipe that I use, I now immediately halve my salt portion of the recipe. So instead of using 22g of salt I use 11g. By doing this there was no change in the saltiness of the bread. It tasted normal.

I know that most people don’t taste this difference that I do, but using treated starter in a bread recipe (even when you cut back on the salt portion of your recipe) tastes exactly like the dry active yeast that you buy in the store. I’ve always had this problem with the flavor of bread from conventional dry active yeast. I always had to add herbs to get a bread that tasted good (garlic, onion, oregano, rosemary, etc.).

In the same manner, with the bread that I made with this recovery from a month long neglect I had to add ground herbs. So in addition to the dry ingredients that are in the bread recipe, I added:

(Herbs were from my garden this year and dehydrated for winter use)

  • 1 tsp ground oregano
  • 1 tsp ground rosemary

And for the salt portion of the recipe I used garlic salt instead of standard salt.

I mention this because I want to inspire you to use other ingredients with your bread making, especially when you’re compensating for weak/recovering starter. These herbs do nothing to change the function of your bread rising. But it absolutely makes your bread more enjoyable.

Do you have any questions about the starter that you’ve been keeping? Comment below.

Links to previous bread and yeast related posts:

Valuable Resources

If you have limited resources or want to know how to make a no discard starter, this post will get you started.

Bread Recipe that Hasn’t Failed Me

I share with you my favorite bread recipe as well as how to make pull apart rolls.

Meet Frankenstein

If you’re looking for how to make a gluten free starter, here is how I made a starter from potatoes. I also share with you how I overcame my first major obstacle with creating a starter.

Leave a comment

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner to receive monthly emails containing promotions, digital file releases, and future blog notifications.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.
Advertisements
Advertisements
Advertisements
Advertisements

Baking Blues

In case anyone ever wants to know, the time I can get my cooking on and experiment is when the rest of the family is in bed asleep. The down side is that baking usually wakes my husband up and he has instant munchies. Did I mention that it doesn’t matter how much noise I make, what wakes him up is the aroma of fresh baked goods?

The funny part is that while I was editing photos (while the last batched finished baking) he comes in and asks me which one is the best one!

It’s moments like this where I color coded my muffins. Originally I did it, to make it easier to differentiate between the different blueberries. But it made it easier to give a midnight “unbiased” taste tester say which one he preferred. He chose the yellow muffins, for the record, and we’ll get to the muffins in just a moment.

Difference Between Preserved Berries

Last week I gave the run down on how the different preparations of the berries turned out in their preserved state. Above is a picture that I didn’t use last week, because I reconstituted the berries for making the muffins. From left to right, you’re looking at fresh blueberries, freeze dried, and dehydrated.

I really can’t tell you how much I’ve been enjoying the berries we picked. There is such a difference in quality of flavor. So if you haven’t picked blueberries for yourself, please do this for you. I know you will not look at store berries the same!

The freeze dried blue berries (before reconstituting) were a trip. They had a near fresh blueberry flavor and they were like a powder bomb in your mouth when you bite into them. There was a moment where I had to remind myself what it was that I just bit, because it confuses the brain when you’re not use to this texture. BUT… when you reconstitute them, let me tell you. The closest I can describe them is that they taste just like the store berries. They’re not as good as the fresh berries I picked, but that could have been because they are different breeds of blueberries. That’s enough to give a little flavor difference. I did drink the juice in the bottom of the bowl and that DID taste just like the blueberry juice that I made in this next section. That closeness alone is what makes me sold on freeze dried blueberries. (Aside from the obvious that they are shelf stable and last a lot longer than fresh berries.)

I reconstituted the dehydrated berries for the same length of time as the freeze dried. If you remember from last week, I described the dehydrated berries as having a bite to them. I’m personally not a fan of eating the dehydrated blueberries as is. BUT once they’re reconstituted, they take on a texture very similar to craisins or raisins that are on the drier side. I would definitely put those on a charcuterie board or several other snacking options. I chose not to drink this reconstitution water, as you can see it looks like colored water. I know I would have been disappointed. It might be a different story if I used hot water instead of room temp and/or I let it sit longer than the 20 minutes that I did (while making my muffin mix).

Now that you’re all caught up on the different berries, lets see all that I made with them. Except for the muffins, all these recipes were new to me over the last month. So I hope you get some inspiration also and try something new!

Blueberry Juice

I needed to make blueberry juice for the kiddo friendly blueberry cordial that I wanted to make for the boys. (They heard that I was making cordial for myself and they wanted some too. So here’s the first stop.)

I’m going to save you the time–DO NOT look up how to make this on YouTube! It’s one of those processes where they all look alike and they all do pretty much the same thing to them. And those who were difference, like one lade added milk, it was just not going to fly for making cordial.

Literally all you need is blueberries and water–that is it!

Here I used 3 cups of berries and 5 cups of water.

It was pretty standard across the board that everyone used about 1.5 cups of water per cup of berries. I could have used less water, but I was happy with the amount of liquid with my immersion blender. Everyone I saw used a stand blender. I’m an immersion blender girl and this all fit perfectly in my glass water pitcher. Clean up was just easier for me. So use whatever blending tool you have. You could even use a hand masher if you wanted to or hand squeeze the berries. The bottom line is that you can drink the pulp if you want that in your blueberry juice. Or you’ll end up straining the pulp out and squeeze everything to get all the liquid out. The water is just a medium to make the process flow.

I am going to include a clink for you here though. One lady I saw used her pressure cooker to make the juice. And then she canned her juice for future use and it’s in its simplest form to meet the need of any recipe you’re looking to use. This was just one project that I didn’t want to undertake on top of everything that I already planned to do for this post. But if you’re a canner, definitely check this video out!

NOTE: In canning groups there is a lot of heat surrounding water bath canning and acidity levels. (“Just because Grandma did it doesn’t mean that it’s safe by today’s cooking standards.”) Cooked blueberries acid levels are below the acid threshold, so it is entirely safe to can cooked blueberry juice without adding acid to the juice before water bath canning.

Blueberry Cordial

For blueberry cordial the pulp does need to be strained out. Just about everyone I’ve seen uses cheese cloth. I happen to have a muslin cloth bag that I use for straining fruits all the time, particularly when I’m making my elderberry syrup. So I opted to skip the cheese cloth and just use my muslin bag. It turns a 2-3 step straining process into just a single step.

After straining, you’re left with a clear blueberry juice.

And if you’re wondering, the juice tastes like the blueberry equivalent of the watered down apple juice I’ve given my boys. It’s not sweet. And is nothing like the fresh blueberries that I used.

But that’s okay, because the Cordial recipe I chose to use is from a British gentleman and his process starts off with reducing the blueberry juice anyway. Here’s his video here.

I followed his directions and reduced it down to half its volume. Taste wise, that watered down flavor is gone. And what remains is an acidic version of the blueberries that I picked.

Here is where I agree with him, the sweetness level of your cordial is very much dependent on your preference levels. My volume of cordial was greater than his, and even after making the proper conversions from metric to imperial I still could not add as much sugar as he did.

