I am back. Now that we have regained a kitchen I am able to begin work on crafting and perfecting my bread making abilities. All throughout this ordeal I have attempted to keep my starter alive. Once and while I would discard and feed anew the starter.My first attempt back using this starter was woefully disappointing. Not only was the crumb chewy and dense, there was not a sour tang throughout the entire loaf. I am not sure it was even worth eating, but we did. The only saving grace, was that it had a nice crust.
Now, I didn't give up on this one at all. I feed that starter and proofed it all over again. Taking some advice from my wise wife, I kept this batch slightly more hydrated than the last. She thought the reason it was dense was lack of moisture.With the recent addition we've also finally been able to take Andi's KitchenAide away from her parents. I thought this time I would use the KitchenAide to knead everything, especially with it being so sticky. I also enlisted the assistance of famous baker and chef, Logan, from the highly viewed Tales of the Peanut Gallery fame.
He enjoyed duping everything in the bowl and turning on the mixer. After letting this one rise a good deal more than the previous loaf, we threw it into the oven. I knew something wasn't right because it didn't rise anymore than when we put it on. As you can see the crumb looks good, and it wasn't dense at all. However, there just wasn't any substance nor any tang.
I took this time to rethink everything about sourdough and start over. The do over will be in the next post. The Sourdough Chronicals Part 3.
