On 29 Dec 2002 Irene Guevara <ireneguevaraharris@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I also have a question -- I just received Nancy Silverton's Breads
> from the La Brea Bakery. I'd love to make the grape starter, but I
> live in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and grapes are extraordinarily rare
> here. We do, however, have raisins (imported from France). Are there
> any good alternatives to the grapes? I also have an excellent starter
> (from Peter Reinhart's book) that's been going for several months --
> could I just substitute this for the "white starter" in Silverton's
> book?
You can certainly use Peter Reinhart's starter.
My strong suggestion is don't use grapes, cabbage leaves, raisins, or other
flora or fauna in your starter. And don't use baker's yeast either.
An established sourdough starter one of about 3 yeasts and one of about 5
lacto bacillus bacteria have formed a symbiotic relationship. (Dr. Michael
Gaentzle, a German microbiologist and sourdough researcher says that he has
never seen a stable culture that didn't have LActo bacillus san franciscus
in it... the bacteria first identified in the San Francisco sourdough
cultures, so the number of types bacteria that will work in a sourdough
culture may be smaller than previously thought.) These organisms dominate
by orders of magnitude.
The lactobacillus bacteria produces many chemicals that keep away, or kill,
other bacteria. They also raise the ph of the starter so most yeast can
not survive in the culture. In San Francisco Sourdough cultures, the yeast
refrain from eating maltose (if memory serves), leaving it for the
bacteria. The dead yeast are, I am told, eaten by the bacteria.
Where am I going with all this? Basically, the yeast that are on the
surface of grapes, cabbage leaves, and so on are not the right kind of
yeasts to start a stable culture. These yeast will give you a great start,
then the culture will slow down, and then speed up again. What has
happened is the yeast from the grapes die off, the culture slow, and then
the yeast that should have started the culture come into their own.
Basically, it takes less time to just start a culture with flour and be
done with it.
Similarly, the ph of the starter is high enough that bakers yeast will not
survive more than two refreshments if added to an active culture. Also,
before you can get a stable culture going, any bakers yeast in it will have
to die off.
The last comment is that folklore has it that you "catch a culture from
yeast in the air". Sadly, this doesn't seem to be quite true. When
researchers sterilize the water and flour, the success rate is MUCH lower
than when the flour and water are not sterilized. Most current sourdough
afficiandos feel that the critters are on the grain, and that using whole
wheat or rye grain, stone ground, and unbleached enhances the chances of
starting a culture.
Hope this helps,
Mike