Sourdough Experiments

My daughter Leah is an accomplished sourdough baker so when she came to Meadville to visit for a weekend, she and I set up a Breadsperiment. In one weekend we baked eight loaves of bread using two different starters (Meadville and Cripple Creek), two kinds of whole wheat flour (King Arthur vs. freshly milled hard red winter wheat), and two baking methods (steam filled oven vs. covered cast iron dutch oven). We used identical formulas, making every loaf with 50% whole wheat flour (King Arthur or freshly milled) and 50% King Arthur Special Patent white flour.

That is Meadville white flour starter on left and Cripple Creek whole wheat starter on the right.

Then we held tastings.

Day 1 loaves, all made with King Arthur flour.

Day 2 loaves made with fresh milled hard red winter wheat, baked in a steamy oven.

All four loaves made with freshly milled wheat, oven baked (top), cast iron (below), one side is Meadville starter, the other is Cripple Creek.

I have always found Cripple Creek to be more acidic and Meadville to be milder and more creamy and I'm quite convinced that fresh milled wheat makes bread with a cleaner, purer, less muddy taste and our tests mostly bore out our previous experiences.

But Leah and I wanted to test ourselves so we made an appointment with some professional coffee tasters at Happy Mug to ask for their tasting notes.

I explained the parameters.

The tasters tasted.

They pondered and took notes.

They told us the breads tasted:

• toasted
• nutty
• smoked jerky
• mildly sweet, tart finish
• apple cider vinegar
• satisfyingly bitter crust
• snappy
• subtly bitter
• fresh mustard
• tart yogurt
• creamy
• milky
• cherry
• cranberry
• acetic
• cheesy
• bleu cheese
• caramel sweet
• sour cream
• fresh grass/cellulose
• sharp cheddar
• bright
• savory
• starchy
• potato
• astringent
• session beer flavored
• flat, consistent, until the end
• buttermilk
• grape
• honey ferment
• clean
• clementine
• hoppy

A fig and fennel bread made with some leftover Cripple Creek starter.

What did we learn? We knew sourdough bacteria can produce acetic acid, which is vinegar, and can be the source of fruity, acidic, fermented, and sharp flavors. The same bacteria can make lactic acid which is found in yogurt and buttermilk and is the source of the creamy, cheesy, and milky tasting notes. The skilled baker can pull out more of one flavor than the other, but there is considerable debate among bakers regarding what technique is best for favoring acidic over creamy or the other way about.

What we did not expect is that different people tasting the same bread would focus, or be more aware of, different flavors. So in the same bread some of the tasters described vinegar flavors at the same time that others were saying the bread tasted like buttermilk. Both lactic and acetic acids were undoubtedly present, but we humans are as variable in our perceptions as the diversity of microscopic organisms are in creating flavor compounds.

Makes you wonder about wine tasters.