Sourdough Starter
See step-by step instructions on how to start your own right after the jump. Please go to the original posting of this series on the Serious Eats Blog! It’s wonderful! This is just an abbreviation of the original post with my results.
When I was in college I took a class about the history of food in conjunction with civilizations and ecology and the anthropology of food preparation and eating habits. In one of those classes we discussed terroir and the influence of natural wild yeasts and bacteria on foods depending on the regions in which they’re prepared.
They used the examples of cheese, wine, and bread. I learned that you could create a hospitable environment for yeast and bacteria to grow collaboratively to make amazing sourdough bread, and that depending on your region your bread might turn out drastically different from someone who uses the same technique across the world, or in a different state with a different climate.
Then I read about this series on the Serious Eats Blog and I knew I had to try it myself, especially since packaged instant yeast at the supermarket can be so boring. Now I have this living jar that smells deliciously of sourdough and champagne that I feed and stir once a day and at the end of the week when I have time to bake, I harvest from it.
Make Your Own Sourdough Starter (from Sourdough Starter-Along on the Serious Eats Blog)
Ingredients:
- flour
- water
Equipment:
- scale
- glass jar
- stirring instrument
Day 1: Mix 1/2 ounce flour with 1 ounce water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 2: No feeding, just stirring. Keep covered with plastic wrap.
Day 3: Add 1 ounce of flour, 1 ounce of water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 4: Feed it 1 ounce flour, 1/2 ounce water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 5: This morning I saw my first real bubble! Feed 1 ounce of flour, 1 ounce of water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 6: A couple more bubbles. Feed 1 ounce of flour, 1 ounce of water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 7: Bubble activity is increasing. Feed 1 ounce of flour, 1 ounce of water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 8: Lots of small bubbles appearing at the surface. Feed 1 ounce of flour, 1 ounce of water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 9: Even more small bubbles at the surface. Feed 1 ounce of flour, 1 ounce of water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 10: Now the bubbles are more defined and spread apart. The starter is beginning to feel frothy and full of air when I stir it— much different consistency from when we first started. Feed 1 ounce of flour, 1 ounce of water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 11: The bubbles are really proliferating. The starter is still quite frothy. Feed 1 ounce of flour, 1 ounce of water. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap.
Day 12: First harvest. You can see through the sides of the jar that there are bubbles throughout. The starter is very bubbly and smells wonderfully of sourdough. I took out 4 ounces, added 2 oz flour and 1 ounce water and baked my first loaf of sourdough.
Day 13: Post-harvest. The level of the starter in the jar is obviously lower, but it’s still bubbling with gusto. From this point forth I will continue to feed 1 ounce of flour and 1 ounce of water to it daily.
Day 14: From this point on, when I get up in the morning to feed it, the surface looks like the below picture. Once I feed and stir, it bubbles up again really vibrantly.
Day 21: One week later. The starter is alive and well, and the surface looks like this every morning:
Once I feed and stir, it looks like this:
Now it’s a permanent fixture and I always have it around. :)
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