Good morning! (New here ...)
Good morning, everybody. I am new here, found the site while looking for more information on sourdough baking. (Background: We live in the US, on a Midwestern farm about an hour from the Great Lakes. We often raised a lot of wheat). For health reasons I'm trying to avoid all processed foods and sugar, which interested me in baking my own bread. I used the King Arthur site to begin sourdough starter with red whole wheat and filtered water back in January. At first it was like milking cows again because I had to do chores, feeding it AM and PM. It seems to be doing OK. I use KAF organic bread flour for baking and still feed Starter whole wheat flour and filtered water. (I'm afraid to give it straight up well water because of iron and limestone in it.).
You've found a great site to learn and share.
We all start baking sourdough for such interesting and different reasons. I wanted to bake bread like how my grandmother must have. She had 12 kids in 18yrs from about 1906-1924. My mom was the youngest so she doesn't remember a lot of the kitchen rhythm from the earlier times but she told of baking days that filled copper washtubs with bread,rolls and kuchens. I tried to imagine how she would have made so much bread for a family of that size. Packaged yeast was expensive so she must have had some version of natural levain. (sourdough) and baked often enough that she probably never discarded and fed, she just used the culture, mixed a basic dough and kept some back for the next bake.
I've learned a lot here about sourdough and also whole wheat baking. Share some bakes and recipes and don't be afraid to ask any questions.