Sourdough starter....can you get me started?

[Ottakee]

I am looking to start a sourdough starter and then bake some bread and buns, etc with it.

What are the best, easiest recipes, websites, tips, etc?

[Tanaqui]

For the starter itself? Many people find a mixed flour base the best - some whole wheat and perhaps some rye or rice flour to start. Then, as your starter is established, you can choose to switch to primary all purpose with a little whole wheat instead.

[Innisfree]

I followed King Arthur Flour's instructions on their blog. 

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2012/04/05/creating-your-own-sourdough-starter-the-path-to-great-bread

Once the starter was ready, we found we like their Naturally Leavened Sourdough Bread:

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/naturally-leavened-sourdough-bread-recipe

I've used various proportions of white and whole wheat flour, and it's always been good.

For sourdough inspiration and fun, I highly recommend Seamus Blackley's Twitter threads on collecting and using ancient (Egyptian!) and wild yeast.

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/ywam9w/xbox-co-creator-says-bread-he-baked-from-4500-year-old-yeast-is-delicious?__twitter_impression=true

 

[Pawz4me]

I started mine following the King Arthur directions.

If you want a super super easy, no knead sandwich type loaf you want this --

Easy everyday sourdough bread

Truly the easiest bread ever. And SO good!

I bake it in this pan, use this slicing guide and this bread knife.

[Carol in Cal.]

I grew up on San Francisco sourdough, so my standards are very high.

I successfully made a credible SF starter and fantastic sourdough rounds last year by using the Kitchn recipe more or less:  
https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-sourdough-bread-224367

I found that the starter was more difficult than they said.  It took longer to see that something was actually happening.  

The differences between what they did and what I did were:
1.  I used water that had previously been boiled (in the tea kettle) and then cooled off, to eliminate chlorine.  I think that this makes a better environment for the bacteria you want.
2.  After an attempt at making the sour that I gave up on (probably it was fine and I gave up too soon), and a second one that I got too hot by trying to rush it in the oven, the third one was the charm.  I put some raisins in the bottom of a coffee cup, covered them with boiling water, and let that sit until it was just lukewarm.  Then I used that water for the initial starter mixture.  I did this because grapes have a 'bloom' on their outer skins that has good bacteria for sourdough, and I thought I would get some of that into the mix this way.  Whether I did or not I'm not sure.  That particular attempt worked a lot faster than the others, but maybe the water dissolved some sugar from the raisins as well, which would also tend to speed things up.

For the bread, wow.  So forgiving.  The main thing for flavor development was long, slow rises in a cool place.  Also, I was unsuccessful with any whole grain flour in the mix.  (I'd like to try white whole wheat sometime, which might taste better.)  The other main thing was using a covered Dutch oven for baking, and preheating it thoroughly.  I'd get it up to 500 and then take it out, plop the bread dough into it, cover it again (with the hot cover) and put it back in the oven like that.  This gave me beautiful oven spring and that hefty, crunchy crust you want.

I found that storing the dough in the fridge was not an effective way to save it.  It would just keep growing in there.  But freezing it once fully developed worked really well.  I would thaw it in the fridge for day or so, and then do the rounding/rising process as usual, and then bake it, and it was indistinguishable from fresh.  This was great for me because the recipe makes two loaves and this way I could bake one and freeze one for later.  Frozen dough thawed and baked tastes a lot fresher that frozen bread thawed and warmed.

HTH

Edited August 6, 2021 by Carol in Cal.

[Pawz4me]

4 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

1.  I used water that had previously been boiled (in the tea kettle) and then cooled off, to eliminated chlorine.  I think that this makes a better environment for the bacteria you want.

I can't say for sure that water (or lack of chlorine or whatever) matters, but I do use Dasani bottled water for my sourdough starter and for baking.

[Carol in Cal.]

3 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

I can't say for sure that water (or lack of chlorine or whatever) matters, but I do use Dasani bottled water for my sourdough starter and for baking.

Well, the reason chlorine is added is to prevent bacteria from being able to live in drinking water, so it's just good sense to get rid of it.  Just like for fish tanks.

