Dave Bell wrote:
> Paul Gilbert wrote:
>> As a chemist who hates the English system of measurement when I
>> stumbled upon this group I thought I had found the holy grail!
>>
>> Question 2) A local supermarket produces quite acceptable sour dough
>> bread. I smiled real big and got a loaf of unbaked sour dough bread
>> for the price of a finished loaf. I brought it home, chopped it up
>> into 8 pieces, put them in baggies and threw them into the freezer. I
>> have subsequently unthawed one of them, restarted it with 1/2 cup of
>> water and 1/2 cup of flour. Subsequent interactions on this theme
>> have given me a very fast rising starter, but the bread has no sour
>> taste. Reading all of the literature it seems that I am not letting
>> the dough rise long enough. (2 hrs first rise and something less than
>> that for the second). The dough almost triples in bulk during this
>> time at room temp. Should I cool the dough or has freezing it killed
>> the bacteria component of the starter?
> As a chemist, rather than an (experienced) artisan baker, you failed to
> take into account false advertising. Most supermarket sourdough is not
> what the denizens of this newsgroup are talking about. Most of that
> stuff is raised with commercial yeast, and flavored with "sourdough"
> additives. True sourdough need not be sour, at all. It is made with sour
> or old dough, or a cultivated starter. In reality, the public has been
> trained to expect sour flavor, when it's not necessary at all...
>
> Dave

First off, hello everyone. This is my first post to the group. I'm
relatively new to bread of any kind, but I've already astounded myself
by making artisan bread better than I thought could be made at home. All
I've learned has come from 3 sources (in order of importance):

1) "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee
2) http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm and other pages
3) usenet

True enough that sourdough need not be sour (Ahmish friendship bread,
for instance), but my guess is that Paul wants the sour taste, and
that's not too hard. The sour flavor is due to lactobacilli in the
starter with the yeast (the competition is what makes the leavening more
difficult). I've never started with a starter other than my own, but I'd
guess that one could take that chunk of dough, mix it with the flour and
water, put it in a jar and let it sit at room temperature, feeding it
daily, until it starts to smell sour. Of course, that also makes the
dough that was purchased unnecessary. You can get a working sourdough
without it.

= j