I'm attempting to make sourdough bread by creating my own starter.
Sourdough doesn't use commercial yeast, you instead capture wild yeasts in a fermenting mixture of flour and water.
Once you have a fully active starter you then use this to make a sponge or active mix of more flour and water and after leaving this to activate you then turn this into your dough reserving some sponge to carry on as your starter or mother.
So far, day 5 after creating my starter I have a very sour fruity smell and bubbles. Overnight it has grown by a a third and in a couple of days I'm going to attempt to make bread. My first attempt probably won't look very impressive but should taste great.
I have been using a combination of strong flour, rye flour and filtered water as starter food and for the first few days you keep feeding every 24 hours but by day 4 when I had bubbles starting, you remove most of the starter and replace it with a greater volume of the same mixture and the small amount is enough to keep the starter growing. You do this for a couple of days until the starter is active enough to start making bread.
I have found this site invaluable and there are lots of other good places on the web as well .
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3 comments:
I did this last year, and found that I needed to use organic wholemeal flour to get a good starter. Also, I avoid using metal spoons or bowls with the starter, and just keep it in a sealed glass jar in the fridge now, feeding it occasionally (but probably not as often as I should!). I am still experimenting with getting the right recipe to work with my one though, so will be interested to see how you get on and what works for you:).
very interested to see how this goes... I've always wanted to do it but been put off by the randomness of it.
Photos pls
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