Making A Sourdough Starter

Everything I know about sourdough I learned from Mimi at Israeli Kitchen, expert on wine, mead, yeast, and all things fermented. Any errors are mine alone.

Last year I made a sourdough starter. I managed to keep it alive over the course of the year and used it up just before Passover.

Most of use purchased, commercial yeast for baking. But we all have yeast available in our homes, for free. The challenge lies in incorporating the yeast living in the air into a starter, which is simply a base of flour and water. Last year I used commercial yeast to make the starter. This year I am starting from scratch. A group of us are doing it together on Twitter.

I use sourdough starter in both fast and slow recipes:

FastSourdough pancakes, muffins or quickbreads. These are infinitely superior to standard recipes. You add some of your starter to the wet ingredients, mix in the dry ingredients, and bake or fry as usual. I even made a dairy chocolate sourdough cake.

Slow—Sourdough breads. Sourdough takes longer to rise than doughs made with commercial yeasts, but it is also more flexible as an extra hour or two generally doesn’t make a difference. Baking with sourdough, like baking with commercial yeast, takes practice. But the results for me were worth the experimentation.

To make sourdough starter, choose a week when you will be home fairly often. It takes some care to get started, but once ripe you only need to freshen it every week or two.

Ingredients for new sourdough starter:

Flour and water. I’m using 90% whole wheat. You will need several cups of flour by the time you are finished, and more when you begin baking in a week or so.

Instructions:

Mix a half-cup each of flour and water in a glass, plastic or ceramic bowl or jar, using a non-metal spoon. Cover loosely to keep out bugs and dirt, but let in air. This mixture will become your starter. Stir at least once a day. After a couple of days you will see bubbles forming. How long this takes depends on your climate and the amount of yeast spores floating around your kitchen.

Once bubbles form, feed it. Pour off the layer of liquid from the top and throw out about half of the remaining mixture. Add another half cup or so each of water and flour. The exact quantity isn’t so important, but use equal proportions of flour and water and keep the consistency fairly thick. Most recipes call for a half cup to a cup of starter. Since you can always feed the starter to make more, a cup or two on hand is all you need at any given time.

The reason for throwing out part of the starter is to get a higher proportion of fresh flour to the original. Once your starter is ripe you will use one part for the recipe, and add fresh flour and water to the rest to keep it going.

Feed the starter once or twice a day until ripe. Starter is ripe when very bubbly and covered with a thick froth. At that point you can begin baking. Making the starter takes about a week from start to finish, depending on your kitchen’s conditions.

Every time you use the starter you will take some off for your recipe (or throw it out if you are not baking) and add enough flour and water to the original to replace what you used. Wash or switch the container every few weeks. Let the starter sit out until frothy, then put it back in the refrigerator. If you forget to maintain the starter, it will take more time to become active again. Once my starter spoiled and Mimi coached me on how to fix it.

Quick review:

  1. Mix flour and water.
  2. Stir regularly until bubbles form (one to three days).
  3. To feed the ripening starter, dump half and add fresh flour and water.
  4. Feed once or twice a day until a thick froth appears on top (another three to six days). Now it is ripe and read for baking.
  5. Use it, but keep some back. Feed the original starter and let it sit out until frothy. Then return it to the refrigerator until next time, or keep it out if you are using it within the next few days.

Sourdough recipes from Mimi’s Kitchen:

Onion Sourdough Bread

Oatmeal Sourdough Bread Once I perfected this, I never looked back.

This page has a bunch of recipes. I’ve only made the muffins, and they are terrific.

Comments

  1. i want to try this to. keep us posted please!

  2. All our bread these days is sourdough, my husband is getting REALLY good at it (yes, we’re spoiled). He loves that flour we got from you – with it, he’s been able to go to 100% whole wheat instead of mixing.

    PS It actually can travel in luggage – last year Jay brought his starter with him from Israel to the US – in his checked bag, which then got lost and arrived two days late no less. (He came a few weeks after I did and I told him that if he got arrested for possessing a biohazard there was no way I was bailing him out!)

  3. I hope you’ll put a link to this post up again in November; I’d like to learn then (will be past the bar-mitzvah by then and into cool/cold weather).

    Sounds worthwhile.

  4. mominisrael says

    Robin, glad you are enjoying the flour! Thanks for the info on flying.
    Leora, it’s probably easier to do in warm weather. We have a bar mitzvah in August.

  5. This sounds interesting and I am sure anything made from this starter is so much better. Might actually try it.

  6. Not sure how I feel about another living thing that would need feeding in the house…

  7. I can’t wait to try this. I’ve heard great things about sourdough starters. Should be a wonderful “Camp Mommy” project.

  8. Safranit says

    Do I feed even when it isn’t very bubbly? I’m not so bubbly here…

  9. mominisrael says

    I-D, I’m sure we’ll read about it if you do.
    ON, keep us posted.
    Safranit, yes. Feeding it makes it more active and bubbly.

  10. MiI, I’m honored by your post. Thank you! And enjoy your sourdough baking! I never posted a tutorial for starting a starter because I just didn’t have the patience for it – I’m glad you’re doing it, and doing it so well.

    Abbi, it’s true, sourdough is a bit of a commitment. But (for me at least) the dynamics of working with living, local yeast is half the fun. Apart from that, sourdough is noticeably easier to digest and metabolize than bread raised with commercial yeast. I use both, but have a special fondness for anything sourdough.

  11. Ok, so I thought it was bubbly a few days ago so I started feeding it, then I didn’t see more bubbles so I went back to mixing and not feeding. And now it’s thin with no bubbles to be seen. Is there a chance to rescue it?

  12. Yonit,

    Your sourdough does need feeding again. As long as you see bubbles and tracks inside the mass of the starter (and to see this you need a glass jar or Pyrex measuring cup), the yeast are working and hungry.

    Just like commercial yeast, wild yeasts need to feed, reproduce, excrete enzymes, and eventually die. So to keep a healthy yeast population going, you need to feed it with fresh flour, water, and oxygen. So feed and mix. You’ll probably see a light froth coming up in a few hours, especially in this hot weather.

  13. mominisrael says

    Mimi, thanks for consulting on Yonit’s problem.
    Someone asked whether it’s harder to use than commercial yeast. I don’t think so, it’s just different. I have muffins and oatmeal bread baking now! Yum.

  14. Sounds great – now I just have to get around to actually doing it one of these days… I hope.

Trackbacks

  1. […] than sourdough bread topped with homemade hummus? To learn how to make sourdough starter, visit Mother in Israel’s post. And to find out more about hummus and what makes an authentic chickpea dip (as opposed to some […]

  2. Safra-Knit :: Sourdough :: June :: 2009 says:

    […] Mom in Israel tweeted (that is something you do on Twitter) about making sourdough starter, so I decided to come along for the ride.  I had not idea how interesting it would be! […]