Making a Sourdough Starter
About 8 months we made my first sourdough form a fermentation experiment feeding flour to self-made koji barley water at 28°C for 8h followed by continuous feeding of flour at room temperature several times and the addition of non-chlorinated water. Since then we have used this starter without any additional yeast for bread making over and over. Not only is the bread better it helps my digestion, and it has a real great shelf-life. Now you don’t have to use the “koji process” which we will post at a later time once we repeated the experiment.
I will describe here conventional methods of making sourdough starters from scratch.
The process of making a sourdough starter because flour and grains contain microorganisms such as wild yeast that induces fermentation. Wild yeast is common on dry fruits and can be used to create sourdough as well.
- 70 g whole wheat flour
- 35 g lukewarm non-chlorinated water
-
Stir everything together thoroughly. Cover the container loosely and let the mixture sit at warm room temperature (about 70°F = 22°C) for 24 hours. Keep the temperature between 68 to 82 F.
-
After 12 to 15h:
Mix to above:
½ cup, 70g whole wheat flour
1/4 cup 35g lukewarm non-chlorinated water
-
Let is stand now 24 hours. At this stage, you should see a bit of growth or bubbling — transfer in a clean container of enough volume holding a cover with holes.
Add and stir in and let rest for 12h:
½ cup, 70g whole wheat flour
1/4 cup 35g lukewarm non-chlorinated water
-
Now add a
½ cup, 70g whole wheat flour
1/4 cup 35g lukewarm non-chlorinated water
let rest for 4 to 8 h. It should be sour by now.
If it is not too active, continue feeding as above and let it rest 12 h.
Maintaining: When used regularly, feed the dough twice a day (morning and evening) with 50g flour, 50g Water, and 25g Starter. For longer brakes store in the fridge and feed once a week.
This recipe is more demanding as it requires to discard some of the sourdough-starter and to feed it with fresh water and flour. This process ensures excellent quality. The reasons for the apparent wasteful procedure are:
1) Adding only a small amount of flour to a larger amount of sourdough would eat all the necessary nutrients; thus the sourdough will be less active. Therefore this method provides more food to smaller amounts of starter.
2) Keeping the starter volume the same helps balance the pH and acidity of the final dough and more reproducible loaves of bread.
- Day 1 evening
- 25 g whole wheat flour best freshly milled
- 25 g spelt flour best freshly milled
- 100 g unbleached flour
- 150 g water
- 1 g malt optional
- Day 2 evening
- 75 g Starter from Day 1
- 12.5 g whole wheat flour best freshly milled
- 12.5 g spelt flour best freshly milled
- 50 g unbleached flour
- 75 g water
- 1 g Malt optional
- Day 3 morning
- 75 g Starter from Day 2
- 12.5 g whole wheat flour best freshly milled
- 12.5 g spelt flour best freshly milled
- 50 g unbleached flour
- 75 g water
- 1 g Malt optional
- Day 3 evening
- 75 g Starter from Day 3 morning
- 12.5 g whole wheat flour best freshly milled
- 12.5 g spelt flour best freshly milled
- 50 g unbleached flour
- 75 g water
- 1 g Malt optional
- Day4 &5 evening and morning
- 50 g Starter
- 50 g unbleached flour
- 50 g water
-
First Day: Mix Water with flour, ferment for 24 hours at 28°C.
-
Second & Third day: Mix Starter with flour and water, ferment for 24 hours at 28°C.
-
Fourth & fifth day: From now on we feed our Sourdough with flour. Mix Starter with flour and water, ferment for 12 hours at 28°C. The dough should now be able to double its volume in this period. If not, feed it for another two days like described for day 4 & 5.
You don’t have to discard it if you don’t want to; you can use it to bake. There are a few recipes on our site using “discard” starter, including sourdough pizza crust, sourdough pretzels, and my all-time favorite waffles.
Maintaining: When used regularly, feed the dough twice a day (morning and evening) with 50 g flour, 50 g Water, and 25 g Starter. For longer breaks store in the fridge and feed at least once a week by removing about 50 g and replacing with fresh 50 g of flour and non-chlorine water.
A simpler version of the above:
- Day in the morning
- 30 g Whole wheat flour( or Whole rye flour), use organic flour, if possible
- 30 g Water (30°C)
Mix water with flour, cover the jar with a lit and place it on a warm (~25°C) place.
- Day in the morning
- 30 g Sourdough starter from the day before
- 30 g Whole wheat flour( or Whole rye flour), use organic flour, if possible
- 30 g Water (30°C)
After 24 hours you can see the first bubbles in the sourdough. Sometimes the sourdough already doubles its volume. All of this is normal. Now take 30 g of the sourdough for the feeding, discard all the rest. Mix the starter with flour and water, cover it and place it again at the warm place (25°C).
- Day in the morning
- 30 g Starter from the day before
- 30 g Whole wheat flour( or Whole rye flour), use organic flour, if possible
- 30 g Water (30°C)
Mix the starter with flour and water, cover it and place it again at the warm place (25°C). Still, everything between some bubbles and doubling it volume is normal.
- Day in the evening
- 30 g Starter from morning
- 30 g All purpose flour( or Whole rye flour), use organic flour, if possible
- 30 g Water (30°C)
Feed the starter again with flour and water, cover it and place it again at the warm place (25°C).
- Day in the morning
- 30 g Starter from the last feeding
- 30 g All purpose flour ( or Whole rye flour), use organic flour, if possible
- 30 g Water (30°C)
Mix the starter with flour and water, cover it and place it again at the warm place (25°C).
- Day in the evening
- 30 g Starter from the last feeding
- 30 g All purpose flour ( or Whole rye flour), use organic flour, if possible
- 30 g Water (30°C)
Mix the starter with flour and water, cover it and place it again at the warm place (25°C). It should now double its volume until in 12 hours. If it does not, continue feeding using the Feeding instructions of Day 4 until it can double its volume.
Read more:
- Bread Making
- Preferment and Starter
- Yeasted preferment (Sponges)
- “Null” dough (without micro-organisms): Water Roux
- Making a Sourdough Starter
- Sourdough Feeding, Storing and Reviving
- Treatment of Sourdough
- Nut Cranberry Raisin Bread
- Japanese Milk Bread
- Swiss Whole Wheat Bread with sourdough (Ruchbrot)
- Swiss Whole Wheat Zopf
- Porridge Bread (No-Knead Bread) with cracked Barley and Dal
- White Fluffy Toast Bread
- Anise Zwieback
- No-knead Cracked Barley Black Bean Bread
No Comments