Bread/Sourdough with Brewing yeast!

[Germelli1]

So I have been wanting to break into the artisan side of bread making for a while. I have also been wanting to make a sourdough starter for a while so I decided to just dive into it all at once! I thought, "Hell, I have a house strain of brewing yeast, why not see if I can make it a house bread strain as well?"

So the following is my experimental attempt at making a sourdough starter using Pacman yeast!

I started by boiling up a small 2 cup starter.

As it cooled I decanted the 1/2 pint of washed pacman yeast, then set it out to cool to room temp.

Once the small starter fermented out, I boiled up another 1 liter of wort. The boil consisted of a quart of water, 1.5 cups DME, a half cup table sugar and a small handful of raisins. Once boiled for 20 minutes, I let it cool over night then poured it all into the flask to mix with the original starter (except the raisins).

I put the flask on a stirplate this time for 5 days.

It took a while to chew through the starter, but it made it. I put it in the fridge for 2 days to help pull the yeast down out of suspension.

My original plan was to just build up a massive yeast cake at the bottom of my flask, then use a pipette to pull pure yeast out. Once I figured out an easy sourdough starter recipe, I changed my mind.

I just decanted most of the spent wort on the starter, shook up the flask, pitched all but enough to just cover the stirbar into a batch of beer. Then the flask went back into the fridge until today.

This morning I finally decided to go for it. I chose a simple recipe for a sour dough starter that called for 2 cups bread flour 2 cups water and a package of baking yeast.

I shook up my flask once again, poured it into a measuring cup and it came out to exactly 1.5 cups. I topped it up with a half cup of warm water. I mixed up the yeast slurry and flour to get my dough starter.

I covered it with a towel, and now I am going to let it sit in the oven with only the light on to raise the temp a few degrees above ambient. I plan to leave it like this for the duration of my camping trip this weekend.

But I couldn't resist and had to check the progress 6 hours later:

So I am pretty excited...will it make bread? Most likely. Will it make a good loaf of sourdough? Who knows! But it has been a fun experiment and would be awesome if it works in the end!

 

[Absolut_Ninja]

I think you are going to make a helluva dough with that. You used way better technique than my half arsed attempt. It still turned out ok. I tried it with WY3068 but there was no charicteristic strain taste to it, even though it fermented at 85 degrees (yikes!). I may be wrong but I think baking takes out the esters.

Either way, I likey what I see.

 

[Germelli1]

Well, I checked it when I left for my camping trip and it looked perfect. It had an inch of liquid (presumably alcohol) and smelled amazing. After the trip it smell like vomit, so I am going to try it again, but get it in the fridge sooner!

 

[PseudoChef]

Sourdough starters are made by inoculating flour and water with wild yeast and bacteria, much like how a lambic beer is spontaneously fermented.

If you are using packaged yeast (and your "sourdough" recipe even calls for a package of yeast?), it is not sourdough.

Your method will definitely make bread, but there will be a distinctive lack of sourdough "twang" in the finished product.

 

[Germelli1]

Sourdough starters are made by inoculating flour and water with wild yeast and bacteria, much like how a lambic beer is spontaneously fermented.

If you are using packaged yeast (and your "sourdough" recipe even calls for a package of yeast?), it is not sourdough.

Your method will definitely make bread, but there will be a distinctive lack of sourdough "twang" in the finished product.

I know, I want to get a good just yeast starter going and I am hoping it will pick up a bit of funk along the way.

Any tips you can give I would really appriciate! How is this different from pitching yeast, then pre-packaged brett to make a lambic? What I mean is: Is there anyway to inocculate my starter with some funky bacteria that will be similar to inoculating beer to sour it?

 

[PseudoChef]

Sure, it's almost as simple as mixing some flour with some water and leaving it out in the open for a period of time. Then, "feeding" it (mixing in more flour/water) every so often. A great resource on getting started is here.

As for your lambic questions - that's just an argument about semantics. As you most likely know, traditional true lambics are only made in the small Lambic (Pajottenland) region of Belgium. They are made from a grainbill consisting, in part, of unmalted wheat (in addition to Pils, generally) and, as with breweries such as Cantillion, cooled in shallow vessels that are exposed to the outside elements. This process spontaneously inoculates the wort with several strains of yeast and bacteria, giving the beer it's traditional sourness.

That said, it can be argued that by pitching a Lambic Blend of cultured yeast, such as that offered by White Labs or Wyeast, you are simply making a "lambic-style" beer, as many of the lambic brewers of Belgium think they name should be protected much like Kolsch for Cologne or Champagne, yada yada.

 

[Germelli1]

Thank you, I understand completely. I know you can find sourdough starter cultures for mail order, but I would rather have fun experimenting on my own. I always have the breadmaker as a constant supply of bread, but I am just trying to make something with my brewing yeast that will hopefully start to resemble sourdough down the the road!

 

[TriggerFingers]

Bringing this one back from the dead....

I just mixed a sourdough starter today using a free packet of old Wyeast 3191 (Ale Yeast, Lacto, and Brett). Already getting bubbles. Going to build the starter and do a slow rise to make it extra sour.

 

[Melana]

When working with sourdough it usually brings out the twang in the bread if you retard the dough in the fridge for a period of time right after the initial knead.

 

[BikerBrewer]

When working with sourdough it usually brings out the twang in the bread if you retard the dough in the fridge for a period of time right after the initial knead.

I'm going to have to try that. My stater was made with the trub from the bottom of my fermenter, been going a couple years now and tastes great. Good luck on your starter TriggerFingers.

