Sourdough Starter:
Day 1: Combine 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup warm water
Day 2: Discard half of the mixture, then add 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and 1/4 cup warm water
Day 3-14: Discard half of the mixture, then add 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and 1/4 cup warm water
At this point, my starter was finally starting to look pretty active. Your house is warmer than ours, though, so I suspect it would not take a full two weeks for you. Probably closer to 1 week. Once you have a robust culture, you can put it in the fridge to slow down the yeast. I find that I only have to feed my starter about once per week when it’s living in the fridge. Also, don’t start out with bleached flour. The bleach kills the naturally occurring yeast, so it’ll never become active. Any other flour should work.
Sourdough Bread:
The day before I make bread with the starter, I take the starter out of the fridge and feed it twice (~12-18 hours apart). Since my container is big enough, I don’t usually discard any at this point. The last feeding should be 4-8 hours before you start making bread.
The bread recipe I’ve been using is as follows
1. Combine 3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, and 330 ml of water. Let sit for 30 min.
2. Add 1/2 cup starter and 10 grams of salt. Knead for 5ish minutes. Then let sit for 15 min.
3. “Stretch and Fold” (Grab one edge of the dough, pull up until tight, and fold over the the dough. Turn 45 degrees and repeat until you’ve done all sides), then let sit for 15 min. Repeat four times.
4. Cover and let the dough rest overnight (or all day, 10ish hours) on the counter. It should get big.
5. Shape the dough into a round loaf shape (I’m still not exceptionally good at this part) and let sit in the fridge all day (or overnight, 10ish hours).
6. An hour or so before baking, take the dough out of the fridge so it can come back up to room temperature.
7. Pre-heat the oven with the Dutch oven inside to 500 degrees.
8. Put dough into hot Dutch oven and bake with the lid on for 20 min. Remove the lid and bake for another 5-15 min until the crust looks nice.
9. Let cool on a cooling rack for a couple of hours before slicing.
Resources:
The King Arthur flour website has a wealth of information on bread-making. My starter roughly followed their recipe, but I used smaller quantities of flower and water. Here’s their sourdough page: https://www.
The bread recipe I’ve been using is adapted from here: http://www.
You’ll have lots of discard starter. Throwing it out is a little painful, but there’s lots of things that you can do with it:
These biscuits are easy and delicious: https://www.kingarthurflour.
I really liked these pancakes: https://www.
King Arthur has more recipes here: https://www.
Here are some more options: https://