Sourdough Bread - A new start!

One of my favorite breads to make is Sourdough Bread. I love sourdough bread for the taste and texture. Some time back I showed you how I made my Sourdough bread.

I've decided to restart a new sourdough starter this week. The last starter I had fizzled out after a few months for some reason. I will blame it on the Oklahoma humidity, and not on my lack of culinary skills.

When you have a sourdough starter, you have a pet of sorts. It is really fun to watch the sourdough starter begin from simple rye flour and transform into a bubbly mixture. To me its a calmer form of a pet that does tricks.

The recipe I use is from "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. It is also the same Recipe in Above Rubies Magazine Issue #76, by Serene Allison.

All Sourdough Starters are started basically the same way.

First you sterilize a jar or a bowl. I bring water to a boil in a tea kettle, and then pour some into the bowl or jar and let the steam sterilize the inside. Let it cool to the touch and pour out the water.

In your bowl or jar, add:
1 cup flour
1 cup of filtered water

Rye flour is the best flour to make your starter with. Cover with a double layer of cheesecloth, or another breathable cloth.

In my last post I told you to use Honey, but I have since learned honey is not necessary, and it can actually lead to the failure of your starter.

Every day for 6 more days, sterilize a new jar or container. Pour your starter into the new container, and add 1 cup flour and 1 cup water. The changing of the containers helps to ensure you are letting the starter catch the wild yeasts in the air, and it discourages bad bacteria.

As the days go on, you will need a larger container. I use 1 gallon plastic pitchers, or 1 gallon glass pickle jars. Do not use a metal container, because the metal will kill your yeast.

After a few days you should see your starter begin to bubble, and it might have a slight alcohol smell. At the end of the 7 days, it will be really nice and spongy, and have a sweet/sour smell.

Use your starter to make sourdough bread (see the recipe and link to the video by Serene on the original post), but leave 1-2 cups in reserve to continue growing starter.

Feed your starter 1 cup flour and 1 cup water every day, stirring it around. Give it a new home once a week by switching it to a clean container. And keep covered with cheesecloth or another material.

Here is what my new starter looks like after only 2 days.


Isn't it pretty?

Baking Sourdough Bread.

I like baking bread. There's just something about kneading the dough, letting it rise, and then smelling that goodness wafe out of the oven. On a cold day, it really brings a warm and cozy feeling to the home when the scent of baking bread drifts through the house. Plus there's the bonus of relieving stress and toning your arms when kneading the dough!

I normally make a wheat flour yeast bread. But I've been reading alot about the benefits of Sourdough, and wanted to make some again. I made Sourdough starter and successfully made a few batches of bread last year, but then somehow killed my starter and never made another (I think I fed it too much flour, and too little water one day).

I wanted to try my hand at it again, and this time keep the starter going.

The recipe I used is from Above Rubies issue 76. It is from the kitchen of Serene Allison, and has been used by her family with great results. I do not lay claim to this recipe at all, but I just wanted to show you how I did it, and how easy it is to make a few good loaves of healthy Sourdough Bread.

To see Serene make this recipe in her kitchen, you can go the the Above Rubies YouTube page, or you can look up the recipe in the Above Rubies magazine archive.

I made the starter with:

1 cup Rye Flour
1 cup filtered water
1 tspn honey
Mixed all together in a glass jar that was sterilized. I sterilized it by pouring boiling water from my teapot into it and swishing it around, emptied the water, and let it cool.
Covered with a cheesecloth secured with a rubber band, and set on top of the fridge.

Day 2-6
Each day I sterilized a gallon beverage pitcher, with boiling water, let cool. Poured the starter into the clean container, and mixed in 1 cup Rye Flour and 1 cup water. I noticed that the starter would be pretty thick in the mornings, and since the rye flour does seem to absorb liquid more than wheat, I added a little over a cup of water each day. Probably closer to 1 1/4 cup water. Recovered with a cheesecloth and rubber band, and returned it to the top of the fridge to just let it do it's thing.

Day 4 this is what my starter looked like.

By day 7 I had about 3 quarts of starter, that had a fresh sour smell, and was nice and bubbly throughout.

Thursday night was mixing night. To prepare I dressed in my most comfy socks and donned my favourite apron.



I believe the success of the bread depends on how cozy your feet are when kneading the bread. No matter who you are, you need good comfy socks to make great bread. At least in my kitchen.

Next I greased 5 bread pans with Coconut oil


This recipe makes a larger batch, so you'll need a big bowl to mix it in. I use my dishpan. Scrub it out with hot soapy water, let air dry, and it's good to go.

In the dish pan I measured in 8 cups of my starter, not perfect cups so it could be a little more than 8 cups.



To that I added 1 handful of coarse sea salt, approx 2 1/2 - 3 Tblspns worth of coarse Sea Salt. Then added 6 cups Spelt flour, 2 cups wheat flour, and approx 6 1/2 cups Stoneground Rye flour. With a wooden or sturdy plastic spoon, mix it in till it's a really thick glob.



It almost looks like damp sand that's stuck together.
Then the fun part came. :) I filled a 2 quart jar with filtered water to the 7 cup line. I started by adding 5 cups of water, mixing it in with my hands. You could try mixing it with a spoon, but it's really thick and you would need a really sturdy spoon or utensil. I mixed a little, added a little water, and mixed some more, added a little more, and mixed some more till it was a good consistency. This is not a typical dough that is kneaded on a counter top. It's like a really thick cake batter, and it almost feels like kneading glue that's just starting to harden. This starts out kind of thin, but thickens when the gluten starts to come together. After kneading about five minutes the consistency felt just about right. It was still pretty gooey, but holding together and becoming elastic.



I would of gotten an action pic of my hands in the midst of the goo, but it's hard to hold the phone with dough covered hands.

I then dipped the dough into the waiting bread pans. I used Serene's suggestion by using a table or cereal bowl to use to dip the dough. (Wet the bowl, scoop up some dough, and the dough should flop right out into the pan.) The bread pans are just over 1/2 - 3/4 full.

Cover filled bread pans with a cheesecloth or towel to discourage any little critters from becoming extra protein in your bread.

The pans are sitting on the counter, rising till morning. I'll pop them in to bake (350 deg F for about 1 hour) when I wake up, and the smell of fresh bread should be welcoming my 3 little chicklets when they stumble out of bed.

I'm not left with much of an aftermath to clean up. With my normal yeast bread I have to scrape and wipe down the counter top where I kneaded the bread, plus wash the mixing bowl, the rising bowl, the spoons, etc. Tonight all I have is the dishpan to re wash, and a few measuring cups, a few spoons, and my big jar. Less than a full sink full of dishes and no flour on my counter! Sounds like a winner to me!



The remaining starer, I fed again
1 cup Rye flour
1 cup approx filtered water.

This is what it looks like after being used and fed again.

By continuing to feed it everyday, I should have enough starter to make another batch within a week. With this making 5 generous loaves, this should be enough bread to last my family till the next batch comes out of the oven.