 

[passedpawn]

I made a sourdough starter from the trub from a Berliner Weisse I had made. Saccharomyces and lacto are the perfect team in making sourdough. The resulting loaves of sourdough bread came out delicious.

 

[Hayseed]

My buddy gave me a start from his starter he started on his window sill with water and home milled flour . Mixed it in a bowl , covered with cheese cloth and just made sure it didnt dry out . Couple days later it was bubbling .

Ive been making bread once a week with it for over six months now and not been buying any bread ! Man is it good ! Just water , starter , flour , salt ! Easy to make no knead bread !

 

[TriggerFingers]

So the update is--

Feeding the starter every 24 hours. Yesterday lots of CO2 bubbles and a great sour smell. I actually started a no knead loaf yesterday afternoon with some of the starter. I think I am going to try to put the next loaf in the fridge to get it really sour. There are currently a few hours to go in the 18 hour rise. I should have fresh sourdough by this evening after the baking/cooling period.

 

[TriggerFingers]

Baked the bread and let cool for 2 hours. I really like how it turned out (and its already half gone!). Nice crumb and crust in the La Cloche. Crumb is chewy and elastic like the bread you would find in SF. Best part is that with a warm 18 hour rise it was plenty sour! I am actually quite surprised, but I am going to try a slower rise in the fridge for tomorrow to see if I can amp up the sourness even more.

 

[TriggerFingers]

So I did put loaf #2 in fridge overnight. It actually came out with very little sourness which is odd, but looked amazing! Loaf #3 is proofing now. Should be plenty sour!

 

[TriggerFingers]

Loaf 3 came out nice and sour, so I think I am going to stick with my 18 hour slow rise at room temp. My starter has also begun to distinctively smell like sour cherries. Rad!

 

[spyfarm]

I am a home brewer and bread baker. I was interested in the use of commercial beer yeast for sourdough, so I ended up here.

A little background: I used to trap wild yeast back in the 70's from high alpine meadows for my sourdough starters. I have been home brewing since then too.

Currently, I have a rye sourdough starter that I have been using for a very dark rye bread. Interestingly enough, this starter culture was not inoculated with any yeast strain, just the natural yeast that either accompanied the malted rye I had double ground at my brew supplier's or was floating around my house.

Combining brewing and bread making knowledge came natural to me. I started on the dark rye bread adventure by seeking out a basic Eastern European sourdough recipe. I stumbled upon a website for Lithuanian Black Rye Bread: http://http://www.gourmantineblog.com/lithuanian-black-rye-bread/. This recipe has become my cornerstone for baking sourdough rye bread.

The process used in this Lithuanian Black Rye Bread recipe is unique and works successfully. It is a two day affair before you have bread (if you have starter prepared), but for us brewers being patient is part of the game. Following the recipe exactly the first time I used it; there was a less than perfect loaf. I had used Bob's Red Mill stone ground rye flour for the starter and the recipe. The starter was not as active as most of my other sourdough starters and even had a slightly off smell.

Thinking back on my first try at Lithuanian Black Rye Bread, immediately I knew that the starter had to be more active to make a better product. Off to the local brew supply to get some freshly ground malted rye. When brewing, I figured that the freshly ground rye should be mashed before it started. I used an insulated travel mug as a mash-tun, since I was using only 100gm of grain and 150ml of 70c water for 45min. Bingo! A nice and active starter. Thus I say: Don't for get to mash grain for sourdough starter.

The Lithuanian Black Rye Bread recipe calls for, as an option, 35gm of malt powder. I use 35gm of Briess spraymalt and figure it is feeding the starter used in the recipe. I have also amended the recipe include 50gm of Roasted Barley 690-700°L and replaced 50gm of flour with my brew shop's double ground malted rye for texture (+ the starter has texture).

There's still snow on the high mountains here in New Mexico, so it will be a while before I can get up into the high country to trap yeast. I am complantating a new sourdough starter using double ground red wheat from my brew supplier. Does anybody have a suggestion for a brew yeast to inoculate my wheat with?

 

[Zibe]

Don't want to hijack but.......
Trying to get into the sourdough game I made a starter just with equal parts flour and water which I added to each day. I seemed to get it going naturally started getting bubbles and such around day three but then about day five (according to the article I read it should be ready then) it just got real soupy and the bubbles stopped even though I fed it again. There was a brownish liquid on top which I would assume is beer-ish that I poured off. Smells funky but not nasty. Any tips?

 

[Zibe]

Or is this normal, I wanted to try a loaf in a few days.

 

[Funkychef]

It will take a week or 2 before a starter is ready. Mine did the same just keep feeding it. In a a couple of days it will come back. You will get different microbes in there some will die off and others will thrive. It takes a while for it to balance out, once it does you will be ready.

 

[Zibe]

Thank you I think you are right it's still changing it was smelling funky but now it just smells really yeasty/bready/healthy not a hint of funk. Is it cool to be kind of runny though the pictures I saw online looked thicker? I also read online that if you drop it into water and it floats it's good to go (which I did and it did) but that may have been about the leaven not the starter? Hopin to bake something on Monday.

 

[amber-ale]

Thank you, I understand completely. I know you can find sourdough starter cultures for mail order, but I would rather have fun experimenting on my own. I always have the breadmaker as a constant supply of bread, but I am just trying to make something with my brewing yeast that will hopefully start to resemble sourdough down the the road!

Also add 1Table spoon yogurt as the souring strain