[Sca-cooks] Fermentation Sponge Question

[Holly Stockley]

Hmm, maybe, and maybe not.  You might end up with a yeast less suited to 
your substrate.  I might try a multi-stage pre-ferment.  Organic barley and 
water (if you have flouride or chlorine in your water, use bottled) made 
into a paste.  Let it sit 24 hours.  Then add more flour and water.  Repeate 
every 24 hours for about three days and you're likely to have a stronger 
starter.  You can water it down to the consistency you want the feeding 
before you use it.  And you can wrap up extra starter dough from earlier 
stages and freeze it.

Preferments, retardation, and relaxation periods can really make a 
difference in your bread quality.  They take a lot of time - but very little 
of it is yours.  As far as switching flours for types of breads, I'm not 
sure I follow your theory.  I find that _leavened_ flatbreads, like focacia, 
actually benefit more from high-protein flours than classical raised breads. 
  The dough is just more slack and usually has some enrichment.  If you want 
to play with flour types, King Arthur has some very nice flours available 
that mimic the higher mineral content and more moderate protein flours used 
in Europe modernly.  As far as in period - it really depends on WHERE and 
WHEN and what would have grown.    Soft vs. Hard wheat, red vs. white.  I 
can also recommend Westwind Milling Co. - they seperate out their flours in 
those ways and it's all stone ground.  You might even be able to ask them 
questions about cleaning a mill.  Nice folks.  (If you're in the area, they 
also sell pasteurized, nonhomogenized cream - upon which it IS possible to 
float an egg on spring cream ;-):
http://westwindmilling.com/

Femke



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>From: Aldyth at aol.com
>Reply-To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
>To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Fermentation Sponge Question
>Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 22:35:15 EDT
>
>
>
>In a message dated 4/1/2007 8:23:14 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
>StefanliRous at austin.rr.com writes:
>
>believe  this is talked about in the yeasts-msg file in the
>Florilegium,  which I mentioned earlier in this thread.
>
>
>
>
>I did read that thread.  I was more thinking about starting a new  sponge 
>vs
>using an established one.  I can't convince myself that straight  barley 
>flour
>with water and whatever wild yeast floats around will stand up and  salute 
>by
>itself.  And adding more barley flour when it comes time to make  the bread
>would have a heavy flat result.  But a sponge with a good whole  wheat 
>flour
>would support a barley flour proof.
>
>Too much coffee and not enough sleep.  I will pull out the paper  tomorrow
>and see why my brain turned without signaling.
>
>Aldyth
>
>If it is not  any fun, stop doing it. Find something that is fun, and start
>doing it. Life is  too short not to have fun.
>
>
>
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