Adventures in Sourdoughland

So, this weekend I made my sourdough bread. Bear with me, it had been a while... the old apartment I lived in killed everything. I couldn't keep a starter there, and even my plants died within weeks of moving there. This is the first time I've made bread since we moved to this house.

Look, the sponge is nice and bubbly. Very active and ready to go. What I'm going to make today is an eyeball half-sorta version of the no-knead bread method. I'm just going to eyeball the amounts and I'll bake it in the style of the no-knead recipe in my homemade La Cloche styler bread baker.

Friday night I started the bread. I put a cup of whole rye flour into the bowl.

I added a cup of water to the sponge and stirred it in until it was thoroughly mixed.


I poured in the liquidy sponge and mixed it all well with a rubber spatula.
Then I added a cup of white bread flour and a cup of whole wheat flour.

You can see it's a pretty wet sticky dough. Not one you could knead with your hands! I left the dough as is and stuck it into the fridge overnight. In the morning, I took it out about 10am and let it sit to get to room temperature and watched it until it was risen to double.

Then, I turned it out on a WELL floured board. With WELL floured hands, I patted it out into a flat semi-rectangle. With the help of my spatula, I folded the dough over onto itself a couple times, flouring well as I went along.

Here you can see my rising "basket" which is actually just an old clean birdseye diaper on top of a small stockpot. I don't use flour on the diaper, but actually I use wheat bran. If you use flour, the extreme hydration in the dough soaks through it in no time and sticks to the cloth. You want it to not stick... wheat bran is ideal for this. Rice flour also works well.


I plopped the dough in, folded side down (smooth side up). I also sprinkled more wheat bran around the edges since as the dough rises, it will stick to the cloth unless you have something there to prevent it.
So then I realized that I hadn't added SALT. Bread is pretty tasteless without salt, even tasty flavorful sourdough rye! So I plopped it back out onto the board and tried to get as much of the wheat bran as I could off.

I patted it out, and threw on about a teaspoon of salt. Now comes the fun part - kneading it in! lol....


With lots of flour and frustration I managed to knead the bread, or rather, fold it in passably.

This way I could at least take pictures of the folding process, which I forgot to do before. First, you flatten out the dough and fold over the top third into the middle.

Then, you fold the bottom third into the middle also.

Then, you fold over one side onto the other...

And voila! Folded dough.


So I put it back into my proofing "basket" and covered it with a plastic bag to keep in the moisture while it rises.

After it had finished rising I promptly realized that I forgot to keep part of the culture out for continuing my starter! So I oh-so-carefully grabbed some from the top, trying to not deflate it. You can see how well it had risen.



I mixed it with some more flour and water in a pint canning jar. Here you can see my cool top - a coffee filter lets out the carbon dioxide that the bacteria emit so the jar doesn't explode.
So then I took the top off my bread baker and tried to oh-so-gently tilt the dough onto the bottom. It didn't work very well, I made TOO much dough for the size baker I made, and so half of it hung over. When it did that, I couldn't put the top back on so I baked it like that. 450 degrees and I didn't time it... sorry! :)


Here it is, out of the oven!

And cut. It's got a nice dense and somewhat sticky crumb like the rye I love. Flavor is great, though I shoulda put in more salt. Didn't rise much, but that could have been due to the overhandling of it and also the fact that such a high percentage of it is rye. Rye flour on it's own doesn't rise well, so you always want to add wheat flour and if you have it, vital wheat gluten, to help it rise better.

But it was sure tasty! :)

Making Sourdough starter, step by step

Sourdough is a wonderful thing. I think sourdough bread is one of the best things in life. Especially a good hearty sourdough rye, toasted with butter... yum.

Making starter is interesting because depending on what flour you use to make it, you will get different "yeasts." Some of the most flavorful starters are made with rye flour because of the microorganisms that life on rye, versus wheat. Many bakers who keep their own starters started all of them with rye, and then turned them into a whole wheat or white wheat starter by feeding it with the chosen flour.

So naturally, I begin my starter with rye, as close to the berry as possible. I got some pumpernickel rye flour from Barry Farm, and that's what I'm using. Many people make a starter more fluid, I prefer to use a 1-1 by volume ratio. It isn't exact, and if you are going to REALLY get into it and measure hydration and whatnot, you will want to use weight, not volume, since volume can really vary. I really only go by volume because I don't have a good scale, I'm lazy, and I've gotten to the point where I bake my bread by "feel" and not so much by measurements.

