Sourdough with ale yeast

[brew_cat]

Made a sourdough today I made my starter with Ardennes yeast the same yeast in the beer I made today. I can taste the yeast in the bread. I'm thinking of trying different yeast for different flavors. Anyone do this. This was my first attempt

[loopie_beer]

Never did the bread thing so I would be interested in the recipe.

[brew_cat]

Well the recipe needs work this was my first attempt. You know me I don't generally follow a recipe. Just like when I started making beer even if I'm following one I always give it a tweak. I used alot of rye and to much water. Tastes good I'll get back at it. Making the starter worked well. I've heard people using it for beer which I guess is old school it will make better beer than packaged bread yeast

[sneezles61]

I'll bet its like the whole word at your disposal for flavors.. I have some heffewiesen yeast waiting for a mission... This will keep my wifes mind off the very cold April.. Sneezles61

[brew_cat]

Have her give it a try. I'm building it back up for another shot. I have a feeling it may lose something on the second build up. May have to be one off sourdough starter. Let's face it o have no clue but I do enjoy expierimenting.

[sneezles61]

It sure seems as though the commercial available product has some vinegar in the background... Perhaps, thats the only way they can do this at that large a scale? Sneezles61

[jimrmaine]

Hmm, I've never picked up any acetic acid flavor in a sourdough bread, but I can pickup lactic acid. I'm not sure I'd like a 'vinegar bread'.

[jimrmaine]

Back in my 'back-to-the-earth' days I kept a sourdough starter going for 5ish years, baking bread every week. I'm pretty sure I used bread yeast and active culture yogurt to start it

[brew_cat]

I saw some recipes calling for yogurt but I was thinking it wouldn't be warm enough for lacto. I'll tell you I woke up in the middle of the night during the first rise and could smell the awesome aroma of the yeast. I went down stairs expecting it to be all over the counter but it wasn't. I don't eat much bread but I do like the smell of sourdough

[sneezles61]

I could live on bread and beer... And a few brats too! Sneezles61

[porkchop]

I’m pretty sure that @uberculture uses brewers yeast for making bread... maybe he’s lurking around?

Lacto makes acetic acid when exposed to oxygen, so there’s got to be some acetic component to sourdough bread.

[brew_cat]

Well traditionally nothing was added just cultured from wild yeast so I'm sure lacto was involved but I was wondering about the strain in yogurt. Now if you added the yogurt instead of yeast would the lacto out compete the sachro?

[porkchop]

Grain is covered in both yeast and lactic acid bacteria, which is what produces the sourness. But they coexist nicely in a sourdough culture. The lacto tends to reproduce more quickly though, which is why it gets more and more sour the longer it goes.

Edit - yogurt usually has lactobacillus acidophilus, which should work nicely to get the culture going and drop the pH to prevent mold. I’ll bet the wild lacto take over in the long run, though.

[brew_cat]

The new build up is smelling like apples.

[uberculture]

Sorry, I'm back... yes, I "cheat" on fresh sourdough starters and use whatever yeast is handy (sometimes a pinch of commercial bread yeast, or bottle dregs if I have them).

For sourdough, you want a balance of yeast and bacteria. Bacteria is easy... flour is lousy with bacteria. Getting yeast out of the air can be tricky. Cheating by introducing yeast right away means you're going to have both in your starter.

Now truly great sourdough cultures are really complex, with lots going on. When you first start out with added yeast, the resulting starter isn't that complex. But if you feed your starter (essentially throw out most of it, refresh with fresh water and flour, and let it grow for a couple of days), it gets more complex. Enough variation will naturally happen that it will end up sourdough instead of just a yeasted blob (poolish is the actual bakers term). The trick is to not neglect it and let it dry out or get moldy (this is what happens to me once in a while).

You can also tweak the end result by timing when you use this starter... you'll notice that when you refresh it, it initially has a big yeast growth phase, where any bread made with it will be "cleaner" and yeastier. However, after the initial yeast period, the bacteria starts building, and it gets sourer, and funkier. So for a relatively tame sourdough, refresh your starter and then use it for your bread within a day. For wilder tasting sourdough, wait for two or three days after refreshing to use it.

[brew_cat]

This is good knowledge. So your saying don't feed it for a day or two before making the bread ? Why do you throw put half instead of just keep feeding?

[uberculture]

Yeah, a day or two works. At least overnight. I throw out half of it to keep things manageable... it fits in a quart container. If I just kept adding, the starter would get bigger and soon wouldn't fit. I also think (haven't tried it) that the balance is more bacteria heavy after a couple of days, so just adding a smaller proportion of fresh flour might not give the yeast side of the equation a chance to thrive.