Sourdough Seed Culture
A bit of background about me, I quite new to bread baking having only really starting this year and having some success following the methods of Peter Reinhart in Artisan Breads Everyday for commercial yeasted breads. I decided that I would like to try sourdough and if I was going to do that I would also try my hand at making a sourdough starter.
My first attempt didn’t seem to work out, I followed Peter Reinhart’s instructions from Artisan Breads Everyday, but after several days and little apparent activity I gave up and started again.
My second attempt I followed Peter Reinhart’s instructions for a seed culture again and things were going fairly well, however, the phase 4 seed culture seemed to have only a bit of vigor. After two days in phase 4, I decided to discard all but 100 grams of the seed culture, which had a very pleasant acidic smell and then added 100 g of water and 100 g of unbleached bread flour. I am hopeful that this will become more vigorous with regular 1:1:1 feedings. I should say, I didn’t really know any better and started this with all purpose whole wheat flour that wasn’t organic. I will keep this one fed and going and see what happens.
Now my third attempt, but this time with Sourdo Lady’s instructions found on this site. I found some organic sprouted rye flour at Whole Foods and decided I’d use this flour to make a seed culture. Hopefully third time’s a charm.
I will try to update with photos in the next days of my adventure.
Comments
The new rye seed culture is moving along nicely. At less than 24 hours is it already full of activity. I'll wait until I get home from work to proceed with another feeding of rye flour and pineapple juice.
Day 3 of the rye flour seed culture. The activity of the seed culture is so much more vigorous than the ones I tried to make with whole wheat flour.
This was the seed culture just before I did the day 3 feeding of 2 tbsp rye flour and 2 tbsp pineapple juice. It seems to have lots of activity.
My whole wheat seed culture which I’ve now converted to white bread flour is at 8 days. After two days of removing all but 100 g of culture and feeding with 100 g each of white flour and
water, there is little rise but decent amount of bubbles on the surface.
I’ve now changed my strategy, I’m now going to discard 80% of the culture and feed with equal parts water and white flour at the same weight as the 20% culture. I’m going to do this in
the hopes of getting this more active. Not sure if this is a good or bad idea but I’m willing to try different things.
The starter which began life as a whole wheat starter is on day 9 now 16 hrs after a 1:2:2 feeding is suddenly quite active. I have no idea why it is suddenly active but it has more than doubled in volume 16 hrs after the feeding. It hasn’t shown any signs today yet of decrease in volume. I’m not sure if I should continue the feedings at a 1:2:2 ratio or if I should toss out 80% of the starter and feed with the equivalent amount yet? Any opinions? I’m just so excited by the activity.
My rye starter which I fed yesterday approximately a 1:1:1 ratio using rye flour is still having a bit of an inactive period. 16 hrs after feeding there is much less activity than before. I’m thinking that I’ll start feeding it with white flour today on day 5.
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This is the starter now at 20 hours after last feed and it has started to fall. I guess that means it has run out of food.
I decided to discard 90% and then feed it 1:4:4 with the same white bread flour. Hopefully it will have enough food to go a good 24 hrs.
It is nice to finally have some activity.
The rye starter has also started to pick up and not yet falling, so I’ll wait a full 24 hours before feeding it again.
Rye starter now at beginning of day 5. I’d say about 60% rise.
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I discarded 80% and fed it 1:2:2 with white bread flour and water.
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This is the original whole wheat starter 6 hours after a discarding 90% and feeding 1:4:4 with white bread flour. It had a really nice yeasty smell and mild acidity at this time. I think this was day 10.
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This was originally started with rye and on day 5 I discarded 80% and fed it with white flour 1:2:2. About 19 hours later it had tripled in size. I think that rye is a much better flour to get a sourdough starter going with. It gets going so much sooner.
My starter on day 5 actually passed the float test. I’ve decided to try using it to make some bread, wish me luck. I’m probably using it far before its time.
Yesterday after feeding both starters 1:4:4 and waiting for both to rise and just begin to fall I decided to keep only 40 g of each and feed both 1:2:2 and put them into the refrigerator.
The first loaf I baked with the young starter actually showed it could bake. However, I didn’t plan well enough and had plans that interfered with both the planned stretch and folds and bulk fermentation. Poor excuses I know, but I baked a loaf of ugly looking sourdough, but the crumb was nice and open, somewhat and it tasted fine. I have skills to work on but that was the idea when I started working on sourdough.
Decided to bake with my older starter this weekend.
I followed the beginner’s sourdough recipe on the Perfect Loaf website.
Having the time to plan ahead this time I think I did pretty well for my first attempt using my own starter. I know there are things that could be improved including better slashing and brushing the excess flour off the dough before baking, but I’m proud of how this turned out.
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Happy Birthday (more or less) to John Dough. I am using this date as the first birthday of my starter that was born about a year ago that I have been baking with, the one that was started from rye flour that is now fed with red fife and lives in my fridge. I’ve only just now named him John Dough.