White Levain Batards

 

 

Introduction:

I currently have two sourdough cultures. One I developed myself about two months ago here in Ithaca & the other was given to me years ago by a friend who had brought some back from a visit to Russia. I call them Ulysses and Svetlana. In the past I have struggled to get good results from naturally leavened bread with the Russian culture, occasionally producing overly dense loaves or cheating and adding commercial yeast to get a good rise. I have recently improved my wild yeast techniques with the aid of Ulysses so I wanted to do a head to head test to see if there was any difference in the final product  produced with these cultures.

The two mother cultures certainly taste & smell different (I keep both at 100% hydration and feed daily unless refrigerated). Ulysses has a mild slightly cheesy odor, while Svetlana is more sharp and tart. The loaves I have made so far with my Ithaca culture have been great, but even with very long fermentation the results are mild with just a slight sour note at the end of each bite. My hypothesis here is that the more aggressive sharpness of the Russian culture will result in a more sour sourdough.

Materials & Methods:

To test this idea I thought the Extra Tangy Sourdough recipe from the KAF website sounded like a good choice. Since I wanted to test both cultures without making a ridiculous amount of bread I divided the recipe in half.

AP Flour Water Starter Salt

Mass 301g 170g 120g 1 tsp (needs more)

Percentage 100% 56% 40% --

The recipe also calls for 1/2 tbsp of sugar and 1/4 tsp sour salt. I figured the sugar would detract from the sour & I did not have sour salt so I did not add these ingredients

Timeline:

8a 6p 9p 11p

Mix 250g of flour with the water and starter & let rise (Fig. 1) (Instead of the recommended 4h rest and 12h fermentation in the fridge - I left it to rise at RT while I was at work ~10h) Knead in the remaining 50g of flour and the salt until you get a smooth dough. Then let rest 2-5h (I incubated at >75F) Divide, shape into loaves & rest on a linen couche for another 2-5h Bake at 450F for 25min with steam.

Fig. 1: First Rise

Results:

This was my first attempt at making properly formed batards & I'm pretty happy with the results, though I need to get more consistent. I followed the techniques in this video (but I'd like to try this next time). I did have to flatten and repeat for one of Ulysses' loaves that I messed up, and that one ended up being extra springy (2nd loaf in Fig 2 & Fig 4). I was able to get a good taught exterior and they plumped up nicely during the second rise (Fig. 2). This is also the first time I have used my new couche & that worked surprisingly well too... no sticking at all. Leaving the loaves to rise uncovered resulted in some drying, but I think that was beneficial when it came to slashing the loaves with my newly MacGyvered lame (Fig. 3).
 

Fig 2. Batards rising happily in their couche

Fig. 3: My new lame. Made from a razor blade and a hand me down kitchen tool of unknown function

These loaves had great oven spring and for the most part my shaping & slashing resulted in beautifully expanded seams (Fig. 4). The resulting texture of this bread was soft with a delicate, small pocketed crumb and a thin crackly crust (Fig. 5). The flavor was mild and barely sour at all. Both cultures provided really good rise & I tried really hard, but I couldn't detect any difference in flavor between the two. 

Fig. 4: Definitely the most dramatic expansion I have achieved. Almost like DiCamillos!

Conclusions:

The flavor probably would have developed more if I had left the dough in the fridge overnight. But I wanted to see how tangy they would be if I made it in a single day. There was no noticeable difference between the flavor or texture of the loaves from the two cultures, but this could partially be due to the weakly developed flavor overall. The soft texture and mild flavor isn't really my thing, but I could see how someone who wanted a simple white sandwich bread would like this a lot.

I suspect the "Extra Tangy" element of this recipe comes primarily from the sour salt, which I did not add. I am not sure that I like the idea of such additives in my bread, even if citric acid is pretty much benign. Perhaps I will try adding some lemon juice or vinegar at some point if I cannot succeed in getting a nice tart sourdough using only flour, water, and starter.

Update: This bread really improves with age. After a day or two on the counter I like it a lot more than when it was fresh. The flavor has developed and I can now detect s very slight sourness. The texture has improved too as the crumb has dried, although the crust is now quite a bit softer. 

Fig.5: Good rise and nice texture from both Ulysses (top) and Svetlana (bottom)