With my end volume around twice the amount of his, he added roughly 1 cup of sugar to his cordial. I would have been happy with 1/2 cup of sugar. It was at the level of sweetness as a soda. However, with cordial being syrupy sweet I ended up with a final measurement of 3/4 cup of sugar. And at this level that tasted to me like the really sweet cough syrup. This is definitely a treat that I will add this as a flavoring to unflavored seltzer water for the boys.

And I’m sure that my husband will add this to his seltzer water too.

I’m keeping this in my fridge to keep it preserved for a month or two. But I’m sure it will probably go quick and I’ll need to pull out my freezer berries to make some more.

Spiked Blueberry Cordial

After tasting the blueberry cordial above, I’m now wondering how this one is going to turn out. The recipe for this adult cordial I found here. But I have a few weeks of waiting before I can sample this one and see if any adjustments need to be made. (I will come back into this post and add to my assessment of this recipe once I have this one completed.)

Full disclosure, I do not own a large enough glass container to pull off this full recipe. (That and I didn’t have enough fresh berries that were thawed and ready to go.) So I cut this recipe in half. The proportions were exactly the same, so I know this is going to turn out as it should.

If you want the half batch recipe, this is what I used:

  • 4 cups blueberries
  • 28 oz vodka
  • 1/2 cup sugar

Everything else I followed the directions.

Once this process has run its course, I’ll be back to give my thoughts.

Clafoutis

This recipe, Clafoutis, came my way on Facebook from a friend who was excited to pass this one when he heard that we picked blueberries this year. This is one of his favorite breakfasts and was eager to hear how we liked it.

I admit that I modified this recipe by way of the cooking vessel I used. I opted for my Pyrex because my largest pan is actually my cast iron pan I didn’t know if this recipe was going to expand in the oven or not. So it was my faithful Pyrex with a pan to catch anything that might fall over board during the cooking process.

I’m glad to report that nothing cooked over and it stayed in my Pyrex.

The batter itself reminded me so much of making German Pancakes. (This recipe expands, so now you know why I anticipated some expansion.) In fact, it tasted a whole lot like German Pancakes. The difference, of course, is the addition of blue berries. But also the clafoutis retains more of soufflé like structure. It does puff up and deflates a little after you pull it out and cut it. But on the scale of easy to difficult, this is definitely an easy recipe to make.

It’s super easy to bake and is definitely kid approved. I only made a single batch, but I certainly have to make a double the next time I make this recipe.

I wanted to make a quick note that baking did take longer in the Pyrex and there was the issue of the center being undercooked when time expired. The top was already brown. Because I needed extra cooking time, I did have to add some foil over the top.

If you’ve ever made a quiche, then you understand the jiggle in the center means more cook time is needed. The same is true with the clafoutis. If you see some jiggle, give it more time.

Blueberry Muffins

And now to the blueberry muffins I started off this post with!

Let’s be honest. Everyone and their grandmother have a dozen blueberry muffin recipes they can pull and one or two that they swear by. This is the one that I use, and I don’t even go to my cook books to look there. The problem that I have always had is that they are either too sweet or the moment you add fresh blueberries it turns into a swampy mess. Ina Garten’s recipe I swear was made for fresh blueberries to be added into it. It’s has the perfect amount of water to sponge ratio where your hands don’t get damp and sticky eating it.

So whether you want to use the recipe I use or the one that has been in your family for 70,000 generations here is some information that you can use to improve your blueberry muffin game.

I made one batch of muffin batter. And instead of adding the blueberries into the batter, I put the batter into my silicone cups and then added the blueberries to the color coded cups so I could pull off this ultimate side by side comparison. There was absolutely no way there was any difference in the batter or the sponge. This was entirely based off the berries themselves; fresh, freeze dried, and dehydrated.

In the blue cups I added the fresh blueberries.

The yellow cups have the reconstituted freeze dried berries.

And the red cups have the reconstituted dehydrated berries.

As you can see with this first baked picture, there is an obvious hydration difference between the sponges of the muffins.

The fresh berries, blue cup, are the standard reference point for the recipe that you choose to use. In my preference, the sponge is mildly sweet and firm with enough water content to keep it from being dry.

The reconstituted freeze dried blueberries, yellow cup, added more moisture content to the sponge, but the berries taste and texture wise are the same as the fresh berries. I walked away from this muffin with slightly tacky fingers and some crumb stuck to my fingers.

The reconstituted dehydrated blueberries, red cup, made the crumb dry up a bit. Instead of that perfect balance, it had the feel of what the perfect muffin feels like in a day or two after being baked. The crumb itself is still sweet, the dehydrated berries just took some of the moisture out. That being said, the dehydrated berries were sweeter than the fresh or freeze dried. And they offered a little different texture. You know that cheap box of premade blueberry muffin mix that you can buy at the store? The berry texture is pretty much the same. The berries are bigger than that boxed mix, otherwise there’s a very close comparison there.

If you remember above, my husband said he preferred the yellow cup muffins, freeze dried. I found that all too funny because I still prefer the fresh berry or blue cup muffins. But that just goes to show you just how much it comes down to personal preference.

Decorating with Blueberry Dust

Last but certainly not least, here is the secret baking trick that I alluded to last week!!!!!

The best part about the freeze dried berries is the perfectness about how you can break them down into a decorating powder. Not only is it easy enough to make a decorating powder in seconds. It is also sweet and gives a punch of flavor like you can’t imagine until you try it.

Yes! You can use a spice grinder and turn this into a beautifully fine powder that you can add to your butter cream for a beautiful lavender color with absolutely no food coloring. It also gives an intense blueberry flavor without watering down even your stiff peak frostings or fondants.

In this instance, I just put some crushed freeze dried blueberries into a plastic bag and rolled over it with my rolling pin a few times. Literally anyone can do this!

But my absolute favorite part is just how simplistically beautiful this is. Right here is the blueberry muffin mix from above, cooked in a donut mold. Sprinkled on top is powdered sugar and stripes of the blueberry powder. And finally it’s garnished with edible lavender and whole freeze dried berries.

This is the most beautiful and perfect baked good that I’ve made since having my kids. And it reminds me of the beautiful creativity inside me. It’s not anything spectacular. Because I know there are pastry chefs out there that can make me look like a toddler in my kitchen. But this is a simple wow treat that everyone can make for themselves. And all it takes is finding the products to bring into your basic kitchen and just having some fun.

I hope you try some of these ideas in your kitchen this week!

Products Used Today: This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links, but at no extra cost to you.

Thrive Life Freeze Dried Blueberries

Resusable Silicone Baking Cups

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner to receive weekly emails containing promotions, digital file releases, and future blog notifications.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Leave a comment

Something New To Stretch

For about a year and a half now, I have wanted to make cheese at home.

What kept me from doing it for so long?

I lied to myself stating that it was just the fact that my days are busy with three young kiddos in the house. It’s a convenient enough excuse. But deep down these were the core issues that I was dealing with. Maybe you’re familiar with these fears.

