Baking Basics: How to Make Sourdough Starter

 Sourdough starter is one of the things that I find the most magical of all things baking-related. You take water and flour and time and poof, you have a whole bacterial colony. How cool is that?


 In case you were not aware, sourdough bread does not use commercial yeast. Yeast is a fungus that is sold in a dormant form. After activation, yeast "wakes up" and begins eating the food given to it and creates air as a biproduct. This air is what makes bread light and fluffy. Without yeast, bread is very heavy and not very nice to eat.

What do you do without yeast, though? What if you don't have yeast around? Well, you can create your own colony of good bacteria that has a very similar effect. This is called a sourdough starter.

In case you didn't know, bacteria is everywhere around us. On the surface of your skin, inside your body, on the surface of every table or countertop. Usually, there isn't enough there to bother us. Our body can keep them at bay to the point that they don't grow to the point of building a colony. 

A sourdough starter is exactly the opposite. We are creating an environment favorable to the bacteria. This environment causes bacteria to flock to it and multiply like there's no tomorrow. In order to keep the environment perfect for the bacteria, they need to be continually fed and kept at a good temperature.

Step one: To create the first step of a sourdough starter, Add a cup (125g) of flour to half a cup (125g) water. So, the weight should be the same of the two ingredients. Just mix the flour and water together. For the first step, it tends to work best if the flour you use is whole wheat. The mixture should have the thickness of peanut butter. Now place it in a clean and dry container, covered, and place it in a warm place for a whole day. When I say covered, I mean with a lid. Don't just place a towel over it and call it good because that could dry out your mixture. I used a repurposed yogurt container. But jars work quite well. 

Step two: This should happen 24 hours after step one. Remove most of the initial starter from step one. Leave about half a cup (150g) behind in the container. Add one cup (125g) of flour and half a cup (125g) water. Mix it together. Replace the lid and allow to sit in a warm place for another 24 hours.


Repeat step two until 7 days have passed. By the 7th day your starter will be usable and/or storable. If you want to store it, you can place it in the fridge after feeding it. It can stay now without feeding for 7 days. However, it has to be fed every 7 days. Fridge temperatures will put your starter into a semidormant stage, but it is still slightly active. If you don't feed it regularly, it will die.

Watch us make this sourdough starter on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/Mla066b7440
Schaut zu wie wir dieses Sauerteig Starter auf YouTube machen hier: https://youtu.be/CjgdyM__MJU

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