Sour Dough Starter...

[heliman]

Just found this recipe for sourdough starter..

Quick question what is the best "whole grain flour" to use here in Oz, and where can you you get it?? Is it available at the supermarket??

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Procedure for Making Sourdough Starter

Day 1: mix...
2 T. whole grain flour (rye and/or wheat)
2 T. unsweetened pineapple juice or orange juice
Cover and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.

Day 2: add...
2 T. whole grain flour
2 T. juice
Stir well, cover and let sit at room temperature 24 hours. At day 2 you may (or may not) start to see some small bubbles.

Day 3: add...
2 T. whole grain flour
2 T. juice
Stir well, cover and let sit at room temperature 24 hours.

[delicioso]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

Maybe I have just been lucky. I simply mix equal amounts of bottled water and white flour in a glass jar, cover it with a cheese cloth, and leave it in a warm spot in the kitchen. I usually end up with nice bubbly, foamy starter within 24 hours. It does take about 4-5 days of feeding to reach the full flavor we like at our house.

I usually keep it in the fridge and feed once a week, but we don't bake often enough and forget to feed for a few weeks. I just toss the old one out and start a new one from scratch. It seems to work without fail. Maybe we have a lot of wild yeast in the air in our kitchen. Maybe it is just dumb luck. But it works.

I have played with changing the flour types. The flavor doesn't seem to change.

[dmun]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

2 T. unsweetened pineapple juice or orange juice

We had a discussion here a couple of years back about propagating commercial yeast.
Someone showed a process used by the beer/wine making folks where you would put a little of the yeast you wanted to grow in a jar with orange juice, and a vapor lock on top, and put it in the fridge. The idea was that the yeast would grow until they had consumed the sugar, and then the acidity of the juice (and the cold) would stabilize the yeast until you wanted to use it.

Needless to say, I can't find the thread, but there's precedent for using orange juice in growing yeast.

[texassourdough]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

IF you use juice, pineapple juice is usually preferred for it is more acid than orange. The acid helps discourage bad bacteria. But many people don't need it.
Jay

[jmhepworth]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

On the question about whole grain flour, we grind our own. A grinder is pretty essential to bread if you want to do whole grains other than wheat. We've found that a combination of white wheat and red wheat gives the best flavor and texture. We also use the grinder to make rice flour.

Joe

[texassourdough]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

Freshly ground whole wheat (or rye) is a great way to start a starter foe the unprocessed grains should have a healthy yeast and bacteria population on the outside of the grain.
Jay

[heliman]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

What sort of grinder is needed to grind the wheat?
Sounds like the home grind takes things to a whole new level. Just need to grow your own wheat and you're completely self sufficient!!!

BTW: On day 3 of my rye/pineapple starter. No action detected as yet - hopefully by tomorrow I'll see some change ...

Rossco

[texassourdough]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

That is pretty slow, Rossco. It can take up to about 5 days. Are you stirring it 2-3 times a day? That can be pretty important for it aerates it and helps discourage the baddies. And sometimes it doesn't make at all. Whose rye flour are you using?

Grinding your own wheat is good! I only grind a half-pound or so at a time and I use it to "spike" my breads (about 5% in my regular French boules). (I freeze it to keep it fresh). The small amount of fresh whole wheat adds a lot of good aromatics to the bread. I am NOT going to get in the wheat growing business however!

The only practical way to grind wheat is to buy a mill. You might be able to use a burr type coffee mill to do small batches (I am pretty sure you can!). The bigger grain mills are typically a couple of hundred dollars and make a noise akin to a jet engine which tends to make grinding not popular with family members.

I would encourage you to put off grinding for a while. There is nothing particularly wrong with it but there are bigger hurdles to overcome before it makes much sense.

Hang in there!
Jay

[jmhepworth]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

We have a Whisper Mill, now called the Wonder Mill. There are several good ones on the market. I agree with Jay, though. It's nice to have, but not at all essential unless you start baking a lot of whole grain bread. Here's the Amazon link for the Wonder Mill: Amazon.com: The WonderMill Grain Mill: Home & Garden

[heliman]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

Jay - no hadn't been stirring the mix ...but will now. I have got the Tupperware lid on but not sealed ... is that OK? I seem some people put a cloth on top. Rye flour (organic) is from a local health food supplier and it has a sourdough recipe on the back so it looks like it's suitable for a starter.

