How does this sourdough starter become bread?

If you’ve ever made bread with factory yeast, this will have similarities and differences. The biggest difference is time. 

With factory yeast, when you mix the yeast with warm water it is activated. You then have about three hours to use it before it is fizzled out and loses some potency.

Sourdough is alive and it wants to grow. When you mix the sourdough (which is used as the yeast) with flour and water (and a bit of salt), it doesn’t fizzle and die, it eats and grows!

You should mix them well and then let the dough sit (we use a stand mixer, but real die-hards will use their hands). (My oldest son is a big fan of making all hand-made bread! ) Then over the next several hours you can “stretch and fold” the dough to mix it some more. (We use our hands for this part, to give it some quick folds and mixes) The dough will continue to grow. (It is eating the nutrition in that area of the bread and when you mix it again, it gets a new batch of food to eat.) You can do this throughout the day, and then again before leaving it out overnight for the “bulk fermentation”. (Leave it out in a container with a towel over it so air can come and go, but it won’t collect dust, etc.)

The next morning you will “shape” the dough, by putting it in a bread pan, making balls for rolls, etc. Then let it sit on the counter for a “second rise”. All of this time, it has been eating, growing stronger, calling more friends (good bacteria) to join them, etc.

The second rise will usually be around 1 to 5 hours, but is flexible depending on the temperature and how sour you want the bread to be. 

Note: Sourdough is very flexible and forgiving. You can let it ferment longer (more sour), put it in the fridge (to slow down the ferment to be used later), etc. Once you get the hang of it, you can play around. My 12 year old can now make sourdough bread without a recipe after only two tries. 

When you are ready to bake, put it in the oven, wait for it to bake and Yummm!

How long should you cook it for and at what temperature? That gets a bit complicated. Are you cooking small rolls, or a giant one foot round loaf?  In an oven, toaster oven, an instant pot, in cast iron over a fire, etc.? Do you want a harder crust or softer crust? How high is your oven shelf? (We usually cook at around 420F for 25 minutes, then lower it to 350F for another 10-15 minutes, but this will depend on the size of your bread and your oven.) Once you get started you can see how it goes, don’t get discouraged, and modify as needed. 

Another trick is to use glassware at the beginning. You can lift it up and see the bottom. If the bottom is still pretty light brown, you may want to give another 10 minutes to give a firmer custer. If you like it softer, you can stop the cooking. Play around and have fun! 

Sourdough is very forgiving. It’s a very nice pet, that is full of life, gives you exercise as you stretch and fold, and wants your regular love and attention.

You can also get creative. Just look online for many sourdough ideas. We are homeschooling, with a mix of ages and young children. Our goal is good food in less time. :o) We may do more with “advanced” methods in the future, but for now shoot for healthy and simple. Some people will insist that sourdough must be cooked in a dutch oven (which we’ve done once, and it was delicious and had more of that traditional sourdough look and feel). Some will use ice or a spray bottle to create steam and create a harder crust, etc. We may do these occasionally, but they aren’t needed to have a simple, delicious loaf of sourdough bread. We want you to know that things can be simplified and you don’t need to be perfect!

A few changes that you can make are:

• When you make your bread (not your starter dough), you can use other liquids instead of water (almond milk, the leftover water after steaming sweet potatoes, kombucha, smoothie, etc.
• You can mix other ingredients into your bread: herbs, garlic, honey, oil, eggs, etc.

There is so much to learn from making sourdough bread. You can play around, and again, it is very forgiving. If something goes horribly wrong and your sourdough should die, it is still just sourdough after all and you can go back to your friend and they will likely have more to let you try again.

Have fun with it! Just like you play with a dog and it can learn new tricks, your sourdough wants time with you and can also learn new tricks and play in new and creative (and delicious) ways.

A few additional resources:

• Another Introduction to making Sourdough Bread (to compare ideas)
  • https://www.pantrymama.com/how-to-bake-simple-sourdough-bread/
• Helpful resources about gut health
  • We have seen great benefits with gut health and would be happy to introduce you to relevant materials. Feel free to ask.

