On 4/2/04 8:15 AM, "Dick Adams" > wrote:

> In
> news:mailman.1080885243.3145.rec.food.sourdough@ww w.mountainbitwarrior.com...
> Samartha sez to Kevin:
>
>> Here a couple of blanks to fill in:
>
>> [ ... ]
>
> Whoops, that was more than a couple!
>
> Why not just write a concise general instruction on how to
> make the bread more sour?
>
> Put it here so it can be seen by all, and found at the Google
> archive, and the archive of your choice?
>
>> The question you asked is like: I have a garden and the
>> plants growing from the seeds I sowed are just not looking
>> right, what shall I change?
>
> I am glad that came up. They are washing down to the pond
> in torrents of run-off from the rain.
>
> What is the answer?

I think the beauty of working with "sourdough" starters is there really is
no single answer to this question. There are many possibilities. Let's name
a few we might disagree on:

1) The easiest... Go to Ed Wood's web site and buy his most sour culture.
2) Migrate your starter's refreshments from white or wheat flours to rye.
3) Choose to build from retained, mature dough rather than sponge.
4) Use your sense of smell to evaluate the fermentation process. Knowing
when a dough is ripe is essential practice.
5) Work on a very basic bread (a la Laurel Robertson's Desem example) until
you have nailed down the idiosyncrasies of your grain supply, water,
micro-climate (proofing box, refrigerator, basement, etc...), oven, and
starter behavior.
6) Stay away from bananas, figs, apricots and other wonderful
what-have-you's unless you've got Betty Crocker's private phone number. My
personal feeling is these amendments are better on top of bread rather than
in it.
7) Be sure your "benchmark" bread isn't a highly engineered, atypical
example of the naturally leavened world.

Will