Bread made with yeast water

[Major Nikon]

On a previous thread I mentioned starting a yeast water solution. If you want to duplicate what I've done, directions are in that thread.

The basic premise is making "sourdough" with a yeast water solution instead of a traditional starter of natural yeast and flour. Today I made a proof of concept loaf. The recipe is as follows. Ingredients were combined with a spatula for the preferment and then by hand for the final mix. No kneading or mechanical mixing was performed.

Preferment:

250g King Arthur unbleached white flour
250g Yeast water

Combine the ingredients and fermented for 12 hours

Final mix added to preferment:
250g King Arthur unbleached white flour
110g Yeast water
9g fine salt

Combine the ingredients and fermented for 8 hours

Shape loaf and place in proofing basket. Proofed for 60 minutes

Bake in heated dutch oven covered in 475F oven for 30 minutes, uncover and bake for an additional 18 minutes.

I still have a bit to learn about this process. I wasn't expecting total fermentation time to be this long, so I suspect my culture wasn't active enough. Next time I think I'll skip the preferment and go right to the final mix and see how much time it takes for the dough to rise. In my 6qt polycarbonate tub and white flour this is generally at the 2qt mark for a single loaf and at the 4qt mark for a double loaf, and about 75% less for whole wheat loaves.

So how does it taste? Actually quite good and perhaps some of the best natural yeast bread I've ever made. As expected the flavor was more complex than commercial yeast. The flavor notes were subtle and not at all overpowering. This is not what I would call "sourdough" as that implies sour notes that are found in San Francisco style sourdough. This loaf isn't sour at all and follows more of a French style. This is what I prefer as I'm just not a fan of the San Francisco style. For those not familiar with sourdough the differences involve how and what you feed your culture, which has the biggest influence on the flavor of the loaf. Things like what hydration, what flour is used, and how often and how much you feed your starter all can make a difference. I think you could probably change the feeding method with yeast water and change the flavor to more closely resemble the San Francisco style, but that's not what I'm after so I'll leave that to others.

I do intend to do some experimentation between preferments and straight doughs, using different fruits for feedings, and using different types of flour.

[eleny]

1. It's beautiful, congrats

I found some of those glass bottles with the narrow neck for a good price at Walmart. They'll deliver for free since I had more in my cart and made the free shipping threshold. So I'm looking forward to making the yeast water with our dried, unsweetened cherries from Door County, WI.

Thanks for sharing your process!

[Major Nikon]

4. Here's my strategy for using the yeast water

About all I ever do is make pain rustique style loaves, so for that around 72% hydration works pretty well. That's 72% yeast water to your flour by weight. I'm using about 16g of additional salt per kilo of flour. If you want the same results, those proportions should work out about right.

[wendyb-NC]

2. Ooh, that looks yummy.

I love homemade bread with butter.

Thanks for posting, I've book marked, the post so I can give it a try. I've been looking for inspiration in my baking routine of banana bread and bran muffins. I look forward to giving this recipe a try.

[Major Nikon]

3. Baking with natural yeast adds a level of complexity to baking with commercial yeast

That's not to say you can't jump right into making bread from natural yeast cultures right away. That's how people did it for thousands of years. Still it's just easier and more fool proof using commercial yeast.

A lot of people in this group (myself included) got our feet (and hands) wet using Jim Lahey's no knead bread recipe. That's a pretty good way to get started.

[Major Nikon]

5. I made another loaf today without the preferment

I simply mixed 700g of yeast water with 1000g of KA A/P white and 18g of salt and let it ferment. It took 20 hours to almost much triple in volume. The results were identical to my first batch.

So what I've learned so far is this method of making yeast water yields a fairly low concentration of natural yeast, which isn't a bad thing as longer fermentation = more flavor.

I'm going to experiment with other methods which use raisins at a 1:3 ratio of raisins to water by weight and a lower amount of added sugar.

Ultimately I think it would be great to make yeast water, freeze it into cubes and then be able to reconstitute it at a later time and have a sourdough starter that would take only 2-3 days to be viable for breadmaking.

[CountAllVotes]

6. I used to make my own sourdough bread

The recipe is similar to yours, it is from and old version of The Joy of Cooking, 1975.

I kept it going for a few years but lost it when I moved, as I didn't have time to "tend" to it so to speak.

Maybe again some day, maybe!

Lookin' good btw!