Sourdough starter fun
Maintain your active starter or start one from scratch.
My sourdough starter is called Walter, after my grandfather, who travelled to England from Prague with very few possessions just before the start of the second world war. He had 3 sons, the middle son being my father. My grandfather built his new life in England from scratch and making a sourdough starter also involves building something special from the most basic of ingredients.
For those of you who have bought one of my sourdough starters, I will describe how to feed and care for your starter so that you can use it for sourdough baking for the rest of your life. You will need to feed your sourdough starter once it arrives in the post from me. For those of you who want to make your own sourdough starter, I will describe that process, too.
Whether you want to make sourdough bread or not, you can still experience the magic of making a sourdough starter. Even if you don’t make bread with it, you can still make delicious pancakes!
What is a sourdough starter?
A sourdough starter is a mixture of flour and water, seeded with sourdough microbial culture from the flour and the air around the starter. The microbes in it will mostly consist of lactic acid bacteria and wild yeasts. The sourdough starter is used as the source of the microbes that enable sourdough baking. It is called “sour” because of the sour taste of the lactic acid produced by the lactic acid bacteria involved in the process. The rise of the bread is largely caused by yeast activity producing carbon dioxide. Whilst a sourdough starter does require care and attention, it is also hardy and robust. If you look after it reasonably well, it will enable you to make good sourdough bread for the rest of your life. You can even gift it to the next generation in your Will!
I used to keep a collection of different sourdough starters. Not any more. I tend to use just one starter, made with 50 % Shipton Mill strong white flour and 50 % Shipton Mill organic wholemeal flour (this is Walter). I will from time to time make a rye starter and I do sometimes see flours that take my fancy and then experiment with those. But for simplicity, I use Walter as the starter for all the sourdough baking I do, whether for rye, wholemeal or white loaves, focaccia, pizza or cinnamon buns, Walter works well.
The activity rate and the microbial profile of your starter will differ depending on the following:
The temperature of your starter. The warmer it is, the faster it will ferment.
The type of flour you use. Rye and wholemeal are more nutrient rich, so they ferment faster than white flour does.
How much water you add compared to the amount of flour. Rye and wholemeal tend to need more water but can take longer to absorb it.
How often you “refresh” your starter – i.e. how often you add more flour and water.
What is the role of your sourdough starter?
Your sourdough starter is your microbial source. I recommend you give yours a name. Mine is called Walter and for this article, let’s assume yours is called Walter too. Every time you bake, it is key to future bakes to feed Walter, to keep it healthy, to expose it to some fresh microbes and then to put it back in the fridge ready for when you need it again. If you don’t feed Walter regularly, the microbes exhaust their food source, yeast levels decline and baking results will be suboptimal. Ideally, you would feed Walter at least once or twice a week, whether you bake or not. Walter is the source of all sourdough microbes for your baking. In addition to feeding Walter regularly, you will make your baking starter from Walter when you actually want to/have time to bake.
Feeding Walter (your microbe source starter)
Ingredients
Walter
Strong white bread flour
Wholemeal flour
Water
Equipment
Weighing scales
500 ml glass Kilner jars, in which to store and feed your starter.
A breathable cloth or kitchen roll
Water, ideally filtered (fluoride and chlorine are not great for microbes).
Flour, you can use white, wholemeal or rye.
Elastic bands
Method
Walter is your microbial source starter that you have bought from me or you already have.
Do this at least once a week, regardless of whether you are baking:
Place a clean 500 ml Kilner jar on a set of scales, tare the scales.
Take 1 tbsp (20 g) of Walter and add it to the Kilner jar (discard the remainder of Walter or use it to make pancakes or sourdough discard crackers).
Add 100 g of body temperature water to the 1 tbsp of Walter.
Add 50 g wholemeal flour.
Add 50 g strong white bread flour.
Mix together well.
Leave the lid open, but place a damp muslin or piece of kitchen roll over the jar and secure it with an elastic band.
Leave at room temperature (approx. 21-23 ºC) for a few hours to encourage microbial activity and seeding with fresh microbes from the air.
Then remove the cloth and elastic band, close the lid and label as your source starter – Walter or a name of your choice. This is your new, freshly fed Walter.
Return to the fridge.
Making your baking starter
When you want to bake, you need to do two things, first take Walter and use it to make your baking starter. Then after you have done that, feed Walter again (see above) so Walter stays in good condition ready for when you want to bake again. To make your baking starter:
Place a clean 500 ml Kilner jar on a set of scales, tare the scales.
Take 1 tbsp (20 g) of Walter and add it to the Kilner jar. Set the rest of Walter aside to feed Walter (as above) ready for next time.