  1. It’s too difficult.
  2. What am I going to do to keep from burning my hands?

If you had a childhood like mine, and you pulled homemade taffy, you know what I mean about burning your hands. At least with taffy you could coat your hands with as much butter (or other fat product) to protect your flesh from the hot candy. And if you’ve read about Mozzarella making, you know you have to pull cheese. Buuuuut, you can’t put butter on your hands.

Let me tell you something. I am so glad that I set my fears aside and dove in to make my first Mozzarella!!!

Advertisements

First let me assure you that I did NOT burn my hands. So you can rest assured that you can also keep your hands safe.

Second, Mozzarella cheese making is so much easier than I made it out to be in my head. In fact, the next time that I make more cheese, I’m going to have my 6 year old help me. With the exception of handling the warmish hot cheese for the stretching and shaping, I know he can do this with me verbally walking him through the steps. So if you think cheese making is too difficult, I think you’ll also be surprised with how easy it is.

I used this beginner cheese making kit from Standing Stone Farms. Their recipe comes in the kit, which is included here with their permission. Thank you Paula Butler for allowing me to share this recipe! Here is another link for their products, and the link for this beginner cheese making kit on Amazon.

If you want to branch out on your own with a different recipe, I know there were a couple that I specifically or indirectly linked to throughout the post.

Before I get in the flow of my first time experience, I want to mention now another fear I had. It didn’t rear its ugly head until I had my pot on the stove and the milk already on heat. Let’s just say I’ve scorched many pans cooking milk based soups and chowders. If you cook with milk, you know what I mean. There comes a point where you just accept it as normal.

So now you understand what I mean when I say, I had a legitimate fear of scalding my milk because I’ve been told in the directions, that with Mozzarella cheese you have to be gentle when you infrequently “stir” the milk and you can’t circular stir your milk. Maybe some Italian Mama will comment and say, “Pssht, stir the milk.” Or maybe they’ll agree. So please Italian Mama’s comment and put some minds to rest!

Here is an after the cheese making shot of my pot. My pan didn’t scorch. This is cooked over medium low heat and this was the damage done. So if one of your fears is burning the milk, as long as you keep your temp low and slow you won’t burn your milk.

Making the Cheese

I know another real fear in cooking is not having pictures of what is normal so you have something to compare to. In what I’ve read in my own research, I haven’t seen any pictures like this. I want to set you up for success!

These are all in stage order so you can compare your own journey as you go.

What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly the Acidic Acid works in curding the milk. That gets added to the milk before you turn heat on the burner. And almost right away curds started forming. Obviously the acid and the milk are going to react. So don’t freak out if you turn on your burner, look at your milk and suddenly think, “OMG did I just put in expired milk?!” No you didn’t. The process is already under way.

At 88°F I added the Calcium Chloride and Liquid Rennet.

After all this instant gratification of seeing curd growth, I have to admit it was hard to have the patience for curd temperature to reach 104°F.

Again, as a first time cheese maker, I assumed that whey was going to be milky white. So you can guess how it felt when I saw the whey was yellow and I asked, “What did I do wrong?”

Nothing. I did nothing wrong. Whey is going to be yellow. The pictures below do no justice to it. It kind of reminds me of neon yellow lemonade. So if you have yellow liquid with your curds, you’re doing great!

Once your curds come to temp, remove them from heat and let them sit for 2 minutes. Once the time is up it’s straining time!

I was super excited for this part! Looking down from the top of my pot, I thought I was going to pull out something like large squeaky cheese curds. I tried to be gently lifting the curds out of the pot with a slotted serving spoon. Low and behold, I was pulling out Titanic Iceberg cheese curds. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but there were a good dozen chunks that stretched over the edges of my slotted spoon. I felt like a rock star.

Once the cheese is all strained out there’s one of two methods you can go; stovetop or microwave heating of the cheese. Normally, I avoid using my microwave. I think it best serves me as a bread/cookie box. However, I undertook this new venture during nap time and the kiddos would be waking up any time. So I opted for the microwave. This method works, but I have the feeling I can get better results with the stove top next time. Again, I just don’t cook using my microwave unless I’m cooking popcorn or quickly heating leftovers.

If you’re interested making Mozzarella without using a microwave during the stretching process, here’s one resource I found.

Advertisements

Back to the show.

The heating of the cheese is to help release the whey from the curds. And the light addition of salt before each 60 session of warming is to help extract the liquid from the curd. Once you have about a Tbsp of whey left you’re good to move on to the stretching and forming of the Mozzarella.

In the directions I was using, I was told I could use a metal spoon to fold over the cheese while it was hot. And you better believe I took advantage of that tip. (I still cringe at childhood taffy pulling. That candy was hot!)

By the time that I got to the point of this first picture, the spoon lost its effectiveness and I was ready to bite the bullet and go to town using my hands. It was still hot (something similar to a hot spa towel, hot but not flesh burning) but quickly cooled down as I stretched it a couple of times.

For shaping, I decided to go the method that bread makers use when folding the dough under to build up surface tension for boule bread.

Tip: This method of folding the cheese under did two things. One, when the cheese cooled to hold its shape, there’s a canyon like crevice on the center bottom. Two, when I cut a test slice for my mom today that surface tension made a dense slice. If you want a solid slice of goodness, this shaping method might work for you.

Tip 2: I suspect that if you’re looking for more of a string cheese pull apart texture, the method that you’re probably looking for is to keep with a taffy pulling method. Keep going with a pull and fold until you start to feel the cooling of the cheese tightening it up. Then I would focus smoothing the surface for that finished look.

Tip 3: If you’re looking for that soft, squishy ball of mozzarella, I’m pretty sure you’re looking to just stretch it a couple of times, smooth the exterior and then let it cool in your brining liquid or whey.

Once the cheese is shaped, it’s time to put it in liquid to cool and store. I should have just put the cheese back into some of its whey. Or even just water, because I had seasoned it to my liking before I stretched and shaped. The brine I had made was 1 Tbsp of kosher salt in 4 cups of water. It’s too salty for my liking.

If you are sodium sensitive or limit the amount of salt you use, I recommend skipping the storage in brine.

As you can see here, I have a bit more whey then I thought I would. And I looked at my table wondering what I’m going to do with all this whey. But I think I’m going to be okay. The day of and the day after I made the cheese, I used all the whey in the bowl on the top left.

What I’ve Used Whey For

The first thing I made with the whey is my bread recipe that I posted a few weeks ago, found here. The full volume of milk that I use for my bread, I completely replaced with equal volume of whey.

There were a couple of differences that I found with using whey in my bread recipe. One, the dough was much wetter than I’ve ever seen my dough, even on high humidity days. (Picture below) I’m the only person in my family who doesn’t eat raw bread dough, but I have nibbled before just to know what everyone feels so appealing about stealing my dough during proofing. With the whey, the dough feels smoother in my mouth and has a more sweet and bread like flavor than just the overpowering flour flavor that my dough has with milk.

