Hi. I sincerely thank you for bringing me into the world of lean bread, a journey that I enjoy so much. Well, I have a story to tell, also some questions. I forgot to refresh my starter that I made two years ago, for about three months. It appeared moldy on the surface, so I discard my starter. Guess what, I didn't regret that, because I was unhappy with the flavor profile of every loaves that I made with the starter. My past loaves were always too sour. The excessive acidity weakened the gluten, turned the crumb into gummy and dense mass. The crust never got browned unless put under broiler. Being in Indonesia, South East Asia, I have no idea what sourdough should taste like. Even though there are literally no poolish baguette in my town, I'm always happy with my own poolish baguette. But sourdough? Really have no idea. Turns out, I didn't feed my starter frequently and the starter takes more than 6 hours to double in size right before I incorporate it into main dough that I usually autolysed for 12 hours in the fridge. Still curious, I made another starter. I had no rye or whole wheat flour on hand at the moment, so I used all purpose flour. It takes six days for the starter to be ready. To prevent the starter from being to sour, I ferment the starter on lower temperature to reduce acetic acid production and more into lactic acid (around 10 pm to 6 am in my backyard of course). During day time, I put the container inside a cool tap water bath (27.8 degree celcius on instant read thermometer). It took less then 3 hours for the starter to double in size. To test the starter, I made a simple loaf with 65% hydration, 15% flour prefermented, 5% starter is added to the levain. I refreshed the starter twice before incorporating it into the levain. I'm happy that the loaf has the right amount of acidity with good browning. I bake the loaf inside dutch oven. But something really bothered me; I'm not happy with the flavor profile. The loaf taste like tempeh (I don't know whether tempeh is available in the US. Basically tempeh is cooked soybean fermented with white cottony mold into one solid mass turned it into soybean cake). It's weird. Just weird. The same flavor profile with my very first starter. I dont know about your regular sourdough flavor profile in the US. In a scientific journal it was said that sourdough microflora diversity in tropical region is different (http://comenius.susqu.edu/biol/312/thesourdoughmicroflorabiodiversityandmetabolicinteractions.pdf). Do you think it is the microflora diversity that may cause the flavor? I dont hate my starter, It's just weird. In fact, I have an idea to flavor my sourdough just like the locals do to flavor their tempeh. In here, we seasoned tempeh with corriander seed and kecap manis (indonesian sweet soy sauce, thick and has palm sugar and spices in it). Just like jewish rye loaf that is flavored with caraway, I will add corriander seed to my future loaves, maybe a hint of kecap manis too. I have to tell you that the flavor of my first starter works really well with black glutinous rice flour. It brought the milkiness of the flour, in a pleasant way. I'm on my way to bake my black glutinuous rice loaf and my brioche au levain. Wish me luck!

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