Sourdough Starter - Respect Your Bread

A few weeks ago I've seen different foodie documentaries and they all said how fermented food is the best thing ever you can eat because it's like the best food for the human body... like cheese, salami, chocolate and of course Sourdough.

I think we all have that feeling occasionally if we buy normal bread from the store or even from a bakery, that it's not really filling even if we enjoy the absolutely crunchy and extremely soft textures together and if you eat this bread too often at some point there is a constant discomfort feeling even if you have no food allergies or gluten intolerance. So the last time I felt that discomfort, I've decided to make my own sourdough bread from scratch.

The whole process starts about a week before you can bake your first bread because first you need to make your own sourdough starter. It takes a while until you can try what you created and cared about, and sourdough baking will teaches you patience for sure, but also appreciation of this magic combined with your own efforts.

By starting this process you will take a big responsibility by keeping your little helper organism alive in a jar. I think, if you jump into this project, you will definitely respect your bread and eat the whole thing including the last breadcrumbs!

There are many different types of leavening agents, and I'm sure they will all sound very familiar:

Chemical: baking powder, baking soda
Biological:
industrial: baker's yeast
natural: sourdough

As you can see, sourdough is a biological and 100% naturally occurring leavening agent. It contains a Lactobacillus culture (responsible for the taste) in symbiotic combination with different strains of wild yeasts (responsible for volume). Wild yeast and bacteria that we need for our starter are living everywhere around us, they are in the air, on the utensils we use, our hands and also in the wheat as that our flour is made of.

This is why we should use as simple flour as is possible for an active sourdough starter because conventional plain flour is chemically threatened and it doesn't contain that amount of wild yeast, bacteria, and elements as the organic wheat flour. You can use a 50:50 mix of wholewheat + plain flours like I do, or you can pick one of these too.

The only ingredient that we need next to organic wheat flour is water. Normal tap water contains chlorine, what is ok because this is how we won't get any infections if we drink it, but it can be the biggest enemy of all the living organisms in our sourdough starter... so this is why we should use tepid water instead, if possible! If not, just go with your regular tap water (if it's safe for drinking, of course).

The rest is magic, but of course there is a scientific explanation behind what's happening inside the porridge-like mixture in the jar that will eventually will help us to bake a bread too. :D

In this section I will show how I set up my starter, even if this method could be different from the famous bakers' suggestion, it seems that it works. Once you start your sourdough, you need to feed it from time to time. First you will feed it daily and wile the sourdough is living on room temperature and gets strong enough for baking, you will need to feed it every 12 hours. I will use simplified 'feeding times' in the schedule below as noon and midnight, but of course, you can do it on your way, what is important to keep the 24 then 12 hours between feedings.

The things you need:

50:50 flour mix: organic whole wheat flour + all purpose flour (if you don't want to use a mixture, pick one)
tepid water - room temperature
a clean! container with lid: a tall plastic container / a jar / a Mason jar without the rubber sealing - I use two 750ml glass jars
kitchen scale
(wooden) spoon

THE GENERAL RULE OF FEEDING A STARTER THAT LIVES ON ROOM TEMPERATURE:

1 part sourdough starter (in grams) = S

1 part flour (in grams) = F

1 part water (in grams) = W

(1 part is normally equal to 50 g in this method.)

12:00:

Put 50 g F + 50 g W into your chosen, clean! container and mix it well with the spoon. Put the lid back into the container but don't seal it because the CO2 that the organisms produce should be able to go out, and some oxygen should be able to get in. Place the container into a not too sunny but warm place. I kept mine in the kitchen cabined (a turned off microwave oven is also perfect).
Total weight = 100 g

Sourdough Starter Day 1 - Photo by © Reka Csulak

12:00 (24 hours later)

You have 100 g S in the container
Check it out, if there is any activity:
If you notice bubbles on the top of the starter, it is ready to proceed with the first feeding. Bubbles are the best sign of life and activity in your starter, so the more bubbles it contains the more active it is!
If there is only a few bubbles or no bubbles at all, place the starter back to its safe place and wait another 24 hours without feeding or bothering it at all.
To strengthen our sourdough and keep it alive, we will feed it today.
Before feeding the starter, always mix it a bit with the spoon.
For the first feeding simply use the same jar where the starter is.
Ignore the general feeding rule this time, and add 50 g F + 50 g W to the starter's jar
Mix it well by the spoon.
Wrap it in its kitchen towel and put it into its safe place for the next 24h.
Total weight = 200 g

Sourdough Starter Day 2 - Photo by © Reka Csulak

12:00 (24 hours later)

You have 200 g S in the container
Check it out, if there is any activity:
If you notice bubbles on the top of the starter, it is ready to proceed with the second feeding. Now its scent starts to be a bit sour at the end of the cycle which is also a clear indicator of feeding time.
If you do not see any activity on this day either, then discard it and start over (maybe try with a better flour).
Feeding:
Get the second, empty jar and temper it by rinsing with warm water.
Now we start following the general feeding rule: add 50 g active S to the jar then add 50 g F + 50 g W.
Mix it well with the spoon.
Its smell is back to floury, with milky notes.
Place the lid on the jar (loosely, no sealing) and wrap it into its kitchen towel.
Get the starter back to its safe place.
Total weight = 150 g

From now on the activity can change in a way, that instead of 24 hours, the cycle can come to its end in 12 hours, which means, that your starter (hopefully) needs to get fed 2x a day. Check the starter within 12 hours!