I accidently forgot my dough (thank you children who pushed all my buttons that evening) and my dough over proofed. Because it over proofed I can’t tell you an accurate description of how the whey proofed with the bread. Nor can I tell you how the flavor was different with the whey vs. milk. If you’ve over proofed your bread before, you’ve probably noticed that not only do you have flat tire bread, but there’s also a kind of funk to it. When I over proof bread, the only good thing it’s really good for is grilled cheese sandwiches. My boys won’t really touch it. However comparing over proofed bread flavor, I can tell you this. My boys at 3/4 of a loaf for their PB& J (asking me to make extra sandwiches–this only happens on fresh from the oven days of properly cooked bread). Flavor wise, the only difference from properly cooked and this over proofed was that the natural sourness of the bread was neutralized. And I was about ready to bust out my oil and vinegar and have that for lunch. So I’m excited to try again and do a properly proofed baking of bread with whey!

For Taco Night I decided to take advantage of whey’s natural probiotics, as well as solve my problem with homemade ranch dressing separating after a week.

Ranch Dressing with whey really surprised me! I used a premixed packet, added the store bought real mayo, and for the cup of milk that I normally use I substituted out 3/4 C of whey. I have never tasted ranch dressing that was so good! It had a citrus lemon flavor to it that just lifted it from normal hum drum standard condiment to I think I have a cooking secret ingredient. I had my mom taste it (and she doesn’t do ranch dressing) and she immediately said that she was so glad that she tried it. To her she picked out a cucumber like sub-note, which makes sense with my husband’s reaction that you can taste the herbs in the dressing instead of being overpowered by the mayo.

With the Refried Black Beans that I plopped out of the can into my little sauce pan, I added whey instead of water to get that smooth spreadable consistency. If you think that canned beans are heavy, you most certainly won’t think so after adding whey to it. Again, there was a citrus note that just lifted it into something lighter and much more pleasing to eat.

Advertisements

Let’s just say that those two changes were enough to transform Taco Night into a let’s stay home and skip eating out. I have had some amazing authentic Mexican Food from Chefs who used family recipes. And the only restaurant I would now take over my family Taco Night is Los Cubanos in San Jose, where the Chef has cooked for Presidents and A-Listers.

I am amazed at how much whey can improve the flavor of run of the mill, standard recipes.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m writing this post as a first time cheese maker, so you can have an idea what to expect from a first timer and not someone who has been making cheese over and over and perfected their skills before sharing with the world. I want you to know what you can expect when you first try your hand at cheese making.

Please Try! I want to know what results you find.

As you can see I’ve only tried the whey in three things. But I did pull a search of different ways that whey can be used. I’m going to forewarn you that the list that follows is extensive, but don’t let it intimidate you. I’m looking at this list with Christmas Morning excitement, because the quantity of whey in my fridge is going to get used up AND there are so many different things that I get to try! And let’s face it, I am definitely going to be making more cheese in the future.

Other Uses For Leftover Whey

  • Ferment Foods “such as sauerkraut, ginger ale, ketchup, and pickles.” Almanac.com
  • Ginger Ale or Lacto-fermented Root Beer (I’m going to have to do a project with the kiddos making the root beer)
  • Fruit Kvass
  • Fermented Mayonnaise (extends homemade mayo from a week shelf life to a month)
  • Kimchee
  • Freeze for future use
  • Add as acidic note to smoothies, slushies, or milkshakes
  • Pour on top of dog dry food
  • Feed to Livestock (chickens & pigs)
  • Whey Lemonade (this is definitely a recipe I WANT to try)
  • Sauces
  • Soups
  • Pizza Dough
  • Mashed Potatoes
  • Frosting
  • Fruit Salad
  • Add to Pesto
  • Use as a substitute for Buttermilk
  • Use when stir frying Vegetables
  • Spray on the leaves of peas, cucumbers and squash that has powdery mildew (Ratio 1:1 with water)
  • Toner for Skin and Hair
  • Lemon Whey Pie
  • Make Gjetost Cheese (sweet cheese)–traditionally made from Goat Milk Whey BUT can use Cow Milk Whey
  • Fermented Bean Dip
  • Lacto-Fermented Apple Sauce–This is another Must-Make for me
  • Lacto-Fermented Horseradish
  • Baking recipe replacement for water or milk
  • Truffles
  • theprairiehomestead.com has used whey in cornbread, pancakes, waffles, muffins, homemade biscuits and homemade tortillas.
  • Use for lacto-fermentation (pickling) in vegetables, condiments, chutneys, and jams.
  • Soak legumes–one site said NOT to do this because it made their dry beans tougher (so a judgment call)
  • Dilute down and water your garden (acid and Calcium loving veg and flowers)
  • Make Ricotta Cheese (traditionally made from whey)
  • Whey marinade (add your herbs and seasonings of choice) for your meats
  • Use for your mozzarella storing brine
  • Soak your oatmeal overnight in whey
  • Cook your grits, rice, grains and pasta in whey
  • Cocktail alternative for raw egg whites
  • Add to Fire Cider
  • Added to your stock of choice (replacing a cup or two of water)
  • Use when making Risotto
  • Substitute for Orange Juice in smoothies and baking.
  • Substitute for Lemon Juice in recipes, vinaigrette, and cocktails
  • Make Fermented Salsas, Dips, & Spreads (more recipes on this one link than I can state. Looks like it covers just about everyone’s flavor profile. So you should be able to find at least one to excitedly work with)

Expectations for Best Use Dates

From the Cheese Making directions I used, the Mozzarella is good for 2 week when stored in bring or water. It can be frozen for up to 3 months.

From what I’ve read, frozen whey is good for 3-6 months. (But you will not be able to make any cheese products from frozen whey.) People have made Ricotta cheese with whey that’s been in the fridge for 4 days. One source says that it’s good for 5-6 days. Another says no longer than a week. If you dehydrate it into a powder, you have 6 months refrigerated or 6 days at room temperature on the counter.

If you are looking for a more professional answer, instead of experiential hearsay, the USDA liquid milk products are good in refrigerators for 1 week. Cheeses are good frozen for 3 months. This doesn’t answer precisely for liquid whey, but it appears to fit with circumstantial evidence.

So if you don’t think you’ll get to all your whey right away, be sure to freeze it.

Your whey has gone bad when it has a rancid smell and/or bitter taste.

Pulling from being a breast feeding mom “rancid” and “bitter” may not be what you think. It’s more of an “off” sent/flavor. Yes I tasted my fresh breast milk and warmed frozen breast milk. When the milk was within the 6 month recommended frozen window, it warmed with not much flavor difference. Older freezer milk, when warmed did not have the same flavor. It had more of a sour instead of sweet taste.

In the same manner I recommend that you take a little taste of the liquid whey that you produce and focus on remembering the smell. That way when you ever have a question if the fresh or frozen liquid whey is still good you have a working knowledge to pull from instead of the random descriptors that writers use to convey a thought. After all your taste buds are going to pick up something different than mine, and the milk we could be using could be different in base flavors. (Ask a picky child what this means LOL.)

