Sourdough Starter

[SCEtoAUX]

Made me some sourdough starter a few weeks ago. Used some whole wheat and rye flour that has been in my freezer for years. I did not think it would actually work since most references advised using fresher flour but decided to give it a try.

I combined some of the two flours together then let the flours warm to room temp. Used equal amounts by weight of the flour and dechlorinated tap water that was warmed to around 110°F/43°C and mixed them together in a quart canning jar, covered the mouth of the jar with some cheese cloth and waited. Each day for five days I would remove about half of the mixture in the jar and feed it with more warm water and flour. At the end of the five days had some good sourdough starter.

All that was used was flour, water, and natural yeast from the environment.

The tap water was dechlorinated by boiling for 20 minutes. The boiling reduces the volume by half so that needs to be in the planning. I boiled enough to fill a storage jar so it will be on hand as needed.

I have already made some bread and dinner rolls using the starter. Ingredients for the bread: unbleached general purpose flour, sourdough starter, water, salt. Just those four ingredients.
The dough for the dinner rolls had some unsalted butter and brown sugar added. Gonna leave out the brown sugar next time I make the dinner rolls.

[Don Boose]

Sounds delicious, Doug; but to get the authentic flavor you have to put the starter in a wooden bucket and hang it underneath a Conestoga wagon for a couple of months. A Studebaker wagon will also work, and will provide a subtly different flavor.

Eamus Phillies! Et perditi existimamur.

Don

[SCEtoAUX]

Don, yep that sounds more authentic. Those oxen an mules would add to the flavor too.

Them catuli are hanging in there.

[Gil]

Doug,

Now you're stuck. You'll have to keep on making it to supply the demand. Suggest you tune into the best site for people that like to bake bread:

The Fresh Loaf | News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts

Below is a recent bake back in March of 2013 - just a plain Pain au Levain:



Amazing how good plain unsalted butter tastes on real bread...,

-Gil

[SCEtoAUX]

Yep, plain unsalted butter on some fresh baked sourdough bread. No preservatives, no ingredients you can't pronounce. Good eatin'.

Thanks for the link to The Fresh Loaf site. Looks like some interesting information.

[Texman]

The fresh loaf. One of my go to's for sure.

Also, anything by Peter Reinhart is great!. I
have several of his books. They are tomes in
my kitchen

[Papierschnitzel]

Originally Posted by Don Boose

Sounds delicious, Doug; but to get the authentic flavor you have to put the starter in a wooden bucket and hang it underneath a Conestoga wagon for a couple of months. A Studebaker wagon will also work, and will provide a subtly different flavor.

Eamus Phillies! Et perditi existimamur.

Don

LOL

I love baking my own bread. During summer I kind of forgot as I eat more fruit and veggies in the heat but now I need to bake a new batch again. Got all hungry reading this!

[PICARDIE]

It's funny that, beside paper modelling, we can share also common other hobbies. As you, I am an amateur cake maker and baker. My bread is made using sour dough and only it. It was a long way before getting acceptable results, but in the end this is what I get now, very crusty bread.
Cheers.

[JohnGay]

I played with sourdough many years ago. And restarted last year but only made a few batches that time.
My go-to source of everything to know about sourdough was:
https://www.sourdoughhome.com/
He just seemed very down-to-earth and straight forward. Though to be honest, I mostly just make the Kaiser rolls for sandwich buns.

[Papierschnitzel]

Originally Posted by PICARDIE

It's funny that, beside paper modelling, we can share also common other hobbies. ...

I guess we love to craft things!