Day 1
So to begin, I've got a glass bail jar with a rubber seal. You want to be able to release the pressure at some point, since a buildup of the carbon dioxide gases can cause a sealed container to shatter. You can use pretty much anything for this, though I wouldn't advise a metal container. Even a gladware container would be fine. I used to use just a regular quart-size canning jar, but you can use anything.




I start with a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of water.









It's important to use purified water when making your starter. Chlorine in tapwater can quite easily kill the microorganisms that we're trying to feed here.









So I mix them together with a plastic spoon, and I've set it into a warm spot for the day. Easy peasy!










Day 2
I'm feeding the starter with another tablespoon each of purified water and flour. The flour I'm using is a certified organic pumpernickel rye. I'm not usually big on "certified organic" but in this case I choose organic to increase my chances of getting a successful starter, since they use less chemicals in organic (and yes, the FDA does allow some chemicals in certified organic). Slightly off the subject, but I'd take Certified Naturally Grown over Certified Organic any day. Once we let the beaurocrats and their sticky fingers get involved in things, they tend to get a bit messy. But anyway...

I pulled the jar out and I was amazed to see microbial activity already! That's pretty unusual, generally it takes a couple days to start really seeing stuff happen. I bet it's because of the flour I used. I tried to get a good picture but I'm not sure how well it comes through (though you can click on the picture to the left for a larger picture and I bet you can see what I mean). When I mixed it yesterday I pushed all the starter to one side with my spoon so that if the "action" showed up, it would be easier for me to see. It shows up as tiny bubbles against the glass - that's carbon dioxide that has been emitted by the bacteria that we are trying to grow.

As the starter becomes more and more concentrated and powerful, those bubbles will grow bigger and also will have more of them. Basically, what we're seeing here is the beginnings of leavening action - the bacteria, or yeasts, feeding off the flour to produce the carbon dioxide.

This is looking very promising! So anyway I added my other tablespoon of water and flour and put it back into its warm little hidey-hole. It has about the same consistency as oatmeal (though I know oatmeal varies, too...). One more observation - when I pulled the starter out today, it had a bit of condensation on the top of the jar. That means that it was warmer than average room temperature.

Considering that I had so much culture growth, I think the spot I chose is a perfect one. It's on a small table right above a heating duct... I don't keep my house super warm and so it's probably in one of the few "good" spots. Other good spots are usually on top of refrigerators, in a sunny window, or any other place that keeps a nice warm temperature somewhat regularly. They will grow in less then optimum temperatures, but obviously much more slowly and I tend to avoid this when I'm beginning a new starter, because I don't want to give OTHER bacteria a chance to set in (or mold... yuck!)

Day 3
Fed the starter with 2 tablespoons each of water and flour. Generally, the rule is that you double the amount of starter each time. Obviously it would get to be a lot, so tomorrow I'll measure out 1/4 cup of the starter and double that. Not much activity today - no pictures, since none came out. I seem to remember something about sourdough starters that started off strong and then petered out and came back after a while. I think it has something to do with the type of bacteria that are growing - the initial activity is from one sort, but then they create an inhospitable environment for themselves by the alcohol (or something) that is a byproduct of their fermentation. I think, though, that it creates a more hospitable environment for the GOOD bacteria that we're trying to grow. But, I don't really even know... I can't seem to find the right keywords to google it. Also, though, it's been pretty cold and we weren't home all day yesterday so it didn't have much heat to grow with, either.

Day 4
Measured out 1/4 cup each of flour, water, and starter into a new quart canning jar. I'll rotate jars, it's easier to measure that way. It's smelling good, a bit sour, but still not much activity. I'm pretty sure at this point that it's the bacteria thing I was talking about before. I didn't take any pictures again since there's not much to report.

Day 5
OK, activity has resumed. No picture because my camera was out of batteries this morning and I was in too much of a hurry to find the other set. But it looks quite a bit like day 2's photo, except more in volume. When I stirred it, the volume decreased so there was quite a bit of bubble "action" going on there (to quote Rachael Ray). So I added 1/2 cup each of flour and purified water and left for work. I bet I'll be baking bread in the next couple days :)

Day 6

This morning the starter has risen quite a bit and is foamy on top. I tried to get a picture but couldn't get a good one, so here's what you got! I measured 1/2 cup of starter into a clean jar and added 1/2 cup more flour and water. I think I'll be baking bread this weekend.

