I got started on sourdough quite by accident. Before discovering sourdough, I rarely ate bread. I enjoyed making it, but I was never a big bread eater. Since I rarely baked bread, I threw away a lot of expired yeast. So I went looking for a way to make my own yeast because I hate throwing away food. Surely, I thought, our ancesters knew how to make bread long before yeast became available only from supermarkets.
As a long-time prepper, I wanted a way to make bread without relying on the availability of store-bought yeast. I looked at recipes for yeasted potato bread and other bacteria-based yeasts before stumbling upon sourdough. Then when I discovered the natural digestive aids found in sourdough, I never looked back. These days, I rarely eat any baked good that isn’t first pre-digested by my little sourdough friendlies.
A jar of sourdough starter now lives permanently in my fridge like a precious babe, nurtured and loved so it will grow up healthy and strong. And like an infant, I’ve come to know when it needs to be fed and changed. In just a few months, I became a sourdough expert and you can too.
So if you’re new to the secrets of sourdough starter, this article was written for you.
You can buy pre-made starter on places like eBay, Etsy, Craigslist, etc. and you’ll be ready to bake your first loaf from the get-go. But buyer beware. Unless you know the seller’s reputation, you don’t really know what they’ve put in it. I’ve seen dozens of people claiming to be selling 100-year-old old sourdough starter, which is very unlikely. Besides, you’ve basically making a new starter each time you feed it with flour and water. So, if you’ve got the time and the patience, I’d recommend starting your own sourdough starter. Then you know exactly what’s gone into it and the yeasts are native to your home.
As you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you have the time, patience, and intuitive cooking sense to MAKE SOURDOUGH BREAD. You have to be kind of a sixth-sense alchemist, mad scientist to do it. But after awhile, maintaining your sourdough starter will become second nature, like taking care of a baby.
Confession: It took me nine weeks to make my first successful starter. But through trial and error, I learned what to do and what not to do. I’m still using the sourdough starter I’d originally made, but if I needed to make a new one, it would be a piece of cake now. So, don’t worry. You’re in good hands. Your learning curve should be smaller than mine because you can learn from my mistakes.
Making sourdough bread begins with a mature, microbe-rich starter. STARTER PHOTO Making sourdough starter is simply a matter of mixing equal parts of flour and water in a jar and then exposing the mixture to the natural bacteria in the air. Easy peasy. You should have a decent starter going in a few days or weeks. But if you have any trouble getting your sourdough starter started, like I did, I’ll show you how to troubleshoot and fix these problems.
But first, a few caveats:
1. The water must be pure and filtered. It can’t contain any chlorine or harmful chemicals that could kill the beneficial bacteria in your sourdough starter.
2. If you can buy organic flour, that’s the way to go. If your flour comes from the supermarket, read the ingredients. You’ll be surprised at what’s sometimes lurking in grocery store flours.
Here are some BLEACHING AGENTS COMMONLY FOUND IN FLOUR:
This is why it took over a month for me to get a decent sourdough starter going! After nine weeks of having flat, bubbleless soupy starter, it finally occurred to me to read the ingredients on my flour package. To my horror, I discovered that it had been treated with Benzoyl Peroxide to kill any mold. Obviously, if a chemical can kill mold, it can also kill the beneficial bacteria needed to make sourdough.
So I decided to do an experiment. I put half a pound of all-purpose flour on a baking tray and left it in the sun for a few hours. I was hoping that the sun would burn off any harmful peroxide. Plus, it would expose all of the flour particles to even more bacteria in the air, so I reasoned it was worth a try. To my astonishment, this simple sunning technique did the trick. I added this “solarized” flour to my lackluster starter and got my first bubbles which grew into a ripe starter in just a few days. I’ve been sunning my flour, a half pound at a time, ever since. (I don’t know your air quality so if you resort to this trick, just be careful not to expose your flour to any harmful contaminants.)
Some recipes may tell you to weigh out the ingredients to ensure a perfect balance of ingredients. Although weight measurement is more precise than using measuring cups, I’ve found it makes no real difference to the end product in this case. I prefer the quickness of measuring cups over using scales, myself. Maybe it’s an American thing.
A good starter also needs a portion of whole grain added to it for the bacteria to feast upon and to add a hearty texture and flavor to the bread. Whole wheat and/or rye are most commonly used, but you can experiment with other whole grain flours.
Begin with a clean glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. The lid will be tightly closed while in the refrigerator but put on loosely when fermenting the starter at room temperature. Choose a jar that gives you at least four inches of head room so your starter can rise as it ferments. Your jar should not be so tall that a spoon can’t reach inside to stir the flour along the bottom. You can use a mason jar, pickle jar, instant coffee jar, or jars especially made to grow starter. The jar’s mouth should be wide enough to allow the ingredients to enter without spilling. You should have at least two jars on hand so that you can transfer your starter to a clean jar whenever the other one gets caked with starter.
Day one: To a clean dry jar, add 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup whole wheat or rye flour, and roughly 1/2 cup filtered water (depending on your humidity). Do not use tap water as most city water has been treated with chlorine. Stir thoroughly to get out the lumps. Some people say not to use metal utensils, but I’ve used both metal and wooden spoons without seeing a difference. The ideal consistency of your mixture may vary with the amount of humidity in your air and your altitude above the equator. Aim for a very thick oatmeal texture in humid climates and a slightly moister mixture for dry climates.
Let the mixture sit near an open window for an hour to collect the natural yeast in the air. Then place the lid on the jar loosely (or slightly tilted) and let it sit in a warm place. A cold oven with the light bulb turned on is ideal. Near a sunny window is also good, but be careful not to let the jar bake in direct sunlight.
A brand new starter is rather temperamental to get going at first. You may have to do a little experimenting to see what works best for your climate, altitude, etc. If the bacteria is slow in establishing itself, you can use a coffee filter or a scrap of clean cotton cloth fastened with a rubber band across your jar — instead of the lid — to allow more airborne bacteria in. If you live in a dry climate like I do, however, a dry skin may form across the top of your starter — which you want to avoid. A lid placed loosely on top works better, even if you have to take it off periodically to invite some bacteria to the party.
Daily feeding of a new starter: Pour two tablespoons of your starter into a clean jar. (Discard the rest.) Add 1/4 cup white flour, 1/4 cup whole grain flour, and 1/2 cup filtered water. Adjust the amount of water as needed to maintain a porridge-like consistency. Stir thoroughly to remove any lumps. Keep this approximate ratio for each successive feeding for the rest of your starter’s life: 1:2:2:4 (starter, white flour, whole grain flour, water). Repeat this procedure until your starter has matured and is read to use. (When your starter is mature, you can transfer the jar to the refrigerator and reduce the feedings to once a week.)
You will know your starter is ready to use in recipes when it has doubled or tripled in size and looks marshmellowy. It should be light and bubbly and pass the float test. Float test: Simply drizzle a little starter from a spoon onto a glass of water. If some of it floats, you’re ready to go. (When you become an old hand at sourdough breadmaking, you can just eyeball it instead of doing the float test each time.)
Each batch of starter is different. After awhile you’ll get to know what your starter needs and when.
How much I feed it depends on how much I think I’ m going to use that week. If I know I’m going to make a sourdough recipe that week, I might add 1/3 cup each of flours and water. Sometimes, I’ll even add 1/2 if, for example, I want to bake sourdough bread and also eat pancakes that day. Just know, that for the best sourdough flavor and leavening, your sourdough should graze on the added flour for at least 8 hours before making your bread dough.
Now that your starter is ready, follow the instructions for my CLASSIC SOURDOUGH BREAD or any other SOURDOUGH RECIPE you like.
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