Sourdough Starter
Sourdough Starter
Sourdough starter is a very old technique to keep ready to use dough, breads and pancakes come to mind. The starter improves with age, the longer you keep it, the better the flavor will improve. I remember my Mom had starter in the fridge for years, and I remember the bread she made from it, delicious! Think of starter as a pet you keep in the fridge as this does require care, there is a few rules to follow as well. Now for folks in the far north, this will be straight forward to make in the cooler months you have up there, for everyone else, you may need to use an air conditioned room to get the starter going, meaning to ferment. The basic rule I have seen is you need a place that is lower than 31 C (88 F), anything over that temp and the starter may fail to ferment. Yeast is used to kick start this initially, naturally occurring yeast will do the rest, it just needs to have flour and water on a regular basis.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups luke warm water
- 1 packet active dry yeast, OR use 1 teaspoon of instant yeast
Instructions
- In a large glass or plastic bowl, mix together the yeast, flour, and water, cover with a towel and leave at room temperature to ferment for 4 to 8 days. Each day, you are going to FEED it, add a 1/4 cup of flour and a 1/4 cup of water, mix that in. If your bowl is not that large, set it on a cookie sheet in case the dough over flows the bowl.
- Once it is bubbly and has a pleasant sour smell, it is ready to use, or to refrigerate for use later. Once your starter is made, it will live primarily in the fridge but needs some feeding, you can do this once a week. Feeding is just that, first you remove 1/4 cup of starter and discard or use, THEN you are going to add just a little bit to the mixture to keep the fermentation active. For feeding, if you removed 1/4 cup, then add 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water to the mix, stir that in and let it sit at room temp for a few hours, then you can return it to the fridge. A liquid will appear, it is alcohol, just stir that back into the mix. Only need to feed it once a week.
- When you use starter to bake, always replace with equal amounts of a flour and water mixture. So, if you remove 1 cup starter, replace with 1 cup water and 1 cup flour. Mix well and leave out on the counter at room temp until bubbly again, then refrigerate. Most recipes will state if the starter has to be room temp or from the fridge, if room temp, then take out the starter the night before and just let it set on your counter over night.
- IMPORTANT: when you make the starter initially, or anytime after that, if the mixture discolors to pink or orange, or any odd color, discard the mixture.
Notes
Used in Recipes Listed on this Site:
- Sourdough Bread.
- Sourdough Sandwich Rolls (Bread Machine), made it, GO-TO recipe.
- Sourdough Pancakes.
The photo was taken on day 3 after making this. Pleasant smell, lots of bubbles, ready for the fridge now.