I have a bread proofer machine and would love to make Sourdough bread.
I have no idea if I'm supposed to use active yeast or follow a recipe that calls for basic Sourdough Starter, and if so, what is the difference?
What purpose does the proofing machine serve? And when do I use it during the bread making process?
I'm very green at bread making, as you probably have ascertained.
Best Answer
The bread proofer machine serves mainly one purpose:
Keeping a choosen temperature.
This comes to play whenever you want to let yeast grow and multiply. Yeast can develop at very different temperature ranges, from fridge to warm room. But "cosy & warm" is usually the temperature where it's most active.
The most obvious use is:
But looking closely there are other yeast-related uses:
And even non-yeast uses like
Now, you are asking for a sourdough bread. I won't give you a fixed recipe, but encourage you to choose something nice from the vast realms of the WWW. Try The Fresh Loaf, Wild Yeast or whatever strikes your fancy. I'd assume a Sourdough bread to be made with - obviously - sourdough. But that doesn't exclude yeast, some recipes use both.
The main differences are that sourdough (which contains yeasts and strains of lactobacillus in symbiosis) is more the slow-and-steady type of dough with rather long rising times (as in hours up to days) whereas pure yeast-based dough may be ready to bake after only one to two hours or so. (But there are yeast-only recipes like baguette which take days of proofing in the fridge.)
Choose a simple recipe to start and use your proofing machine whenever the recipe says something along the lines of "let dough rise in a warm place / oven with pilot light / ... for X time / until doubled in bulk.
Remember: When you start baking, it's a good idea to follow the instructions, note what you didn't like and work from there. Perhaps you'll be back here with a more specific question after a few trial-and-error runs - we'll be happy to answer again. And: Have fun!