I know this is a lot of information, but I hope it empowers you into making some cheese and using the whey for other uses. Be sure to leave a comment below about what cheese you make and what you’ve made with the whey.

I know that I will never look at a gallon of milk the same!

Check out what’s new in my store for Cut Files that you can use on your favorite crafting machine. New Releases go live every Monday!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner to receive weekly emails containing promotions, digital file releases, and future blog notifications.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

One response to “Something New To Stretch”

  1. Easy Cheesy – How I Can Do That Avatar
    Easy Cheesy – How I Can Do That

    […] last week I continued my experimenting with whey and I wanted to do a follow up post on what I learned. And […]

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

Advertisements

Bread Recipe That Hasn’t Failed Me

Last week I shared with you my process for making no waste yeast starter. And I promised you that this week I would share with you my bread recipe that hasn’t failed me and how to make tear apart rolls that are better than the ones you buy at the grocery store and bake at home.

First I want to take a moment to touch back on the subject of yeast. This last baking session I had was a perfect example of how life happens and sometimes your starter has a personality all of its own. I think mine was having a little temper tantrum for some reason.

Picture 1 (below) was the moment I pulled it out of the fridge. That sucker refused to double! I left it out over night (much longer than it’s doubling time) and all I got was Picture 2. You can see the bubbles clearly, so my yeast is present and doing its job. It was just temperamental. I added 2 Tablespoons of flour, no water). 3 hours later I had picture 3.

(Side note: I keep my yeast in a quart sized mason jar because my 400 g of starter fills the jar halfway. I don’t need a marker to mark my doubling volume. I know it’s ready to go when my starter reaches the top of the jar.)

SANDWICH BREAD (2 LOAVES)

Milk 2c 480ml Butter 4 Tbsp 56g Sugar 2 Tbsp 32g Salt 3 tsp 22g Flour 5c 700g Starter 1c 224g

  1. Warm Milk and Butter to about 110°F
  2. In a stand mixer bowl, with paddle attachment, add salt, sugar, and about a cup of flour (mixer speed 3)
  3. Add warm Milk and Butter to mixer bowl
  4. Add Starter
  5. Add Half of remaining flour
  6. Once everything is well incorporated, change paddle attachment to bread hook attachment and add the remaining flour.
  7. Once everything is well incorporated, and you want to build up the gluten levels, let the stand mixer knead your dough (speed 3) for 20 minutes.
  8. Divide dough into 2 standard bread pans
  9. Proof dough until it doubles
  10. Heat oven to 350°F
  11. Bake bread for about 30 minutes (Bread’s Internal Temperature is 200°F)

*I did not create this recipe and didn’t make notes on who or where I got this recipe from. I have tested several dozen bread recipe over the last two years. So if this is your recipe please let me know and I will give you credit here*

Please note that depending on your country of origin, this recipe may or may not fall under the category of bread. For example, Ireland defines bread containing sugar less than 2% the content weight of flour. So by Irish standards, this recipe does not meet its standard. I have reduced the amount of sugar, to Irish standards, and still baked beautiful loaves of bread. So please do not feel like you have to use this much sugar. By all means, reduce the sugar content to meet your dietary needs. It does not change the bread.

I happen to use this amount of sugar because my house is cool and my starter requires a little helping hand to proof. And the function of sugar in a bread recipe is to facilitate the speed at which your yeast works. So if you reduce your sugar content, please allow a little extra patience for your dough to proof.

The great news about making bread from starter, there is no real time limit for you to reaching full proofing. Starter proofing can be dragged out to 48 hours in your refrigerator. This extended period of proofing builds up the sour profile of your dough.

On average, I proof my dough anywhere from 9-12 hours. In fact, I make my dough at night and proof it over night. Then when I wake up in the morning I bake my bread and it’s cooled in enough time for lunch. In this proofing window my yeast produces a very mild sour note. My mom has always hated sourdough bread, and yet she loves my sandwich bread. I know this doesn’t adequately convey a universal comparison. But it gives a general reference point based off of your preference level of sour dough bread. I would love to make mine more sour, but being a busy mom, I usually don’t make it enough time to properly prepare. It’s more of an oh-crap-I’m-out-of-sandwich-bread scenario.

Which reminds me, I need to make more bread!!!

Here are a couple pictures of the last baking session. As you can see in Picture 1, my yeast looks like it’s on the weak side. Normally it’s a thick sheet of starter that once I start pouring, it pulls itself out of my jar into my weighing bowl. I have made bread from weaker yeast than this. In fact there have been a couple of times where my starter looked like a soft milk shake. It still made bread. It took a little longer to proof (about 3 hours longer than normal), but it still proofed.

Picture 2 is my no fuss method of splitting my dough directly in my silicone bread molds. I don’t shape it. And often times the pours are uneven. (The larger weight loaf will take additional time to reach 200°F.)

Picture 3 is finished bread. And Picture 4 is sliced so you can see how this batch turned out.

On the subject of slicing bread… Whether you are making a loaf like this, or if you make a boule loaf, if you ever find that your bread doesn’t bake as tall as you like there is a trick where you can make it look like your bread was taller. Instead of cutting your bread perpendicular to your cutting board, cut at a 45° angle. By angling your knife inward, the slice of your bread naturally looks taller. The two heels of the loaf are not usable for sandwiches, but it’s perfect for other uses; dipping in soups and stews, snacking on with some oil and vinegar, cubing for making croutons, or crumbing to make a crumb topping for a different recipe. There are plenty of other uses for these ends.

On To Making Rolls

For my rolls, I use the exact same recipe as I use for making sandwich bread. The only difference is how I form the dough.

There is another method that I’ve made pull apart rolls, but this method (which you see in the picture below) is my way of making rolls that have been a hit at family holiday. In fact, these ones are eaten before the store bought rolls.

While my stand mixer is kneading my dough, I start folding foil dividers. These are just a strip of foil that I fold in half. I have long ones that fit the full length of my pans. And then I also make strips that are about 2 1/2 inches wide. If you find that the mini dividers are not wide enough, don’t worry. You will just place them in the middle and the rolls will still separate perfectly.

For portioning out the rolls, I start on one side of my pan. I make a dollop with two Tbsp worth of dough in a corner, place a mini divider up next to the dough. Then I portion out the next roll and place the next divider. I keep this pattern of dough and dividers until I complete a row. Then I place a long divider next to the row and then start the next row. I continue in this manner until the pan is filled. Then I move to the next pan.

If you finish a pan and see that you do not have enough for another pan, don’t worry. In the bottom of the picture you will notice that I kept my pattern of portioning and dividing. When I ran out of dough, I placed a long strip divider and then I put oven safe containers in the pan to hold up the divider.

Once my dough is all portioned out for rolls, I set my pans aside and proof. (The picture above was taken after the rolls had proofed and right before I put them in the oven.)

Baking temperature is the same as the sandwich bread. The cook time is less. I start checking the internal temperature at about 20 minutes. The internal temperature remains 200°F.

