STUART Bread Master Class 5
STARTER MAINTENANCE and EDUCATION
I’m guessing that if you have got this far you have made some delicious pain au levin and are now hooked for life. Well done.
So this is just a few tips on levain maintenance and education. The simplest thing is to run through the various scenarios below which are some ideas on maintaining and improving a well educated levain, and decide which apply to you.
1. I’m hoping to bake pain au levain or use the levain for some other baking every day
This is heroic and commendable. You just feed your levain daily. preferably about 2-3 hours before you make a sponge,, ruffle its feathers periodically with a good whisk, and keep it in a not too cold, not too hot place.
In terms of quantity if you have a large family and will be baking enough for two loaves each time you probably want to keep up a levain which weighs about 800g so feeding it each day with 250ml of water and 150g of flour.
If your needs are less than that you could halve the amount of levain you keep i.e. about 400g in weight. So each day you would add 75g of flour and 125ml of water having used about that much in your sponge each time.
But don't worry. You may by now have realised that pain au levain is an art not a science. Its all a bit variable. So you can upsize or downsize your levain as you wish. Just always keep what you add to it at about that ratio of 3g of flour to 5ml of water. If after you have added to it, it seems too thick bung a drop more of water in. If too runny a bit more flour. It won’t hurt.
However, at some time in the future (I write this during Covi-19 lockdown) you may go on holiday again. So stay on this blog to find out what to do when you do that.
2. I’m going to bake about twice a week.
My advice is just to keep it going but at perhaps 4-500g in weight, assuming your baking will be two to three days apart.
3.I’m probably going to bake just once a week.
If this is your likely pattern then you have 2 choices.
First choice
Just keep feeding daily and your levain will mature and improve weekly. However you will be feeding it flour on 6 out of seven days and throwing the equivalent amount away. It’s not expensive and if the mood takes you to do a second bake it’s ready willing and able to assist.
Second choice
Short term hibernation. What you are going to do is make your levain active for just one day a week. It is important to understand why you are going to do what I am going to suggest you do.
The little microbes that live in your levain are greedy buggers. They need constant feeding or they die. Put more scientifically you need to maintain a constant chemical reaction. So we have to slow down or suspend their activity. There are essentially 2 ways of doing this.
First is to thicken the levain by changing the ratio of flour to water. This reduces the activity and means less feeding is required.
The second is to chill the levain to fridge temperature. This also lessen the activity and reduces the feeding requirement.
Whichever method you use, and personally I prefer the fridge method (although you can do both for longer periods -see below), you should allow 3 days for the levain to revive to full fighting strength. I recommend you do it like this:
Feed the levain. Leave for an hour or so.
Place in the fridge. If you are going to make the sponge on Friday take it out of the fridge on Tuesday. Let it warm up then feed. Feed on Wednesday. Feed on Thursday. On Friday feed then 2-3 hours later make the sponge. You can also check the vitality of the levain by its smell and appearance. If it is producing some bubbles it is fine and ready to go. You’ll get used to knowing when it’s most perky.
Third choice and being away
If you are away for a week or two then No.3 should suffice, and it can be bulked up by thickening as well.
3. Occasional baking, busy lives
If you are away for any longer or are not intending to use your levain for a while then you can freeze it. Wrap it in a plastic bag or cling film, mark what it is, and freeze. It’ll be fine. But when you re-activate it expect it to be annoyed and unco-operative for a while. I would suggest you allow a week of feeding to get it back to whack.
4. Travelling, moving house etc.
Your levain will travel. It will need a tightly sealed container for the journey. If it’s a long journey remember to take food and water for it, just like your other pets. I’m not sure how airport security looks upon levain (assuming we ever do that again). With great suspicion I should imagine. And funny countries like Australia and the US might regard it as dodgy food and pour disinfectant or chlorine over it (this is a topical allusion). Levain travels free on trains and buses provided it is accompanied by a responsible adult.
A life to be spent together
And there you have it. Provided you look after your levain it will always look after you. It really will get better and better. And you will love using it. There are recipes for other things made with levain. Just be careful that’s all. In my view (and I’m just a Cakebread so why should I know?) the levain should not just be used as a flavouring as some recipes in effect use it. I am always, always, suspicious of any recipe which uses levain AND yeast. Ok, there may be some brilliant ideas which need that to be done, it’s just that I have never found one. You can certainly make baguettes with it and there are reliable recipes. There are recipes for pizza bread also. I have tried them and they are usually disastrous as my family will readily explain. Use Katy’s recipe on this blog for your pizzas. She was a professional and she actually knows what she is doing and people have paid real money for her creations.
I just would like to end on a savoury note.
Savour a nice thickish slice of pain au levain, toasted lightly on both sides, spread with rich butter and topped with : - homemade marmalade or jam, cheese, marmite, or a poached newly laid egg. Think of that slight chewiness of the bread and the crispness of the crust. This you will achieve and you will be in daily bread heaven.
Remember the Lord’s prayer. He knew a thing or to about what really matters.
