Homestead mailing list

["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

Answering Toni in general --

I personally don't do the sourdough on the counter thing.  I keep my starter
refrigerated although a spring house or creek box or the like would do.  And
it also, as mentioned in Tvo's post, would depend some on where you lived
and what the weather was like too.  I can't think of any good reason to
"invest years" in sourdough except to enjoy it for years so if you took my
comments to mean that it takes a long time to figure out, well, I in no way
said that or implied that, I have just baked our bread using sourdough
exclusively for years now.  I tend to bake more bake more bread at a time
less often because, again, that works better for me.

>Exactly ! but does the last paragraph above
*depend* on refrigeration to keep the 'ferment'
free of invading bacteria - once I have
achieved a 'result' I want to duplicate ??<


I would say, no, but it depends.  You *want* the bacteria, at least some of
it.  If you baked every day the answer would be a definite no but I can't
imagine that you, being old and decrepit <g>, really want to bake every day
either.

And a whole 'nother thing to look into is the oven itself -- a really good
bread *can* be baked in a conventional oven but bread really needs hotter
temps than that and that hot oven with enough humidity in it also gives to
your bread something called "oven spring".

Denise