24:00 (12 hours later)

Check it out, if there is any activity:
If there are bubbles and vinegary scent, it needs to be fed.
If it needs more time, keep the 24 hours between the feedings still.
Feeding:
Follow the general feeding rule: add 50 g active S to the jar then add 50 g F + 50 g W.
Mix it well with the spoon.
Get the starter back to its safe place and check it in 12 hours.
Total weight = 150 g

Sourdough Starter Day 3 - Photo by © Reka Csulak

12:00 (12 hours later)

You have 150 g S in the container
Check it out:
If you notice bubbles and the vinegary, sour scent, you can proceed with the next feeding.
If the activity is quite low still, you can do the daily feeding with a one-time trick, and use fermented boosters today, like yoghurt (+1 tsp) or replace the water with a so-called fruit water.
Feeding:
Get the second, empty jar and temper it by rinsing with warm water.
Following the general feeding rule: add 50 g active S to the jar then add 50 g F + 50 g W.
Mix it well with the spoon.
Its smell is back to floury, with milky notes.
Place the lid on the jar (loosely, no sealing) and wrap it into its kitchen towel.
Get the starter back to its safe place. It will get affected by temperature: in warm it will be more active in cold it slows down.
Total weight = 150 g

From today you will notice that there are plenty of bubbles in the culture and it starts 'moving'. The starter has a normal 12 hour cycle: after you feed it its scent is floury with milky notes), and the living organisms starts to digest the fresh flour and water and produce more and more 'bubbles' and as a result of this you can experience that the starter is rising up to about double size, then after all the 'food' had been used, it will fall back to a lower level and the sour vinegary scent appears.

You need to keep an eye on it and when the cycle ends (collapsed + sour scent) then it needs to get fed. Based on the temperature this will mean 2x (but it can be even 3x) feeding times.

24:00 (12 hours later)

Check it out
Feed
Total weight = 150 g

Sourdough Starter Day 4 - Photo by © Reka Csulak

We are working on strengthening the starter for the first bread-baking!
The scent of the starter can be varied: straight after the feeding it is floury with milky notes, after the cycle (before feeding) it brings sour, vinegary scent, but it's very important that this scent is never bad. If you notice a bad scent and any mold, colouring (pink, blue, yellow, black etc.) or something weird just discard it and start over.
Continue maintaining your sourdough starter, and based on its hunger when it's feeding time (normally in every 12 hours) , follow the general rule of feeding: use 50 g of your active S and add 50 g F + 50 g W. Discard the leftover S or donate it to a friend who would like to bake sourdough bread too, and clean the jar.
Total weight = 150 g
During this time you should have a nice, active starter that is "hungry" twice a day with bubbles everywhere, it rises and falls back with each feeding cycle... and shortly it gets ready for baking.
As you can see I keep the total weight at 150 g, but you can control this as you wish, so make sure you will have enough for your bread recipe and some leftover (minimum 50g) to keep your mother sourdough alive.

Sourdough Starter Method - Photo by © Reka Csulak

If you ever find some liquid on the top of your starter it's not the and of the world, you don't have to start it again. It's either condensation as a result of the heat changes during the cycle or it is another liquid called hooch, which bakers know very well. It's the mixture of alcohol and vinegar that appears when the starter is 'hungry'.

Some people use a different feeding method than this one and instead of measuring the equal amount of ingredients (S, F, W) by volume, they mix 1 cup from each. The result is a thin starter with too much water in it. Thin starters, or starters which are fed less frequently, more likely to form hooch than thicker starters or starters which are fed more frequently. So this is why I recommend measuring by volume and keeping a frequent feeding schedule. If you find a little hooch on your starter let's stir it in, but if you have a lot, definitely pour it off and feed the starter immediately, but make sure you add less water than normal. If you find plenty of hooch on the starter please consider, it takes time till the deformed yeast will be perfectly healthy again, but it's totally fine to keep these cultures and use them for baking.

Sourdough Starter Method - Photo by © Reka Csulak

Never use all the starter, always keep some that you can keep alive forever: this is the so-called mother sourdough.

If you bake daily, you should feed your starter daily as you did on the first week. But sourdough could be a bit expensive pet because of the good quality flour you use for feeding, so if you don't bake daily, let's choose a different option.

If you bake weekly, you can slow down the digestion process of the culture by temperature. So let's feed your leftover starter (after you used the bigger part for baking for example) and place it into the fridge for a week with the lid on. The cold temperature won't kill the organisms but it will slow them down. This way you need to feed the starter only weekly, but take a note: you have to feed it even if you don't bake!

If you bake even rarer, you can dry your sourdough, but I think if someone would make an effort to create an own starter he or she has planned with it, so I don't think that these options should be detailed.

Keeping alive the "sourdough mother" (no baking):

Get the starter out of the fridge. Now it's more dense than it was on the first week when it spent the whole time at room temperature.
Temperate it on room temperature for a few hours before feeding it.
Feed it as follows: 50 g of your active S and add 50 g F + but only 40 g W
Let it rest for 1 hour on room temperature.
Put it back to the fridge for another week.

Keeping alive the "sourdough mother" + Baking:

Get the starter out of the fridge -ideally on the evening before the day you would like to start baking-.
Temperate it on room temperature for a few hours before feeding.
Temperate the glass by rinsing it with warm water.
Feed the starter accordingly: 50 g S + 100 g F + 80 g W - this way you will have enough to isolate your mother starter + to bake with the rest
Wrap it and place it into a place with constant temperature overnight, if it's cold, place a bottle of warm water next to it.
On the next day (8-12 hours later)
Isolate the mother starter
Add 50 g of your active S to a jar you use for the mother starter
Add 50 g F + but only 40 g W.
Let it rest 1 hour on room temperature.
Put it back to the fridge for another week.
Use the leftover starter for baking.