Once the bread is done, you can take the foil dividers out right away or wait until they cool. The effect is the same and it’s easy to pull the rolls apart either way. I have noticed that I pull the dividers out right away, they slide right out. When the rolls are cooled down, the bread tends to stick to the foil. If you find that the bread is sticking, just fold the rolls along the dividers and they will release.

Why do you check the internal temperature?

There are so many variables when it comes to baking. What is your altitude? What is your humidity level? Does your oven run hotter or cooler than the person who gives you a recipe? These three things alone will change how your bread will bake for you. A constant is the internal temperature. Bread is universally done at 200°F. If the internal temperature is less, the bread is still wet in the middle. If the temperature is higher, the bread is over cooked, dry, and crumbles. So all my baked goods, I cook to an internal temperature instead of a baking time.

Does it matter if I use a metal bread pan or a silicone mold?

I’ve baked bread for a far longer time with metal bread pans. I grew up baking before silicone baking dishes were even an idea in an inventor’s mind. Metal pans have their drawback, but I don’t even flinch when I see them or need to use them. All that I do is cut a sling out of parchment paper. That way I can pick up the sling and remove my bread from the pan the moment I take it out of the oven, and put it on a cooking rack.

For the last two years that I’ve used nothing but my silicone molds, I absolutely adore them! I don’t need to use parchment paper. Nor do I need to grease the pan to get a loaf to release. My silicone molds are a luxury, but it makes my life much easier.

So feel free to use metal pans or silicone molds. Use what you have available to you and your budget.

What is a sling?

A sling is just a strip of parchment paper that covers the entire bottom of your bread pan, comes up two opposite sides, and over hangs enough where you can grasp both ends and pull the loaf of bread out of the pan.

Be advised that parchment paper is different than wax paper. Wax paper should not be used in the oven when baking, especially when there is exposed wax paper. I know several people who will disagree with me, stating that wax paper is okay if it is completely covered. I don’t even use up my time in these discussions. Parchment paper is oven safe and has no draw backs in your baking.

Does baking bread really vary like you say?

YES! When I first immersed myself into the science of bread making, I studied a few different things. In fact, here is a picture of one of my charts that I still have in my recipe notebook.

Humidity levels were directly related to whether my dough was wet or dry. Did it matter if my dough was wet or dry? Not really. But I was able to understand why using the exact same measurements of ingredients gave me different textures on different days.

I played around with measurements of yeast, kneading times…. Everyone always says that baking is a science. That everything has to be precise. My bread has always turned out and I’ve played with measurements of flour, yeast, salt, sugar, liquid and the one constant is that my bread has NEVER failed me. If you’re heavy on yeast, you double your proof quicker than if you cut your yeast to a lower level.

In fact, IF YOU NEED TO USE LESS YEAST go with a wetter dough and knead in more flour. There’s so many tutorials out there for making bread with kneading by hand. Go that route with less yeast. The reason why is because flour is the actual food for yeast. When you knead by hand, you add more a little more flour with each time you knead. You continue to grow more yeast the longer you go with this method. Your dough is done and ready to cook when it no longer sticks to your hands when you knead it after a rest.

What is Baker’s Percentage?

This is where people say that baking is a science, you HAVE to keep everything in proportion.

BAKER’S PERCENTAGE

Flour 100%

Water 66% (of flour weight)

Salt 2% (of flour weight)

Yeast 1.2% (of flour weight)

Even if you didn’t want to use my recipe above, this Baker’s Percentage is all that you need to make bread. Everything outside of flour, water, salt, and yeast is just fluff ingredients that will change the flavor profile.

While I will play around with measurements, the Baker’s Percentage is the baseline that we measure everything against. If you do not have enough of any of these 4 mandatory ingredients, this is the method by which you change a recipe to make bread.

By all means, play with a recipe. Change it. Make bread with what you have available. Your bread can succeed when you make alterations. Just know that to make bread, you need flour, water, salt, yeast. But you can even leave yeast out if resources are that short for you. Flour, water, and salt will make flat bread for you.

If you remember from last week, I fried up my starter. That was only flour and water OR just yeast starter from your jar. Know that no matter what circumstance you find yourself in, there remains a way to provide for yourself. Do not lose hope!

This has been a full week. There are no new cut files that I made to go with this post. However, For a special surprise you have a sneak peak for what will be released on Monday!!! Click here to be the first to get Hardware Labels or Hardware before everyone else. Have a great weekend!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner to receive weekly emails containing promotions, digital file releases, and future blog notifications.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Valuable Resources

With inflation of food prices and rumors of food shortages, it’s really been on my heart about how and where my family sources its food. My heart especially breaks because if not in my own communities, there are most definitely places in this world where people will die from lack of food. I have connections with people outside of the US and it breaks my heart with just how food vulnerable people are.

My choices in food sourcing are not going to help people in different countries. Although I love my dream world where people in first world countries make individual choices, where as a collective all the extra food we don’t claim for ourselves gets reallocated to countries, places, and communities that are in more of a dire need of. That is my naive side that I hang on to, because I know full well that this is not how the world works.

So I focus on my local community. I have neighbors who are more food vulnerable than I am. So in being sensitive to my neighbors, who I can help, I have been changing how I shop to produce the foods from scratch that I have the knowledge to make. At various times I’ve seen the bread and dry pasta shelves bare. Even with stock at a good sale price, I still I don’t buy those items because these are two commodities I can make for myself. By not making those purchases, it frees up those resources for the families who don’t yet have the skills to make those products for themselves.

But I’m not content with just providing for my family. Not when I have the ability to help other families to provide for themselves.

Today I am focusing on helping anyone who wants to learn how to make their own bread.

I don’t know about your local market prices, but a loaf of bread runs for about $5. This does not mean that there isn’t cheaper bread to be had. But this is the average price if you look at all the shelf labels. Before my boys were born the average price was $1 a loaf, no matter what the brand name. So if for no other reason, now is a good time to learn how to make bread so you very easily can see how you can save a couple dollars every shopping trip, where you can use elsewhere in your family budget.

I want to teach you how I made No Waste Starter.

Why is this important?

When I made my Covid-Starter I researched the heck out of making a starter and the different schools of thought for bread making. Every starter tutorial out there always starts with a rather large quantity of flour and each day you throw out or discard cook half your starter. Even two years ago my thoughts were about how much of a waste of precious resource this method is. At the time flour was very plentiful, but my head went to where I can make bread when I don’t have flour to waste. And now we are most certainly in a time where many people are now finding themselves in a place where flour cannot be wasted.

I present to you my photo journal from two years ago where I made starter without discarding.

Being a historian, by education, I was fascinated with how bread has been made through the history of mankind. The feature that took over my creativity is the bread trough/bowl. Before mason jars, that we all use today, or starter crocks families used a wood trough or bowl to keep their starter.

Please note that you need to pay attention to your starter if you are using wood products to make your starter. Make sure the wood dish is clean and free of chemicals. Also note that wood holding liquid can bread bacteria. When making starter, there should be no colors or scents coming from your starter. New starter will not begin to have a sour smell until the end of a week. So if you find mold, spores of color, or any scent that does not smell like sourdough bread, throw out the starter and begin again. Wood products are viable vessels. But note that all of these potential contaminations can be found using any vessel, not just wood. So make sure your vessel is clean and you keep a clean work space while you cultivate your starter.

