Making your own wild sourdough bread starter is pretty simple. With a little bit of patience and vigilance, you and your family will soon be enjoying the best sourdough breads and other amazing treats. Here are the steps for putting it all together...
Local Gravenstein apples are perfect for making a sourdough starter! Any apple or pear variety will do, just be sure that the fruit is organic.
Place the fruit peels in a large clean jar...
Cover the peels with clean, filtered water. Add 2 tablespoons of organic flour and stir gently...
Seal the jar with cheesecloth to allow ventilation, and write the date...
The jar on the right is a starter culture that began a bit earlier than the one on the left. You can see how it will break down over time. I forgot to write the date on the culture on the right, but it is roughly a month older.
TIPS:
Place your starter mixture on the kitchen counter. After a couple of days, things will start to break down and ferment. Check the starter every few days. Add a bit more flour and clean filtered water to maintain the volume and keep things from getting too dry or thick.
After a few weeks on the kitchen counter, your starter will begin to acquire that familiar fermented sourdough aroma. This aroma only gets better as your starter ages. At this point it is okay to place your starter in the refrigerator. This slows down the ferment, but does not seem to hurt anything.
Be sure to routinely feed and water your starter with a couple of tablespoons of flour and enough filtered water about once per week to maintain a consistent volume in your container.
I usually use about 1/2 cup of starter for each bread recipe.
Enjoy :)
TIPS:
Place your starter mixture on the kitchen counter. After a couple of days, things will start to break down and ferment. Check the starter every few days. Add a bit more flour and clean filtered water to maintain the volume and keep things from getting too dry or thick.
After a few weeks on the kitchen counter, your starter will begin to acquire that familiar fermented sourdough aroma. This aroma only gets better as your starter ages. At this point it is okay to place your starter in the refrigerator. This slows down the ferment, but does not seem to hurt anything.
Be sure to routinely feed and water your starter with a couple of tablespoons of flour and enough filtered water about once per week to maintain a consistent volume in your container.
I usually use about 1/2 cup of starter for each bread recipe.
Enjoy :)
RSS Feed