Pain au Levain with Yeast Water Starter

This month, our Bread Baking Babes challenge was not so much a specific recipe as a whole technique.  If you've ever been intimidated by the prospect of sourdough and feedings and discard and all that, this is an alternative that will still leaven a loaf without the need of commercial baker's yeast.

In a nutshell, you basically just shake together some water, sugar, and dried fruit, in this case dates, for around 10 days.  Check out our host kitchen's experience and testing at Judy's Gross Eats.  I chose to test out my starter with King Arthur's Pain au Levain recipe.  I replaced the water in the poolish with the yeast water, as well as 14g more for the liquid of the sourdough starter, also adding another 14g flour for the same.  The rest of the recipe I followed pretty much as written.  I baked one loaf the same day and chilled one overnight to bake the next day.  The top loaf pictured above is the day two bake, the crumb directly above is the day one bake.

The method can also be found at King Arthur here, and I also recommend watching “Pablos ultimate yeastwater,” as it outlines the process very nicely.

I found that my new oven's light was far too warm and I feared the morning after I started my yeast water that I had killed any existing yeast.  After a few days, I did give a little extra pinch of sugar and one more date.  I had to travel halfway through the process, so after the second step feeding with the salt added I set the starter in the fridge for four days.  Once back home, I set the starter back on the counter and continued with the twice daily airing and shaking.  That little extra time to quietly perk seemed to do my starter well.  By the time I was ready to bake with it, it actually did hiss with effervescence when shaken.

With some trepidation, I made the stiff starter for the pain au levain.  That particular starter ends up as a firm softball sized ball of dough.  The next day, I was relieved to see that it had risen and spread quiet nicely.

I made the rest of the dough, let it rise as directed, and formed both loaves, one in a round brotform and one in an oblong.  The round one was baked the same day, using the Dutch oven method.

Loaf #1

The oblong was chilled overnight and then brought fully to room temp and let rise a bit more before also baking in a Dutch oven.

Loaf #2

These loaves turned out with a very firm sourdough chewiness and actually a good amount of tartness as well.  I would like to keep playing with the timing and hydration of loaves to see how the crumb changes.  I think these were a touch overdeveloped, making them exceptionally chewy, but still delicious, especially when toasted.

I do love my regular sourdough starter and likely would not have tried a water starter on my own, but that's what's so great about a group challenge!  I will definitely have fun experimenting with this new starter.

The rest of the Bread Baking Babes

• Blog from OUR Kitchen – Elizabeth
  
• Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy
• My Diverse Kitchen - Aparna
• Bread Experience - Cathy
• Thyme for Cooking - Katie
• My Kitchen in Half Cups - Tanna
• Feeding My Enthusiasms - Elle 
• Karen's Kitchen Stories - Karen