The vessel that you in the following pictures is an unfinished teak wood tray. The sides are raised, making it ideal of containing the starter as it grew through the feeding cycles.

DAY 1

For DAY 1 I cleaned my teak wood tray and my hands well, making sure that all soap was thoroughly rinsed off. Once ready, I mixed 2 Tablespoons of flour with equal amounts of water and mixed it together by hand on the tray. When finished mixing the pancake like batter I covered the tray with a clean tea towel to keep any foreign materials from falling into my starter and contaminating it. And then I just leave the tray out on my countertop. (My fridge was already covered with things confiscated from my boys. All my parents out there know what I’m talking about. But your countertop is just fine for your starter. It needs to be warm but in a place left alone.)

The science behind making your own starter yeast is that the water flour mixture becomes home to the natural yeast that floats in the air and lives on your hands.

DAY 2

I fed the yeast once in the morning and once in the evening. Each feeding was 2 more Tablespoons of flour and water, mixing/kneading it with clean hands. (I added the flour first and then add water to loosen it up and facilitate better incorporation. After each feeding I covered the tray with my tea towel.

As you see in the pictures, at the beginning of each feeding there was a crust on the tray and on the starter. This crust was easily dissolvable and reincorporated into the starter.

The bottom four pictures show you what I was looking at once I started working water and flour into the starter. I also show you the window test (how you tell in bread making that gluten is being formed in the bread–pull a portion up and watch how gravity pulls your dough). There is no uniformity here. So I wasn’t looking to see very much yeast activity. However, I know there is some yeast already active. Look in the first picture and you will see a couple of air bubbles (the visible presence of yeast respiration), with a very large one just off center on the bottom.

DAY 3

I continued with the morning and evening feeding of flour and water. After rehydration and incorporation of the crust and feeding, I covered the started back up.

I was excited today because there was more of a visible change that was taking place. There’s the increase in mass, but more importantly there was an increase in yeast activity. The bubbles were more prominent. (The bottom left picture is the best one for showing how much the yeast activity increased.) The middle right picture is the size of my starter, right before its feeding. The middle left and center pictures show you the change that has happened in just one day with a window test. The bottom center picture shows you the gluten structure that has formed, how sticky my starter became.

Why was I focusing on the gluten structure?

Gluten is not needed for yeast production. But I made a focus on capturing this information because gluten is what keeps the air bubbles in your bread. Gluten is an elastic structure. Without it you don’t have a way of seeing the amount of anaerobic respiration that is being produced. You can tell the health of your yeast by the size and amount of bubbles produced.

So while all the other starter methods you can read about don’t talk about gluten or keep this dry of a starter, this was an amazing process for me. I was able to see what was going on in yeast production. I could see that I was on a right track. And if you want to talk more about the science of yeast making, I can guarantee you that I have more to talk about than what is presented here. In fact, if you’re a homeschooling parent and want to have an AMAZING practical experiment for your student to see and understand respiration, this is most definitely for you!!!

The bottom right picture is my picture of impatience. I literally couldn’t wait to fry up some of the starter after a feeding. It didn’t taste great, but it didn’t taste bad. It has a sour flavor to it, but not in the classical sourdough sour. It was more like a citrus sour. It was not palatable. In fact, I took a nibble and just decided not to finish it. So when they say you can’t eat from a starter this early, it’s because it’s just not palatable.

Now if I was hard up for something to eat… I might be tempted to eat my sample here. However, I know I have enough food reserves where I’m not pressed to make this an eat vs. go hungry situation. If you are in an eat or go hungry situation try to get your yeast established before getting to this point. I would not recommend it at this point.

Side Note: I changed up my method a little bit here.

I didn’t want to keep having to deal with this crust, so after the second feeding I opted to get rid of the tea towel and switch to laying a piece of plastic wrap on top. I wanted to prevent the dehydration (which formed the crust) and retain the water content. I did not seal off the plastic wrap on the sides, just placed it on top so the starter was still somewhat exposed to the yeast in the air. I wasn’t afraid of not having yeast exposure because I was still kneading the starter with my hand for a few minutes each feeding. Plus I have the evidence that yeast is already present.

DAY 4

OMG I was literally doing a happy dance! Look at all those bubbles!!!!

Plastic wrap was most definitely NOT the material to use. Yes it did not inhibit yeast production. It’s the fact that the starter heavily clung to the plastic. There was no way I could pull or scrape starter off of the plastic wrap. There was also no way that I could reuse it. So if I’m trying to not throw any resource out, plastic wrap has better uses elsewhere. Here it’s a onetime use and a waste. (See below for what I switched to using.)

By having a less permeable cover, there was less dehydration, which I felt better about. It made the feeding quicker. And today I kept up with the morning and evening feeding.

As you can see, here in these bottom three pictures, there is more structure and less stickiness of the starter. When I pan fried this up, it was palatable fry bread. Thinking back now, after two years, I should have put a pinch of salt into the dough–bread is made up of flour, water, yeast, and salt. That is all you really need. The salt would have been something other than no flavor. Think of a salt free cracker, that is where this starter is at. If you are in dire need for food, you’re now at a point of having viable food.

I had these reusable sandwich wraps in my drawer. It’s a thicker plastic with velcro closures. I had to position the velcro on the sides so I didn’t have to clean them with every feeding. This plastic covering was a dream for yeast production because it didn’t fold in on itself and allowed me to scrape the starter off. The starter didn’t stick as much to it either. (See bottom left picture of Day 5 to see how little starter clung to the covering.

DAY 5

This was another day of morning and evening feeding. The reusable sandwich wrap still allowed a crust to form, but it was much more manageable and something I could live with for a balance between sustainability of resources and maintaining hydration. My goal is still to literally be hands on with my starter. So I still opted for the use of the tray instead of switching to a different vessel.

I was very pleased with the yeast production. And when I fried up a bit of the starter, there was now a very faint sourdough flavor to it. So that was evidence enough for me that my starter was ready for bread production.

Everyone else that I had read with about making a starter, none of them told me what it that you’re looking for is. They all just state 7 days like it’s some magical marker or transformation that happens at that point in time. I’m open to hear from anyone as to why you insist on waiting 7 days before a starter is ready for bread production. However, with years of baking bread with conventional dry fast acting yeast, and with scientific understanding of what the function of yeast is in bread, here are my indicators that your yeast is ready:

  • You can see evidence of yeast production: your starter has the same amount of bubbles as you would see in a slice of bread.
  • When you fry up starter, it produces palatable flat bread.

Okay, everyone who talks about starter says that you can’t make bread until your starter has doubled after a feeding. My yeast was already doubling before Day 5. So this indicator was not relevant for me. The two important things, hands down, are evidence of yeast being present and flavor. You won’t eat bread (whether in loaf form or flat bread) if it doesn’t taste good.