Day 7

This morning looks the same as yesterday except way bigger. The bubbles that I can see look more like the bubbles inside a loaf of baked bread. I bet I could probably use it as is but I'll keep feeding it and then probably start the bread tomorrow evening. It's a good idea to proof bread a long time at colder temps, especially sourdough, to really develop the flavor. Some people don't like sourdough too "sour" but we love it like that. There's also a layer of foam on top like yesterday, which is weird, I don't remember seeing that ever before. Fed it again with 1/2 cup flour & water to 1/2 cup starter.

The temps in our house have been pretty cold this week since we are now gone all day and the heater is off when we aren't home and at night... so really, the heater is only on for about an hour in the morning and then from 5-10-ish at night. I'm sure this would have developed quicker if we'd had a warmer house... it's generally a good idea to begin your starter in the summertime when the heat can help the bacteria grow. But oh well, right? :)

Day 8

OK I'm going to bake bread tonight! This morning the starter was ready to use - the way you know this is if it rises to twice it's volume and then sinks back down, that's when you know it's strong enough.

So I left the entire amount and fed it with 1 cup each of flour and water. At this point I've mostly gone through my pound of pumpernickel rye. I do have another pound and also some King Arthur rye so that's what I'll use tonight, with a little whole wheat and white bread flour. So anyway, this doubled it's volume and so I put it into a gladware container. Tommy is home today so the house will be warmer, so I bet it will rise quite a bit and the quart size jar wouldn't accomondate that much. Basically, at this point, I'm beginning the sponge. I'll let it ferment all day and then when it's time to start the dough for real, I'll separate out a half cup of starter and use that to continue the starter and the rest will be used for making my bread dough. I'll put that process in a separate post, though.

So there we have it! Sourdough starter deluxe. I will tell you, though, if I'd fed it every 12 hours it would have been done a lot quicker, probably. However, I am lazy, and so I'm OK with it taking a bit more time.

Sourdough bread

When I was a child, we lived for several years in Nuernberg, Germany. We were missionaries and my dad did a lot of work with local churches in addition to making trips out to the poverty-stricken eastern european countries. It was a very formative time in my life in many ways.

One of the things I'll always think is ironic about that time is that I spent my time there longing to come back to the States and when I was back here at age 11, I longed to go back to Germany. We did that with the food, too - when we were there, we missed peanut butter, chocolate chips, and soft white bread. But then when I came back to the U.S., one of the things I missed the most was the good, solid German cooking, especially German bread. I went back for a visit several years ago, and one of the best things I brought back (besides chocolate) was bread that had been baked fresh the morning I left. They actually had a bakery IN the airport!

German rye bread is definitely something to be cherished. I spent many years trying to perfect it, and last year I finally did. It's a simple sourdough rye, with wheat flour and salt. I remember when I first baked it for my mom, she took a piece and ran it upstairs and made my dad (who was still asleep) eat it. He wasn't too impressed with the being woken up part, but everyone agreed it tasted pretty authentic.

Unfortunately, I moved into an apartment where something seemed to be wrong with the air, and my starter went bad, along with any other starters I tried to make. Even my plants died in that apartment. I was so busy that I stopped baking bread and began to buy it instead.

In July, we moved into this house and I've been meaning to start again. I hate to say it, but I can't really remember what I did to make that bread taste authentic, but I decided to start again. I bought some organic whole rye flour and also pumpernickel rye from Barry Farm, and began a starter this morning. There was a perfect crock for it in one of the boxes of canning jars I recently acquired - not safe for canning in, but perfect for sourdough. I'll keep a picture log and in a week or so when the starter is ready, I'll post the progression photos along with instructions.

As I try and remember, I think part of my success involved my attempts at no-knead bread. No-knead bread is basically where you mix yeast with salt and flour, mix in some water to form a slack, shaggy dough, and let it sit for 24 hours or so. You bake it in a La Cloche, dutch oven, or even a lidded casserole pan.

I made a homemade baking pot from a upside-down terra-cotta flower pot (I got the idea from somewhere on the internet, it isn't mine... can't remember where though). What this does is trap the steam inside while the bread is baking, which makes for an amazing crust. When I tried the regular No-Knead recipe, I found it too bland for my taste but when I made a sourdough version, it was amazing. So, after a furlough, I'm excited to try again :)

If you are more interested in the no-knead technique, here's a fantastic website that is very educational on the method with videos and everything - Breadtopia.