Bread yeast or natural sourdough versus yogurt bacteria

[third...@gmail.com]

I use a Bulgarian strain (one of 200 species) 1.5g in my yugurt machine (or wide necked thermos) will ferment 1.5 litres (3 US pints) of milk overnight. Out of the blue, my supplier asked "do you make sourdough? send me your recipe and I'll get back to you".
I split my yogurt batch into 10 sealed tubs and refrigerate. The Bulgaria is quite smooth and hints of sweetness. Once, one of these tubs get overlooked and tasted quite sour and sharp (3 weeks old maybe). Anyway, while I wait his reply, anyone got any thoughts? yeast versus y bacteria.

[TimW]

On 11/08/2020 10:38, third...@gmail.com wrote:
> I use a Bulgarian strain (one of 200 species) 1.5g in my yugurt machine (or wide necked thermos) will ferment 1.5 litres (3 US pints) of milk overnight. Out of the blue, my supplier asked "do you make sourdough? send me your recipe and I'll get back to you".
> I split my yogurt batch into 10 sealed tubs and refrigerate. The Bulgaria is quite smooth and hints of sweetness. Once, one of these tubs get overlooked and tasted quite sour and sharp (3 weeks old maybe). Anyway, while I wait his reply, anyone got any thoughts? yeast versus y bacteria.
>

You need both, yeast and bacteria
TW

[third...@gmail.com]

Well today I got a reply from Ivo of Bacillas Bulgaricus, who supply my yogurt culture. Not cheap at €9 but they're offering a 50% discount for first triers. So I'll give it a whorl. I guess with sourdough you won't need to buy again. Here's his email :-

"Ok, this reply took some time but I promise it was worth it.

The reason I asked if you make sourdough is, as you might have guessed, that we now have our very own Bacillus Bulgaricus Sourdough Starter and I wanted to see if you would like to give it a try before we officially release it on the market.

I get asked repeatedly when we are going to make a sourdough starter, which packs the same gut-healthy Bacillus Bulgaricus strain that is in our Yogurt starters. And it had always made sense too because one of the main ingredients of the sourdough starters are lactic acid cultures. So we spent the last few months working together with the expert folks from our lab and we came up with a unique sourdough starter formula, which is just that – colonies of probiotic lactic acid strains and yeasts indigenous to the same area of the world, which brought to you the Lactobacillus Bulgaricus strain. Of course they are all isolated from natural sources in ecologically preserved areas in Bulgaria, much like the strains in the Yogurt starters.

The Sourdough Starter is a no-fuss sourdough starter that is easy to activate, ferments quickly and is no trouble to maintain. It gives your dough a fast rise, it is very reliable and consistent, full of gut-friendly lactic acid cultures as I mentioned, and most importantly -- it makes sourdough bread of exceptional quality with great sourdough flavor, texture and that characteristic tangy flavor, chewy texture and crisp, crackly crust.

The starter is universal -- it works with all types of flour. So far I’ve personally tested it with AP, bread, whole wheat, and rye and it’s turned out well every time. Super yummy too!"

[third...@gmail.com]

Just a cautionary note, the so-called gut friendly bacteria has come under scrutiny "How does the bacteria survive stomach acids, before it can do some good?"
By the same token, how do these bacillus bulgaricus gut friendly bacteria, when used in a sourdough, survive oven temps?

[third...@gmail.com]

Update : I've been running both my old sourdough starters and yoghurt starters side-by-side. Every 4 or 5 days I remove them from the fridge and feed them with whole-wheat and water at 100% hydration. The final bake is at about 62% hydration, therefore not very 'sour'.

Taste-wise I couldn't detect any difference. Crust and crumb both similar. However, the yoghurt starter is a bit more vigorous and has larger bubbles. Probably worth having a go, if you see it on Ebay.