Adventures in Sourdough Part 1: Building your Starter

I have stated before that I have an eating disorder, for me at least one thing that helps is surrounding myself with good food.  Choosing to eat is much easier when the food you have to choose from is appetizing.  Cooking the food also helps, putting all the time and energy into selecting recipes, going to the store, and finally making the food makes it easier to eat, no sense in wasting all of that time and effort.  So cooking great food is highly therapeutic.

During our recent move I was unable to do much cooking, I did not have the time, energy and as the house got packed the supplies, to cook much more than Hamburger Helper.  This is edible of course, but not exactly inspiring.  So when we finally got settled into our new home I started cooking like crazy.  In fact I just pulled the fifth loaf of sourdough bread out of my oven, and it looks very very tasty.  This journey into making sourdough bread has been full of fun little mistakes, learning experiences and pretty yummy pay outs, so I thought I would share it with you. 

Why Sourdough?

There has been a lot of buzz lately about sourdough breads.  According to Real Food Forager the fermentation of the starter and then the long rise required for these breads makes them healthier than most breads.  They contain high levels of lactic acid, the starches and gluten are more broken down making them easier to digest (possibly even for those with gluten sensitivities, but please talk to your doctor before running out and eating every sourdough loaf around if you have a gluten sensitivity), and it might even help regulate your blood glucose levels. 

Oh and then there is the great benefit that it just tastes great!  When baked to perfection sourdough is a soft tangy bubble of bread wrapped up in a crunchy golden crust.  What more could you want?

This all sounds too good to be true, and maybe it is.  I am not going to lie, the process to get that perfect loaf of sourdough can be a bit... lengthy.  This is not an adventure for the impatient. 

Your Sourdough Starter

Before you can even think about making a beautiful loaf of sourdough you first have to get a starter built up. 

For those of you unfamiliar with baking sourdough let me try and simplify what a starter is exactly.  This is a small amount of bread dough that has been allowed to sit and ferment, making a lovely culture of yeast, bacteria and enzymes.  Once the starter is fully stable you will bake only using a small part of the starter the rest will be saved and regularly fed to keep it active and ready for whenever you want to bake another one of these heavenly loaves. 

The easiest way to do this is to obtain a portion of an already established starter.  If you are really lucky you know a friend or family member who has a little jar of fermenting bread dough on their counter, they would probably be happy to let you take a cup or so home to start your own adventures.  Otherwise you can buy a starter.  Some bakeries will sell them, or you can find places online to purchase one, such as the one by King Arthur Flour. 

If you cannot get your hands on a free starter, and either do not feel like paying for one or just really want the experience of making it completely from scratch (in other words you are slightly sadistic, like me), you can whip up your own starter at home, for what probably comes to mere pennies (no I have not actually figured up the price, but it's cheap).  The only issue is it will take about a week to get really ready, so be patient.

Starter Instructions

I read a lot of sites describing how they began their own starters and of course no one agreed on what the proper technique is.  What I came away with was the understanding that there is no one set way to make a starter and that they really are forgiving concoctions.  I merged together a few different techniques and found what I felt was the easiest way to make a starter (this already took a week to prepare, I felt that any additional steps were just going to annoy me more). 

This is my starter jar

Equipment

• A decent sized jar
• This jar should be glass or ceramic, I prefer glass as I can see inside the jar easily.  It needs a lid, this can be a lid that comes with it, a cheese cloth or even a paper towel held on with a rubber band, just something to keep things from falling in the starter.
• A spoon or whisk
• Many sites recommend a wooden spoon, but really anything to mix the dough in the jar you have chosen will work fine.
• Water
• Distilled is probably better, although filtered tap water is probably just as good, and even straight tap water is fine.
• Flour
• Just about any type of flour is fine.  I used non-bleached all purpose flour. 
• Patience
• I have said it before but this bears repeating, it will take at least 7 days before you can bake your first loaf.

Instructions

• Mix your first batch
• Add 1/2 cup of flour and 1/3 cup of water in the jar and mix thoroughly.
• Feed your batch regularly
• Every 12 hours add another 1/2 cup of flour and 1/3 cup of water and mix well.
• Cover the jar
• The batch needs to breathe to collect all of those good natural yeasts and bacteria, but it does not need to collect flies.  Secure a paper towel or cheese cloth to the top or simply put the lid on slightly askew.
• Maintain a proper amount
• Keep the jar about half full, if after mixing the jar is more than half full remove enough volume to maintain a half full status.  This extra starter should simply be gotten rid of until you have the starter fully stabilized, once it is stabilized you can use this extra starter to bake with, or give to a friend if you do not want to throw it away. 
• Do not get scared about the Hooch
• A brown liquid might form on the top, this is called 'hooch'.  Mixing it back into the starter is perfectly fine.  If this liquid ever turns strange green colors instead of brown the starter has been compromised by harmful bacteria and you should get rid of the starter. 
• Watch for signs of 'Life' 
• For the first few days there will be perhaps a few bubbles but very little will appear to go on.  Around day four or so it should bubble up a little and will then appear to 'die'.  For the next few days feeding it will seem to create no results, but this is part of the process.  Between day 7 and day 10 it will almost magically bounce back into life and will start doubling in size after each feeding (which is why you should keep your jar only half full). 
• Once it has begun doubling in size regularly it is stable and ready to use!

Maintenance

• If you are going to bake pretty regularly with your starter, say at least once a week, you will be best leaving the jar out on the counter and feeding it once a day.  The same 1/2 cup of flour and 1/3 cup of water each day should do it.  Do not fret if you forget for a day or two, just feed it when you remember and make sure it bounces back.
• If you only plan on baking sourdough now and then put the jar in the refrigerator with the lid fully on once it is stable.  The night before you want to bake pull it out, feed it and let it sit on the counter until you bake. 
• Remember to feed it each time you remove some of the starter to bake with as well. 

Notes

• I wrap a rubber band around my jar when I feed it, marking the level of the starter, this way I can be sure it is doubling in size. 
• When I made my starter I did not realize it would 'die' for a few days... I ran out of flour... and got very discouraged... so I stopped feeding it for about two days.  A thick hooch formed on the top and when I finally got around to getting more flour I fed it again with little hope.  The next morning I woke up and found it had bubbled up delightfully and has been going strong since!  They are forgiving cultures!

Once you have a lovely bubbly starter, no matter where it came from, you will be ready to bake, finally!  All this work will be worth it, I promise.  In a few days I will post up the recipe for my bread, so keep watching and good luck getting that starter going!