Also, this was mentioned in the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book as necessary to make a desem starter, something I have never attempted but the lessons for which I took to heart.  (I have always wanted to try a desem starter.  If we have another SIP I probably will.  It's a lengthy, finicky process.)

I started this out of necessity since you couldn't find yeast in the grocery stores locally for quite a while.  I got panicky that I would run out and that I might be forced into making shopping trips just for bread.  Neither of those things happened before the yeast was back, albeit in one pound packages, but wow did we enjoy that sourdough.  

[Tanaqui]

If for some reason you don't want to boil your water in advance you can also eliminate the chlorine in water, if any, by letting it stand overnight in the fridge or on the counter.

[Danae]

4 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Well, the reason chlorine is added is to prevent bacteria from being able to live in drinking water, so it's just good sense to get rid of it.  Just like for fish tanks.

Also, this was mentioned in the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book as necessary to make a desem starter, something I have never attempted but the lessons for which I took to heart.  (I have always wanted to try a desem starter.  If we have another SIP I probably will.  It's a lengthy, finicky process.)

I started this out of necessity since you couldn't find yeast in the grocery stores locally for quite a while.  I got panicky that I would run out and that I might be forced into making shopping trips just for bread.  Neither of those things happened before the yeast was back, albeit in one pound packages, but wow did we enjoy that sourdough.  

I had a desem starter following Laurel’s instructions for years.  It made incredibly tasty bread.  

[Pawz4me]

1 hour ago, Tanaqui said:

If for some reason you don't want to boil your water in advance you can also eliminate the chlorine in water, if any, by letting it stand overnight in the fridge or on the counter.

Some water systems apparently use chloramine now instead of chlorine, and it doesn't dissipate. I have no idea if boiling gets rid of it. I only know about it because I did a tiny bit of research a few years ago on water for houseplants. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I use reverse osmosis water in my sourdough. I do refrigerate my starter as I don’t want to make bread or discard daily. I do recommend not refrigerating your starter for the first couple of months. Like any living thing, it will grow and mature a bit with time.

[VickiMNE]

I took on this wild sourdough challenge at the start of the pandemic.  The challenge is a grad school project of the Applied Ecology Department at NC State, so I participated because they wanted successes as well as failures  Since I had always failed at previous attempts, I knew that this failure, at least, would be for a good cause. 🙂

I'm happy to report my starter is still going strong 18 months later despite appearing to be a failure.  How so?  Well, after the requisite 10 days or so, my baby starter wasn't spoiled but neither was it doing anything.   With nothing to lose and for the sake of acquiring data, I kept feeding it and recording results, when lo and behold, 20 days after beginning, my starter took off.  Why did it take so long?  I suspect it is because we have a cooler house which doubled the time necessary for the the yeast beasts to flourish.

So, Tip 1: don't give up too quickly!

and Tip 2:  Acquire Starter discard recipes!  I have several recipes that use discard:  sourdough crackers,  sourdough granola, and sourdough biscuits that I use regularly plus a few others like pancakes (both sweet and savory) and coffeecake.

Best wishes for good success!

 

[Ottakee]

1 hour ago, VickiMNE said:

I took on this wild sourdough challenge at the start of the pandemic.  The challenge is a grad school project of the Applied Ecology Department at NC State, so I participated because they wanted successes as well as failures  Since I had always failed at previous attempts, I knew that this failure, at least, would be for a good cause. 🙂

I'm happy to report my starter is still going strong 18 months later despite appearing to be a failure.  How so?  Well, after the requisite 10 days or so, my baby starter wasn't spoiled but neither was it doing anything.   With nothing to lose and for the sake of acquiring data, I kept feeding it and recording results, when lo and behold, 20 days after beginning, my starter took off.  Why did it take so long?  I suspect it is because we have a cooler house which doubled the time necessary for the the yeast beasts to flourish.

So, Tip 1: don't give up too quickly!

and Tip 2:  Acquire Starter discard recipes!  I have several recipes that use discard:  sourdough crackers,  sourdough granola, and sourdough biscuits that I use regularly plus a few others like pancakes (both sweet and savory) and coffeecake.