I should also note that the starter does by now have a very faint sourdough smell.

DAY 6

This was my first day of baking my own bread from my starter. I chose to make boule bread. One, the amount of yeast wasn’t as much as I keep now, but I had enough for the first recipe I tried with enough left over to feed and store. So the pictures you see here for Day 6 were the bread making process of the different kneading times and the transformation that you see with the dough as you go through the process. It went from rough lumpy looking to that beautiful smooth ball.

I’m not going to focus on this recipe or the process because it’s labor intensive. I haven’t even made a boule in several months. This is not my go to and not exactly practical for today’s busy schedule. I love boules and can probably get better height out of them, but I have a recipe and process that is much more mom friendly and something I can make every night for bread the next day. But I will talk more about that next week. I’ll give you my every day recipe next week with also my process of making rolls. Again that’s next week.

After I made this recipe, I fed the remainder of my starter and I actually transferred it into a quart size mason jar. One, my boys were starting to reach onto the counter and I didn’t want to have my work wasted because a curious boy decided to tip the tray over and knock my yeast on the floor. Two, I wasn’t (and still am not) in a position where I need to make bread every day. So for flour conservation, I put my starter in my fridge. The fridge slows the anaerobic respiration of the yeast so that you are able to feed your yeast and it is perfectly happy until you make your bread in a week.

What is the longest I’ve left my yeast untouched in the fridge?

I think it was 17 days. And boy was my yeast sad and weak. BUT even with weak yeast, I was still able to use that yeast without using a single discard and wasting precious resources. It took a little longer for my bread to proof, but the yeast pulled back in the dough and in my jar.

When do you pull your starter out of the fridge to use?

My best results have been when I take the starter out 1-3 hours before I want to use it. It warms the yeast up to an active state. But more importantly, more times than not, my yeast hasn’t finished its cycle and doubled in the fridge. But allowing it to finish it’s doubling in volume on the counter, it gets the yeast into its strongest and happiest state.

Have you used your starter while it was still cold and not yet doubled?

Yes! The yeast is still good. It’s just dormant and hasn’t used its entire food source. Here’s the drawback to using cold yeast. Your bread recipe liquid is warmed to an optimum temperature to really get your yeast excited, happy, and ready to eat. When it’s cold and put into a warm liquid, the temperature change can be a shock. And it does take longer for your yeast to get happy and get busy proofing your bread. So it’s not ideal using your yeast cold, but it’s not a deal breaker.

Remember, yeast is a living organism. It has certain conditions that make it happy and productive. It’s so easy to think of yeast as a non-living organism, but that’s not the truth. Yeast lives. It has an environment that is ideal. And when you recognize that, you can set your yeast up for great success in making bread.

When do you feed your starter?

I take my starter out of the fridge. Get it to room temperature and double in volume. Once the starter has doubled, I measure out the portion I need for my bread recipe. What remains in my mason jar, I clean up my jar by scraping down the remaining yeast with a silicone scraper. Then I add the flour and water, mix it well and put the lid back on. Then back to the fridge it goes until I cook another batch of bread.

How much do you feed your starter?

I always keep 400 grams of starter on hand. It fills a quart size mason jar about half way. This makes it easy to tell when my yeast has doubled without needing to do the rubber band trick that I saw all the time in tutorial videos.

Whatever weight of starter I take out for a recipe is what I replace with weight of flour and water for feeding. For example, if I take out 300 grams of starter, I put back in 170 grams of flour and 130 grams of water. The appearance of my starter is a little bit looser than you see in the pictures above, but I do keep my starter thicker than what I see everyone else keeping theirs at.

The most important reason for this is that this is what makes my yeast the most happy. My yeast remains strong and healthy and I have only had hooch in my mason jar one time in 2 years. The hooch formed because my water content was too high for the flour content. The yeast ate through all the flour and couldn’t use all the water. So it’s my opinion that if you have a problem with hooch, try feeding your starter less water.

Besides hooch production, excess water is going to add to the odds that you will through your starter environment off and make it ripe for other things to grow in your starter like bacteria and mold–which you will have to throw your starter out.

Another problem happens with too much water, the smell of acetone. I haven’t had this problem with my flour based starter, but it did happen with my potato starter. I’ll talk more about this is the post for the potato starter. But it happened because there was too much water. And this problem you can solve by adding salt into your starter. The salt balances out the starter’s environment and makes it inhospitable for the presence of bacteria that has started to set up shop in your starter. So know that the moment you smell your starter having an off scent, don’t wait to see if it goes away. Add a teaspoon or two of salt and be preventative. If you wait, you run the chance of losing your starter.

Is All Purpose Flour okay, or do I need bread flour?

I prefer All Purpose Flour. One time I bought a 25 pound bag of bread flour and immediately regretted it with the first batch of bread I made. Bread flour is supposed to only have a higher content of wheat protein in it to create more gluten. However it threw the salt content off on my bread. Even after I lowered the salt content in my recipe (by half), the flavor of the bread was still off. You may or may not notice the change in flavor, but I did. My boys did. So do not feel pressured into needing specialty flour to be able to make bread at home. In fact, I’ve received comments (from friends and family that I’ve gifted bread to) that what I made them tasted like high quality restaurant bread. And all I used was All Purpose Flour.

Side note: I’ve tried working with other flours to make gluten free bread. I’ve not yet found success in that experimental process. I have found success in making gluten free starter from potato–which will be featured in an upcoming post (it should be in two weeks). If I finally find gluten free flour (mixture) that I love in bread, I will quickly and excitedly share that because I have great love for bread. But I’m not going to share anything that I’m not passionate about.

Is there a difference between bleached and unbleached flour?

As far as quality of bread, I haven’t noticed a difference that makes me have a preference one way or another. I personally like using unbleached flour over all for everything. So that’s generally what I have in my pantry. However, you should use the flour that you have available to you and don’t have stress over it. And don’t let people pressure you one way or another.

If you have flour that just isn’t working for you, there are ways to alter a recipe to make it more palatable for you. I had to change recipes all the time when I was using dry active yeast, because I hated the flavor that yeast produced. My easiest and quickest way of altering it without changing the results of my bread crumb was simply by adding herbs. My go to herbs were always adding about 1 teaspoon of each: garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano. The salt content never changed. The dry/wet ratio never changed. And there was just enough flavor adjustment that I could eat the bread and it didn’t change it enough to ruin the overall sandwich flavor whether grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly, or any combination of meat sandwiches.

Every master bread maker will tell you that you have to respect the ratios of the ingredients: flour, water, salt, yeast. Anything you add to that for flavoring is just a bonus. But I’ll talk more about that next week.

If there are any questions that you have, please leave them in the comments. I want to make sure you have all the information you need.

While this week’s post is on the outlying area of being creative I did want to share with you some new Cut Files that are related in subject. Be sure to visit my store to see what all is available for sale!

You can find Rollin In Dough here. And Kneading In Dough here.

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner to receive weekly emails containing promotions, digital file releases, and future blog notifications.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.