Starting Sourdough!

I am so excited to start sourdough again. It has been many years since I let my sourdough starter die. I am looking forward to using a starter for bread baking again! It is so much fun!

For anyone who is curious about how to start a sourdough starter, this is the method I used.

Equal parts of flour and water are mixed together. It is important to use water the doesn't have any chlorine in it.

I am going to find some rye flour to feed the starter. In the past I have always been much happier with the activity and flavor from a rye flour starter. I looked for rye flour when I was out shopping at Walmart, but they don't carry rye flour at my Walmart. Isn't that just like Walmart? Their selection is so poor.

It the mean time I am using whole wheat flour.

Leave the mixture at room temperature with a permeable lid like a coffee filter or cheese cloth.

Everyday the equal parts flour and water have to be equivalent to the aged flour and water mixture.

Example: The aged flour and water mixture is equal to a 1/4 cup. Add a 1/4 cup flour and a 1/4 cup water. 

Everyday the mixture will double in size. I started with only 1 tsp. of flour and water so that my mixture wouldn't get out of had too quickly, doubling every day.

When my mixture reached 1 cup in volume I dumped out 3/4 of it to reduce the size. I had to do this about every other day. I did not throw this discarded portion away. I mixed it into pancake batter or bread dough.

This mark shows the starter right after feeding.

After two weeks of feeding I was begining to see a good amount of activity in my starter. You can see by the marks on the jar how much it rose after 8 hours and then 10 hours. The peak rise happened at 10 hours and then it began to deflate.

This mark shows how much it grew in 8 hours.

I am pretty excited with this amount of growth. I have been using my starter to make my Multi grain Sourdough bread and it rises superbly! I am so happy with my starter. Everyone in my family likes this bread. It makes good sandwiches; peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, and lunch meat. The sour flavor is not over powering with this recipe.

My starter peaked at 10 hours.
 It nearly doubled in size from the wild yeast!

I have enjoyed the process of starting a sourdough starter from scratch. It took about 3 weeks for my starter to fully develop enough yeast to rise bread really well. If you've ever wanted to try doing this yourself I hope I have encouraged you to go ahead and try! It is not anything to be intimidated by and it can be a lot of fun!