"Gene Haldas" <haldas@comcast.net> asked:
>I have baked perhaps two dozen No Kneed Bread and they all came out
>great. I sent the recipe to my daughter and she had a messy
>experience with it. The dough was overly wet and there was water in
>the bottom of the bowl after the 18 hour rise. She used a stainless
>steel bowl. Could that have been the problem?
No.
>I have read about making sour dough starters where they warn you not
>to use a metal container.
On my sourdough web site, I describe that as an old husbands tale.
Sourdough is acidic, "sauer" is German for "acid". As a result, you
don't want to let sourdough stay in contact with base metals for
extended periods of time. However, I do almost all of my sourdough
work with stainless steel containers.
I have seen people who encourage you to throw away your starter if
you accidentally stir it with a metal spoon, fork or whisk. That is
completely unnecessary. Acids will dissolve metals, and you don't
want to ingest most metals. However, how much metal an acid will
dissolved depends on the strength and concentration of the acid, the
length of exposure, the temperature, and the strength of the
metal. Sourdough is a relatively weak acid - if it became a strong
acid, the critters that make the sourdough would dissolve. The
temperature is usually moderate and the exposure short. As a result,
you can use any metal you are comfortable eating with to stir your
starter without needing to discard the starter afterwards.
>I would appreciate a possible explanation
Perhaps she used a different flour than you did so the dough worked
differently, or made the dough too liquid? Perhaps someone in the
house spilled some water into the bowl? A big weakness in the NY
Times recipe is that it really doesn't talk much about how the dough,
or batter, should look. It is pretty forgiving, but not totally forgiving.
Mike
Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
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