Barmy is my sourdough starter. He's a barm-style starter (hence the name) that I raised in my kitchen in December 2008 following Peter Reinhart in Crust and Crumb. I do a fair amount of bread-baking, but it's Barmy who does most of the heavy lifting. He lives in a large yoghurt container with holes punched in the lid, in my refrigerator.
Barmy eats unbleached bread flour and water. I feed him at least once a week, more when I'm baking a lot. To maintain his consistency the ratio of flour to water is fixed; I use 3:4 by weight, so Barmy has 133% hydration. Every feeding at least doubles his weight.
After stirring in his meal until reasonably smooth, I let him sit somewhere warm, covered, to digest. My oven has a pilot light, so it's a comfortable place for him.After digesting for a few hours, he looks like this:
Like all sourdough cultures, Barmy contains two types of microorganisms: yeast and lactobacteria. The yeast is wild yeast from the outsides of wheat berries, introduced by starting the culture with a mixture of organic whole wheat flour and water. The bacteria are whatever was floating around the air in my kitchen; there are lactobacteria everywhere (which is why milk sours, among other things). Once established, the two live in a symbiotic relationship in which the yeast helps digest flour for the bacteria, which in turn produce an environment too acidic for anything but wild yeast and lactobacteria to thrive in. Thus the starter defends itself from spoilage, and with regular feeding can live for a very long time. The carbon dioxide given off by the yeast's digestion will produce bubbles in dough made with the starter, causing it to rise, and the combined action of digestion of the wheat adds flavor. So like I said, Barmy does most of the work around here when it comes to producing bread.
He also, I should mention, makes some mean pancakes.
No comments:
Post a Comment