Photo Credits: We rarely think to take pictures, so these are random pictures of our regular baking, likely taken by our children for fun. :o)

How do you make sourdough starter?

As mentioned above, you can start from scratch with just flour and water. You CAN do this, but for most people, I recommend just finding a friend who already has a strong sourdough starter and ask for a bit of theirs (about 100g will do). This is much easier than starting from scratch. (You can also buy sourdough starter online. This dried starter is similar to asking your friend, but will need a little extra attention at the beginning to “wake it up”.)

Assuming that you already have a mature sourdough starter, you will do the following to feed it!

Mix your sourdough in three equal parts. For example if you have 100g of sourdough starter, you will mix that with 100g of flour and 100g of water.

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IMPORTANT NOTE!!!

The bacteria in sourdough is smart, it knows what is good for it. 

Flour

You should use whole grain flour to feed your starter. We use whole grain wheat flour. If you try a variety of brands, you will find that for some brands your sourdough really comes alive. It is bubbling and growing quickly! These flours have life. On the other hand, with some flours it may just seem to get by. These flours likely don’t have much life. (Note: Bleached white flour basically has the life and nutrition removed, so is not good for feeding your Sourdough. When making BREAD with the sour dough, we occasionally add a little white flour along with mostly whole grains to make it softer. You can use 100% whole grain flour to make sourdough bread, though it might take a little longer for the bulk fermentation. From the good microbes perspective, it’s like Thanksgiving to have all that good nutrition. This is another area the commercial yeast is not as potent to make the whole wheat dough rise so effectively. 

Water

Chlorine (and other chemicals in city water) are there to kill bacteria and other life. For feeding your sourdough, which is full of good bacteria, it will be better to give them spring water, cooled boiled water (that evaporates out the chlorine), etc.

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Back to our 100g starter, 100g flour, 100g water. These measurements don’t have to be exact, but it’s good to be pretty close to equal amounts (a kitchen scale can be helpful until you get a good feel for it).

First put the water in a mixing bowl. Then add the sourdough starter.

You can now do a little test called the “sink test”. If the sourdough sinks and sits on the bottom, it is HUNGRY. It wants to jump right in and get started feeding. If it floats, it isn’t so hungry, though it is always happy to eat. (A slightly more scientific look at why it floats when it has been well fed is that it is eating more and making more gas. This gas is making bubbles in the dough and bubbles float!)

After adding the water (100g), then the dough (100g), you will add the flour (100g). 

Now stir it all together. (It may help to have two scrapers to stir with, to fold it on top of itself while also scraping the sides, etc.

You can now store this in a jar with a loose lid or a coffee filter held on with a rubber band (to let air in).

Let it sit out overnight to have the warmth and air to grow. (It will likely double in size by morning.) This stage is usually referred to as bulk fermentation. 

What to do with your sourdough after you feed it?

As mentioned, this can be stored on the counter at room temperature or you can store it in the fridge. (The good bacteria will continue to eat and grow and protect against mold, bad bacteria, etc.) There are advantages to both on the counter or in the fridge.

Basically if you leave it on the counter (as many do) it will eat quickly and grow quickly. You will then likely need to feed it every day (including when you use it to make bread). This can result in either a lot of extra sourdough starter, or in your making a lot of bread.

If you would like to slow things down, you can store it in the fridge. This doesn’t hurt the good bacteria, but does slow them down. Then you can wait several days or even several weeks without feeding it. (We have gone on trips for several weeks and come back to a good, healthy sourdough starter.) To store it for a while, you will want to keep your sourdough starter on the drier side rather than a more wet and runny condition. And if possible, you can always bring your starter with you and make fresh bread as you go. 

Note: When you feed your sourdough (using our 100g example), you have 100g of starter dough and added 100g of water and 100 g of flour. This means you now have roughly 300 g of sourdough. The next time you feed it, you can use 100g of the starter. This leaves 200g of extra starter. What can you do with it? Well, you can give it away, sourdough sometimes being called “Friendship Bread”. You can throw it away (or compost it), but that seems like a waste. Or you can make bread from it! (Or you can combine two of those and make bread and give it away!)