Best wishes for good success!

 

Could you link a few of your favorite recipes?  

[Pawz4me]

4 hours ago, VickiMNE said:

I took on this wild sourdough challenge at the start of the pandemic.  The challenge is a grad school project of the Applied Ecology Department at NC State, so I participated because they wanted successes as well as failures  Since I had always failed at previous attempts, I knew that this failure, at least, would be for a good cause. 🙂

 

 

That's a fabulous source! I'm still looking through it, but I saw this about water with chlorine/chloramine in their FAQ.

Quote

Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, chlorine will evaporate, but chloramine will not. We have gone ahead and added an additional question to the data entry so that folks can enter a little more information about their water source. It will not necessarily get at the choloramine issue, but will help us tease apart the results. If you DO know that your city treats your water with chloramine, id recommend using bottle or filtered water instead. You can certainly boil your water, if you like. Just make sure to let it cool before using it

 

[VickiMNE]

4 hours ago, Ottakee said:

Could you link a few of your favorite recipes?  

Indeed I can!  And, most of these links will take to you a site with even MORE recipes to explore.  In order of how I often I make them:

Sourdough Crackers  I make these with EVOO, not butter, and prefer them that way.  I top with sesame seeds and a bit of coarse salt.  I'll occasionally use some other seasonings, but this is my tried and true because it goes so well with everything:  cheese, meats, hummus, as a pita chip sub.  These are often requested by friends....

Sourdough Granola  I do NOT let the starter sit after mixing.  I have a scale and dump everything in, one at a time.  I've adapted it to our tastes--bigger to fill out my baking tray--no honey or syrup--more seeds and nuts--a bit of almond extract.  I bake at 300F for thirty minutes, flip sections over with a pancake turner, bake another 30 minutes, stir up to make chunks, lower the oven to 275 and bake until done.  My husband like big granola chunks because he snacks on them like a granola bar; we break them up to actually eat as granola!  I make this weekly....

Savory Pancakes:  I got this off the FB group when I first started (the one sponsored by the Applied Ecology Department mentioned in my PP).  As you can see, this is infinitely adaptable.  

Quote

 

One of my favorite ways for using up excess or discarded starter is vegetable pancakes, an idea from fermentation guru Sandor Katz's book Wild Fermentation. It's a loose concept more than a recipe.... put starter in a bowl, add grated vegetables and/or leftover grains like oatmeal or polenta, maybe some cheese, basically whatever you have-- and an egg & some salt and pepper. Add water if too thick, some flour if too wet. Fry 'em up & call it dinner!

Here are mine from last night, with zucchini, carrot and cilantro. Served with kimchi and sriracha yogurt, very yum.

 

 

European Style Pancakes (akin to crepes):  My first success with crepes!  I think the sourdough discard gives them a bit of extra strength. 🙂

Coffee cake

Tortillas -- this was especially nice to have when everything here was totally locked down.....

Have fun!  Sourdough starter is wonderfully resilient and a good (and tasty!) way to play in the kitchen. 😉

 

[Ottakee]

Ok....my friend said she can give me some starter she has had going for 1 1)2 years....but that will be 2-3 weeks out.   Should I do that or just start my own?

[VickiMNE]

1 hour ago, Ottakee said:

Ok....my friend said she can give me some starter she has had going for 1 1)2 years....but that will be 2-3 weeks out.   Should I do that or just start my own?

Do you want to baby a new one along?  Try it for the fun of saying "I did it!"  or are you mainly interested in the results--sourdough bread and all the other goodies? 

I was able to baby mine along because...lockdown at the time.  I had the time to pay attention to it....  So, I'd let that be the driving factor.  Your water and flour and method will soon morph "her" starter into "your" starter, anyway, so by no means feel that beginning with a thriving starter is somehow less--it is not!

OTH, since her starter is 3 weeks out, if you are up to it, you can begin (if you have time and brain bandwidth) and see how far you get! 🙂  One doesn't preclude the other.....