Will, I'm pretty sure it is the salt...I cut way back on salt about 15 years
ago and discovered that it didn't take very much to satisfy my taste needs
once my taste buds adapted. I read the labels of everything I buy and don't
go near any product with long ingredient lists. It's very easy to figure
the amount of salt in each portion/service/slice of bread. I've noticed
that even really good local sourdough, ie LaBrea Bakery (Los Angeles) uses
as much salt as the other manufacturers, and it's way more than regular
bread uses, which in itself is more than I want to ingest.

I just made my first sourdough bread, San Francisco sourdough from Mike
Averys' web site. I used 1 tsp salt(1120 mg) for one loaf, but twice the
amount of starter called for (I thought my homemade starter might not be
quite active enough). The bread ended up very sour, and it was a different
taste from bread that is over salty. I liked the very sour taste and could
eat small pieces (1/6th of a slice) at a time for a real taste thrill.
Getting about 12 slices from the loaf, that's a little less than 100 mg salt
per slice, compared to 250-350+mg per slice in commercial sourdough. Still
way more salt than I want to get from a slice of bread. But I was under the
impression that salt was essential for the bread making to work. Since most
of you indicate that it's not necessary, I'll try 1/2 a tsp next time and
see if the sourness kick remains. Then I'll try 1/4 tsp.

BTW, same idea goes for sugar...all commercial products, healthfood,
organic, or supermarket, are now so over sugared...and once your taste buds
adapt to small amounts it's difficult to eat the commercial stuff.

jc



"Will" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> On Mar 12, 6:25 pm, "jbclem" > wrote:
> > One of the reasons I'm making my own sourdough is that the commercial
> > version is so over salted that it's unpalatable to me. I'd like to ask
if
> > someone can tell me how to figure the minimum amount of salt required to
> > make a successful sourdough bread.
> >
> > jc
>
> It's probably not the salt that is annoying you. Does the label have
> stuff like citric acid, ascorbic acid, sour dough concentrate... ?
>