That leads to a natural question…

Continue with “Sourdough Part 4: From Dough to Bread“.

Photo Credits: We rarely think to take pictures, so these are random pictures of our regular baking, likely taken by our children for fun. :o)

How we got started

As you may know, Elyse is Chinese and we met while I was living in China for 10 years. Bread is not very common in China, so everything was learned started a few years ago when we came to the U.S. If we can do it… you can do it!

At first we bought good, usually organic, whole grain bread. 

We then realized that we could make our own fresh bread and control what is in it. I didn’t think too much about if this was cheaper or not (though I believe it is), but it got us going on making bread.

We started with a bread machine and carefully followed the directions. (I should clarify. “I” carefully followed the directions. Elyse is better at understanding the principles and creating her own wonderful edibles.)

After burning through several bread machines, we decided to buy a stand mixer instead. It’s less automatic, but gives more flexibility and various uses. We still used modern recipes with store bought yeast, etc.

The idea for sourdough came as Elyse was looking into how to promote better digestion and gut health. She wanted to get this started, but with the many other pulls and tugs of life it didn’t get started. (Though we did start Kombucha and Sauerkraut during that time.)

The kick to get our sourdough started came from my oldest son. He saw the idea (aka: science experiment) of growing our own yeast, and working towards making bread dough with just water and flour. We homeschool our children, which means that there is room to explore and learn with what is right in front of us. He and my wife got this started and he was in charge of his sourdough. 

Elyse was doing it along with him, and when the experiment was pretty much over for Elijah’s purposes, Elyse hated to let it die… so kept it going. (As a note: I am basically the reporter on all this. Elyse is the woman in the know, who started truly from scratch and now has a very mature starter.)

Those first weeks getting started were pretty intense. They were starting it in the winter (which we later learned is the hardest time to start sourdough since the cold makes it want to stop growing, but it isn’t yet mature enough to let it do so without having problems (mold, etc.). Elyse was often feeding “Bubbles” twice a day and hand mixing it throughout the day. The nice perk of this was that she hated to waste the extra starter that was formed during this time, so we had a LOT of bread and she got really creative with using it. Yummy! :o)

We keep our house at around 60 in the winter so my two bread scientists found a nice spot next to a heater to keep their dough to attempt to keep it warm.

In the end, and even during the toughest season to get it started, they did it and we now have a very mature starter that we are able to use and pass along (and is able to be used in the winter with no problems).

Benefits of Sourdough

Many people, myself included until recently, will think that “bread is bread”, or, even if they know that white bread is basically “dead bread”, they may think that all whole grain breads without high fructose corn syrup, etc. are basically the same. That described me… but it isn’t true.

In short, we can say that the benefit of Sourdough bread is that it has life! It’s aliiiiive!!!!

No really, it’s alive. It is full of good microbes, good bacteria. It has been fermenting and developing whole colonies and cultures of tiny soldiers that you cannot see, but work powerfully for your benefit. (If you find this to be somewhat revolting, just know that you are eating bacteria all the time, including in fermented foods (sauerkraut, Kombucha, yogurt, vinegar, real cheese, cultured butter, cultured chocolate, etc.). Sourdough, and the other foods just mentioned, just help you to have the good bacteria, etc. to fight against the ones that give bacteria a bad name.

For this reason, in addition to giving you great health benefits, sourdough is mold resistant (that army is ready to fight!). It can be stored for a while, left out in the room without refrigeration, etc.

It can also often be eaten by those who can’t eat other breads. Those little microbes are basically predigesting the bread (my rough description), so it is much easier for your digestion and can help your digestion. Again, thank that invisible, powerful army.

Since 57% of the human body is something other than human, you can imagine the power that adding this mighty invisible army has for your overall health. Many health issues can be prevented and helped by introducing more good bacteria into your body. (I’ll leave it to others to go into details on this point.)

Photo Credits: We rarely think to take pictures, so these are random pictures of our regular baking, likely taken by our children for fun. :o)

Continue with “Sourdough Part 3: Starting & Feeding“.