Nice looking machine Joe - definitely something to think about buying down the track.

Rossco

[texassourdough]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

Hi Rossco!

Tupperware should be fine. It doesn't have to be sealed. Organic rye is a good start.

Hang in there and try again if you need to. While rye is often a better starting medium than wheat...try half rye and half whole wheat if you do it again. You will have a bigger variety of microbes to get started with and perhaps one or more of them will take off.

But..assuming your starter doesn't stink yet, it SHOULD eventually take off now that you are stirring it!

Good Luck!
Jay

[heliman]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

Thanks Jay ... your post just reminded me to top up the brew..

In adding more flour/juice I noticed a whole lot of bubbles and a slight yeasty smell. Something is definitely happening!

Will check again tomorrow ...

Rossco

PS - Just wondering why the recipe suggests that you throw away all but a 1/4 cup of the starter. Any idea??

Here is the recipe: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/233

[texassourdough]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

You throw some away because if you keep feeding it you will soon need a vat the size of a football stadium and half of the Australian wheat production for the next feeding (and the one after that would be impossible!) )

More seriously, you don't have a healthy, established biota yet. There are probably some baddies in the mix at this time so you don't want to eat it (so no sourdough pancakes) (Would it make you sick - almost certainly not but...it might not taste very good either). You are currently striving to get the good bacteria and yeast to take over. No need to do that in a large batch which would simply waste flour and yeild a huge blob of starter.

I only maintain about a half cup of mother starter. I use about half to start my bread and feed the other half to keep it going. You don't need a lot of starter unless you are baking large batches or like to use it in pancakes and other stuff for flavor.

Glad it is working - at last!
Jay

[heliman]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

Update
=====

Stirred the mix down this evening and added:

1/4 cup of the home brew
1/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup bottled water

Will add the same tomorrow.

Do I have to keep adding the water/flour for the next week or so? Do I understand this correctly - this starter brew will keep indefinitely if I add water/flour and I can just add a quantity of the mix to a sourdough recipe instead of yeast when baking?

TIA

Rossco

[texassourdough]

Re: Sour Dough Starter...

Hi Rossco!

Couple of comments. You are making a really high hydration starter. There are several standards, stiff starter (around 70 percent hydration), balanced (100 percent), and wet starters. The way you are feeding you will have a 166% starter. You will need to know the hydration and take the water in the starter into account when you "design" your recipe. A 166% starter is so wet it won't typically show a lot of bubbles or "grow" like a dryer starter.

I do 100%. About 1 cup of flour and 2/3 cup of water (ratio) - using a scale is a BIG help. The equal amounts of flour and water make calculations easier.

Wetter starters tend to be less acidic. Dryer starters more so. If you want SF style sour bread you will want a drier starter.

IF kept at room temp the starter should be fed twice a day. IF you bake every day, you should divide the starter and feed the part you will keep and leave it out for about eight hours, then into the fridge until the next day's mixing. (I do a first expansion for the dough that sits out overnight on the counter and bake first thing in the morning. At 75 degrees I use a 4X expansion. I.e. I take 100 grams of starter and add 200 grams of flour and 200 grams of water and mix and that sits out overnight. At 68 degrees I drop to a 3X expansion and add only 150 grams of flour and 150 of water in recognition the yeast won't reproduce as fast.) If you bake only once a week the starter should sit out for about an hour and can then be put in the fridge until you want it - up to about two weeks.

At some point you will start getting hooch (pale yellow/brown liquid on top of the starter. That is alcohol and an indication you should feed the starter (whether you make bread or not). It is not critical to feed immediately, but... the health of your starter will be in decline at that point. Don't go more than two to three weeks without feeding or the starter will get weak and will risk dying or will require one or more feedings to simply get it healthy enough to use again. (Doing this you want to keep it out on the counter and feed it every eight hours or so.)

Hang in there! You are getting close!
Jay