Add 100 g of body temperature water to the 1 tbsp of Walter.
Add 50 g wholemeal flour.
Add 50 g strong white bread flour.
Mix together well.
Put an elastic band round the jar to mark the initial level of the baking starter so you can assess volume increase as the starter ferments.
Leave the lid open but place a damp muslin or piece of kitchen roll over the jar and secure with an elastic band.
Place your baking starter in a warm spot, ideally around 23-24 ºC.
After around 8 hours, the starter will have risen, you will see bubbles in it and it will smell pleasantly acidic.
Take a tbsp of this baking starter and repeat the process, making a second baking starter (i.e feed the microbes again to ensure they are really lively and ready to bake).
When this second baking starter has increased in volume (usually doubled or tripled in volume) is bubbling and smells nicely acidic, it is ready to bake with.
An additional way to test that your baking starter is ready to bake with is to fill a small glass with cold water and gently put a teaspoon of active baking starter into it. If it floats, it is a good indicator (alongside smell, bubbles and increased volume) that it is ready to make levain.
You will then use this second baking starter to make your levain and the levain actually forms part of the ingredients of your loaf.
If your starter is made from different flour combinations, you may want to use those flours to feed your starter. However, starters are not terribly fussy and you can mix and match.
You will soon work out that feeding Walter and making your baking starter results in discarded starter because you use just 1 tbsp normally to seed the next batch. You can compost your discarded starter, but it is more fun to find tasty recipes that involve sourdough discard. tend to make crackers or pancakes.
It is worth noting that neither Walter nor the baking starter actually end up in the loaf you eventually bake. Walter seeds the baking starter and the baking starter seeds the levain and it is the levain that does actually form a part of the loaf ingredients.
Making a starter from SCRATCH
If you fancy experiencing the thrill of making your very own microbial source starter from scratch, you can.
Day 1
Take a 500 ml Kilner and put it on the weighing scales.
Tare the scales and add 100 g of luke warm water.
Add 50 g strong white bread flour and 50 g wholemeal flour and mix well together.
Place a rubber band around the jar to mark the current level of the flour mix.
Do not close the lid, instead cover with a damp muslin or piece of kitchen roll, secured with an elastic band.
Place somewhere warm, ideally around 26 ºC for 24 hours.
Day 2
Take a fresh 500 ml Kilner jar and put it on the weighing scales.
Tare the scales and add 50 g of the day 1 starter mix to the fresh Kilner.
Add 100 g of luke warm water.
Add 50 g strong white bread flour and 50 g wholemeal flour and mix well together.
Place an elastic band around the jar to mark the current level of the flour mix.
Do not close the lid, instead cover with a damp muslin or piece of kitchen roll, secured with an elastic band.
Place somewhere warm, ideally around 26 ºC for 24 hours.
Day 3
By today, you may now start to see signs of fermentation activity; bubbles and a change in the floury aroma to something a little more acidic and tangy. Microbes from the air and from the flour will have started to become active.
Repeat the day 2 process.
Day 4, 5 and 6
Check for signs of fermentation; bubbles and acidic smell and the volume of the starter rising above the original elastic band level.
Repeat the Day 2 process but do so TWICE a day – at the beginning of the day and after 12 hours.
Day 7
Assuming signs of activity, repeat the day 6 protocol but ONLY add 20 g of day 6 starter to the fresh 500 ml Kilner.
Add 100 g luke warm water.
Add 50 g wholemeal and 50 g strong white bread flour and mix well together.
Place an elastic band around the jar to mark the current level of the flour mix.
Do not close the lid, instead cover with a damp muslin or piece of kitchen roll, secured with an elastic band.
Place somewhere warm, ideally around 26 ºC for 12 hours.
You should now have an active starter you can use as your microbial source starter (Walter).
If you have problems getting your starter going, you can substitute a proportion of your flour for rye because rye is very nutrient rich and can help kick start things. Organic flour can have more reliable results than no-organic.
Good reference books
My current favourites are:
The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo
Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson
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Sourdough pancakes
Feeding your microbial source starter and feeding your baking starter all involve some starter wastage. It happily goes into the compost, but you can also make other things with it, such as pancakes:
Break three whole eggs into a large bowl and whisk.
Add 170ml whole milk.
Add 120g recently fed left over sourdough starter.
Add two 2-finger pinches of salt.
Add 100g plain white flour or white bread flour or I use wholemeal bread flour and whisk all together.
Then, melt a big knob of butter in a large frying pan and whisk into the pancake batter. Now, fry the pancakes in the large frying pan, tossing occasionally until they are golden.
Eat!
