Introduction to Sourdough

Ingredients

To begin your starter

 1 cup unbleached white or whole wheat flour  1/2 cup distilled water

Instructions:

Day 1: Combine the unbleached or whole wheat flour with the cool water in a non- reactive container. Glass, crockery, stainless steel, or food-grade plastic all work fine for this. Make sure the container is large enough to hold your starter as it grows; we recommend at least 1-quart capacity.

- Stir everything together thoroughly; make sure there's no dry flour anywhere. Cover the container loosely and let the mixture sit at warm room temperature (about 70°F) for 24 hours.

Day 2: You may see no activity at all in the first 24 hours, or you may see a bit of growth or bubbling. Either way, discard half the starter (113 grams, about 1/2 cup), and add to the remainder a scant 1 cup (113 grams) King Arthur Unbleached All- Purpose Flour, and 1/2 cup (113 grams) cool water (if your house is warm); or lukewarm water (if it's cold).

- Mix well, cover, and let the mixture rest at room temperature for 24 hours.

Day 3: By the third day, you'll likely see some activity — bubbling; a fresh, fruity aroma, and some evidence of expansion. It's now time to begin two feedings daily, as evenly spaced as your schedule allows. For each feeding, weigh out 113 grams starter; this will be a generous 1/2 cup, once it's thoroughly stirred down. Discard any remaining starter.

- Add a scant 1 cup (113 grams) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, and 1/2 cup (113 grams) water to the 113 grams starter. Mix the starter, flour, and water, cover, and let the mixture rest at room temperature for approximately 12 hours before repeating.

Day 4: Weigh out 113 grams starter, and discard any remaining starter. Repeat step #6. Day 5: Weigh out 113 grams starter, and discard any remaining starter. Repeat step #6. By the end of day #5, the starter should have at least doubled in volume. You'll see lots of bubbles; there may be some little "rivulets" on the surface, full of finer bubbles. Also, the starter should have a tangy aroma — pleasingly acidic, but not overpowering. If your starter hasn't risen much and isn't showing lots of bubbles, repeat discarding and feeding every 12 hours on day 6, and day 7, if necessary — as long as it takes to create a vigorous (risen, bubbly) starter.

Once the starter is ready, give it one last feeding. Discard all but 113 grams (a generous 1/2 cup). Feed as usual. Let the starter rest at room temperature for 6 to 8 hours; it should be active, with bubbles breaking the surface.

Remove however much starter you need for your recipe — typically no more than 227 grams, about 1 cup. If your recipe calls for more than 1 cup of starter, give it a couple of feedings without discarding, until you've made enough for your recipe plus 113 grams to keep and feed again.

Transfer the remaining 113 grams of starter to its permanent home: a crock, jar, or whatever you'd like to store it in long-term. Feed this reserved starter with 1 scant cup (113 grams) of flour and 1/2 cup (113 grams) water, and let it rest at room temperature for several hours, to get going, before covering it. If you're storing starter in a screw-top jar, screw the top on loosely rather than airtight.

Store this starter in the refrigerator, and feed it regularly; we recommend feeding it with a scant 1 cup (113 grams) flour and 1/2 cup (113 grams) water once a week.

Basic Sourdough Introduction

Sourdough is an enticing, tangy flavor; a snapshot of American culinary history, and a welcome ingredient in everything from bread and cake to pretzels and pizza crust. Create your own starter, and experience how it becomes part of the family — a living ingredient that thrives on flour and water and love.

This guide covers the basics of sourdough baking. In Understand, we explore the simple science of sourdough. Create teaches you how to make your own starter. In Bake, we put your starter to work with one our favorite sourdough bread recipes. Then Maintain covers how to keep your starter alive and healthy, so you can bake with it again and again.

What is sourdough?

Sourdough refers both to bread, and to the starter used to make it. Starter begins with a combination of flour and liquid, and can range from a stiff starter made entirely with rye flour and water to a liquid batter of milk and cornmeal — with plenty of options in between. When flour is mixed with liquid, the friendly bacteria (lactobacilli) and wild yeast in both the flour and your surrounding environment start working together. Within their flour-and-water slurry (now called starter), these tiny living creatures generate byproducts that cause bread to rise and give it complex, rich flavor.

How does sourdough make things rise?

A packet of yeast makes dinner rolls rise. Sourdough starter performs that same function — but how? Wild yeast is in the air around us. It settles on kitchen work surfaces and in your ingredients, including flour. Add liquid to flour, and this wild yeast is activated and starts to produce carbon dioxide bubbles. This growing army of gas bubbles, effectively trapped by gluten within the dough, are what ultimately make sourdough bread rise.

Where does the sour flavor come from?

Sourdough bread's signature taste comes from friendly bacteria and yeast, which produce flavorful lactic and acetic acids in rising bread dough. These organic acids range from mellow to vinegary; controlling the balance of these acids, through adjusting ingredients and rising times in both starter and dough, lets you create bread with your own favorite flavor profile.

Right or wrong way?

There are scores of self-proclaimed sourdough experts out there, each willing to share with you the "secret" to sourdough. Problem is, these "secrets" are often completely contradictory. Sourdough is an area of enormous controversy, as well as firmly held ignorance.

"Scientific" bakers hold that sourdough bread can't be made without a thorough understanding of the symbiotic chemical relationship between yeast and lactobacilli. At the same time, people made bread with wild yeast for millennia — so how complicated could it be?

We know that yeast and lactobacilli leaven and flavor sourdough bread. We also know that temperature and hydration (the liquid/flour ratio) are important. But bakers' intuition is as essential to sourdough success as pure science. We see the same flour/water combination behaving differently from one time of year to another (or even from day to day); and it's as much experience as science that teaches us what's going on, and how to adapt. Traditions & history

Grape juice, wine, beer, and wheat flour porridge (left to go sour) were leavening regulars in the ancient world. As early as 4,000 BC, Egyptian writings mention making bread with these "sours." Legend has it that a crock of starter made its way to the New World in the hold of Columbus' ship; and by the mid-19th century, starters were vital to both American prospectors and pioneers.

By 1849 sourdough had gained fame nationwide, driven by its popularity with California gold prospectors. Alaskan Klondike miners used fermented dough, hung in a tin above the stove, to make bread, biscuits, and flapjacks. A more liquid starter, called "sponge," was carefully tended by many a pioneer family as they traveled west in their prairie schooners.

Starters fed many families well, and were passed from friend to friend and generation to generation. Long after the advent of packaged yeast, sourdough baking has continued to thrive. Sourdough, with its unique flavor, has gathered a legion of aficionados — bakers who revel in the mystique of the starter, and who continue to feed family and friends with this ancient ingredient every day.

Recipe and information found at: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-starter- recipe