Last year I was successful with starting my own sourdough culture and baking with it. After a while I got lazy and started using the one-step process to make San Francisco sourdough bread, and my culture lost it. Breads didn't turn out that well anymore, and I had some inedible flops, so I stopped making them. Luckily I dried a batch at the height of the culture's activity and stored it; in dried form the culture can survive for a long time.
I soaked the dried sourdough flakes in lukewarm water and let them sit for a couple of hours. I'm using the 3-step-process, which gives the sourdough a chance to be very active, and I've had great results with before. Basically you just feed the starter culture with flour and warm (not hot!) water, and give it a good stirring, then let it rest between 6 and 8 hours, repeat three times. When you see bubbles in the starter, it means it's doing its thing.
I started on this batch Friday midday, after the two-hour soak I fed it with 100 ml of warm water and 100 g of whole rye flour, and gave it a good stirring. It's okay if the flakes haven't completely dissolved yet. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and put somewhere aside. Around bedtime I gave it another feed and a stir, this time remembering to use smaller amounts, since the ratio of the starter to the bread should not be more than half, and I'm baking fairly small breads. Otherwise the bread becomes too sour and soggy. Saturday morning I gave it another feed, and then didn't get to it until fairly late, around 7 pm. Which was fine. Here comes a very crucial step, and part of the reason why it's a good idea to dry a batch of your culture. Before you add the remaining ingredients, remember to put aside at least 50 to 100 g of your starter for your next batch. I usually keep a glass jar for this purpose on the kitchen scale while working on the starter, as a visual reminder. That goes in the fridge, where it survives for a week or two. It's a good idea to bake bread every week or at least every 10 days, so the culture doesn't die.
Now come the remaining ingredients. 1 tablespoon of good quality sea salt. Warm water, good stirring. I used 340 g of whole rye and 160 of spelt meal, mainly because I ran out of rye. With rye you don't have to stir that much, wheat and spelt require a lot more stirring. I then filled the dough into a loaf pan lined with baking paper, and now comes the reason I was baking bread at midnight last night. I'd forgotten about the rising time. You set the loaf pan in the oven and turn it to 50 degrees Celsius, after 20 minutes you can turn that off but leave the oven light on. Give the loaf a good spraying with a water sprayer, and keep spraying it intermittently so the dough doesn't dry out. It usually takes between 2 and 3 hours, but can take longer as well. This time I didn't see much of a rising action, so after 2 and a half hours I did the finger-imprint-test. If the dough barely recovers from the imprint of your finger, it's high time to bake it. Take the pan from the oven, set oven to 200 degrees Celsius. When the temperature is reached, give the loaf another good spraying and put on the middle rack. Baking time depends on the size of the loaf, for this one between 50 and 60 minutes. After 15 minutes set the temperature to 190, a while later to 180. Keep spraying the loaf, I also spray into the lower part of the oven to create steam. The bread is done when it sounds hollow when you flick your nails against the pan bottom. Let cool for 10 minutes and put on wire rack. Cover with a clean towel and let sit for at least 4 hours, or, like me, till breakfast the next morning. Rye bread tastes better the next day, wheat and spelt are good right away.
I soaked the dried sourdough flakes in lukewarm water and let them sit for a couple of hours. I'm using the 3-step-process, which gives the sourdough a chance to be very active, and I've had great results with before. Basically you just feed the starter culture with flour and warm (not hot!) water, and give it a good stirring, then let it rest between 6 and 8 hours, repeat three times. When you see bubbles in the starter, it means it's doing its thing.
I started on this batch Friday midday, after the two-hour soak I fed it with 100 ml of warm water and 100 g of whole rye flour, and gave it a good stirring. It's okay if the flakes haven't completely dissolved yet. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and put somewhere aside. Around bedtime I gave it another feed and a stir, this time remembering to use smaller amounts, since the ratio of the starter to the bread should not be more than half, and I'm baking fairly small breads. Otherwise the bread becomes too sour and soggy. Saturday morning I gave it another feed, and then didn't get to it until fairly late, around 7 pm. Which was fine. Here comes a very crucial step, and part of the reason why it's a good idea to dry a batch of your culture. Before you add the remaining ingredients, remember to put aside at least 50 to 100 g of your starter for your next batch. I usually keep a glass jar for this purpose on the kitchen scale while working on the starter, as a visual reminder. That goes in the fridge, where it survives for a week or two. It's a good idea to bake bread every week or at least every 10 days, so the culture doesn't die.
Now come the remaining ingredients. 1 tablespoon of good quality sea salt. Warm water, good stirring. I used 340 g of whole rye and 160 of spelt meal, mainly because I ran out of rye. With rye you don't have to stir that much, wheat and spelt require a lot more stirring. I then filled the dough into a loaf pan lined with baking paper, and now comes the reason I was baking bread at midnight last night. I'd forgotten about the rising time. You set the loaf pan in the oven and turn it to 50 degrees Celsius, after 20 minutes you can turn that off but leave the oven light on. Give the loaf a good spraying with a water sprayer, and keep spraying it intermittently so the dough doesn't dry out. It usually takes between 2 and 3 hours, but can take longer as well. This time I didn't see much of a rising action, so after 2 and a half hours I did the finger-imprint-test. If the dough barely recovers from the imprint of your finger, it's high time to bake it. Take the pan from the oven, set oven to 200 degrees Celsius. When the temperature is reached, give the loaf another good spraying and put on the middle rack. Baking time depends on the size of the loaf, for this one between 50 and 60 minutes. After 15 minutes set the temperature to 190, a while later to 180. Keep spraying the loaf, I also spray into the lower part of the oven to create steam. The bread is done when it sounds hollow when you flick your nails against the pan bottom. Let cool for 10 minutes and put on wire rack. Cover with a clean towel and let sit for at least 4 hours, or, like me, till breakfast the next morning. Rye bread tastes better the next day, wheat and spelt are good right away.
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