sourdough bread on the Cobb

[Terry R.]

Just took this off the Cobb grill. Sure beats heating up the house.

[Mary F]

Tell me more.

We have tried bread on our Cobb, with poor results. The top never browns...

Did you do the dough from scratch? How much fire in the hole; how long did you bake it? Which cooking surface?

Thanks!!

[Terry R.]

Dough is from scratch. Sourdough starter is probably 35 years old. I made a no-knead dough, with a quarter cup sourdough, instead of yeast.


1 cup whole wheat flour (5 oz.)
2-1/2 bread flour (11 oz.)
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup starter
1-1/4 to 1-1/2 cup water


(I mix sourdough with 1-1/4 water, add to flours and salt, then if I don't have all flour mixed in, I add a little water at a time until entirely moist but not soggy wet dough, almost like a biscuit dough,)


I started it at about 9:30 last night. Stirred it up in a bowl, covered until around 9:00 this morning. Dumped it out of the bowl, did a couple of stretch and folds and shaped it into a ball. I sprayed a pie tin and sprinkled it with corn meal. Put the shaped dough into the tin and covered it with a bowl to rise again, to a little less than double.


About 15 min. before I thought I would need to start baking it, I lit 9 briquettes. When they were ready, I put that grill pan with the holes in it, on top of the coals, then I put the fenced rack on top of that, then the lid. I let all of that get hot.


Then I sprayed the top of my bread lightly with water, and quickly put it on the grill. I did not peek for 30 min., then I rotated it, so the lighter side was moved to where the browner side was. I did not look again for 15 min. After that you have to go by doneness, when you look.


I got the basic recipe from a site called Breadtopia.


You can do any bread this way. Well, I haven't tried it in a bread pan yet. So I don't know how that would work.

[GMike A]

Wish there was an easy way to share the starters. Some go back 100 years. 35 is awesome. Do you have any trouble keeping it alive after this length of time?

[Terry R.]

Not at all. Would you like some? I can send you some dried. You will just have to start feeding it little by little.


You can also get some really old starter from this website: Source It is free, but I think you have to send a self addressed stamped envelope.


I started mine myself. All starters changes over time due to your location. You might get Carl's but eventually, it becomes Mike's. terry r.

[GMike A]

That would be awesome and in return I will send you a SASE in case you can pass it forward. I dont mind sending you one up front. I was under the impression you had to have a wet starter at all times to propagate it. I didn't know that it could be dry. Nice. I will look at the source you mentioned also. I will send you a PM with particulars THANKS

[GMike A]

Hello Terry,
Guess this forum is okay to converse on. My starter you sent worked admirably. With the summer here I have had too many irons in the fire to do much with it yet. I have made sourdough pancakes and they were good. I do have a question. I have watched several YT videos where the starter was runny and looked awful brown. Mine is more of the consistency of PB and white. I renew it about every three weeks and it seems to like that schedule and stays active. So my question is that the pancakes did not have any "tang" or acidic taste that I associate with sourdough bread. My starter has no fragrance to it at all. Am I missing something? I know that starters can mutate and pick up other yeasts floating around. I dont think that happened to me yet but could be. Any thoughts. I want to make SD bread but really would like something that has that acidic tang that hits the back of your tongue like the ones from San Fran.

[Terry R.]

Hmmm. maybe feed and then wait a little longer to bake the bread. For pancakes, use unfed starter. It gets thinner the longer it sits out.


Here is a simple one that might bring out the tang for you.
1 cup starter
1 cup water
2 tsp. salt
3 cups flour (any kind you like) I like at least 1 cup of freshly ground whole wheat


Mix, wait over night and proceed.


When you make the pancakes do you mix up a sponge the night before?

[TheWanderers]

Another work of art. Wonderful. I'll be trying this one very soon. Thanx Grill Master!

[Gilda]

Kudos to you for making sour dough bread in the Cobb cooker. It looks amazing!

Of course I'm totally unbiased as a native San Franciscan but our sour dough is the best! You can purchase San Francisco sour dough starter online or in tourist shops but you'll have to keep the following in mind when making it in places other than SF:

"This is true, wolfe, that the starter will quickly lose it's "San Francisco-ness" as the starter takes on a local character. You get about 1 loaf of bread that tastes awesome. After that, it declines quickly ( you can still make sourdough from it, it will just not taste like San Francisco sourdough) . After several loaves the tang is pretty much gone. So, you could send them home with starter, or just with a loaf of bread--either way, it's about the same, except the starter they can break out anytime and the bread they'll need to eat right away."

'Seems our foggy mornings and afternoons keep the special sour dough microbes alive and well. My husband bakes sour dough bread every Sunday and it tastes and smells divine!