Sourdough Starter

By norsegal8

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) 80° water
• generous 3/4 cup (3 1/2 ounces) pumpernickel flour
• 1/8 teaspoon molasses

Preparation

Step 1

DAY ONE
Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly, cover, and let the mixture ferment for 24 hours at 80°F. Maybe a heating pad, set on very low heat and under your towel-wrapped bowl, will provide the right environment.

DAY TWO
Discard half the starter, and to the remainder add:
1/2 cup 80°F water
3/4 cup (3 1/2 ounces) pumpernickel flour

DAY 3, DAY 4, DAY 5 AND DAY 6
By day three some tiny bubbles will appear. If you are using a clear container, you can see these bubbles throughout the mixture. This activity will increase day by day. From now on, you will need to feed the starter with unbleached all-purpose flour instead of the pumpernickel flour you used initially. You are literally giving the bacteria food to live on. Feed the starter twice a day on these days, with at least 8 hours between feedings.

To feed, remove and discard half the starter, and to the remainder add;
1/2 cup 80°F water & 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

Mix thoroughly, cover and allow the mixture to ferment for at least 8 hours at 80° before the next feeding. If you miss a feeding, don't fret, just pick up the schedule and continue as if nothing happened.

After a week, the starter should taste and smell sour. It will be bubbly and active and strong enough to leaven bread. The volume of the starter will have increased by at least half, and it will taste sharply sour. Now that your starter has established, you will need to increase its quantity, so that you will have some to use and some to keep.

DAY 7
Stir the mixture well. Pour off and discard all but 4 ounces of your starter, place it in a 2- to 4-quart nonreactive, wide-mouthed container and add;
1 cup 80° water and 2 cups (8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

Stir until the mixture is free of lumps. Scrape the walls of the container clean (so that you can see how high the starter rises), cover and allow the starter to ferment for 6 to 8 hours.

At this point, the starter should be active, with bubbles breaking on the surface. Touch it, and you will see that gluten has developed; it should feel somewhat elastic. It is ready to be used or placed on one of the two maintenance schedules that follow.

ON THE COUNTERTOP
As far as the sourdough bacteria are concerned, room temperature is the preferred environment for your starter. Maintenance is a daily task, but a simple one. You can always stash it in the refrigerator when you need to, but do follow this schedule for a while. You will learn a lot about your starter by observing it under these optimum conditions.
Feed the starter once a day as follows: Stir the starter well, and pour off all but 4 ounces. Add 8 ounces of water and 8 ounces of flour, mix until smooth, and cover

If you plan to use the starter the next day, feed it twice, with a minimum of 6 hours between feedings. The last feeding should be 6 to 8 hours before you want to use it.

IN THE REFRIGERATOR
If daily feeding is too much, you can store your starter in the refrigerator and feed it once a week instead. Take the starter out of the fridge, stir well, and pour off all but 1/2 cup.
Add 8 ounces of water and 8 ounces of all-purpose flour, mix until smooth, and cover. Allow the starter to work at room temperature for at least 2 hours before putting it back in the refrigerator.
Three days before you are planning to bake, you will need to raise the activity of your starter. Take the starter out of the fridge in the morning, feed it as usual, and let it ferment at 24 hours at room temperature. The next day, feed it twice, once in the morning, then again 12 hours later. On the third morning, feed the starter early, and allow it to ferment until it is ripe. It should then be ready to use in your recipe. Pour off what you need for the recipe, and feed the remaining starter with 8 ounces of water and 8 ounces of flour. Mix until smooth, and allow the starter to work at room temperature for at least 2 hours at room temperature before putting it back in the refrigerator Note: You should keep your starter in the refrigerator if your kitchen is very warm, over 85°F. In a hot summer kitchen, a starter left on the counter will ferment like crazy and you'll have to feed it very frequently to prevent it from becoming overripe
As you bake with sourdough, pay close attention to your results. Get into the habit of really looking at the bread closely, of inhaling the aroma deeply, this is how your skill increases.
The dough of naturally leavened bread should be quite wet. Resist the temptation to add flour as you work. Even though the moisture makes the dough a bit more difficult to handle, the high percentage of water helps to create the beautifully open interiors and nice volume, and increases the shelf life of the baked loaf substantially.
You'll make better bread if you closely monitor the temperature of the dough throughout the process. Optimum temperature for fermenting the dough is 78° to 80°. Dough that is too cold will not ferment adequately and will be dense, unless given a very long fermentation time. Dough that is too warm will ferment very quickly and the resulting loaf will rise excessively, tend to have a thick, pale crust and an off-flavor, and will go stale more quickly than it should

SLOWING DOWN THE DOUGH
How can we increase the dough's fermentation time, and build up its sour taste, without overfermenting? A technique called "retarding" enables you to slow down the fermentation by decreasing the temperature. This in one way to retard your bread; Once it has been shaped, allow it to rise for an hour or two. When you see it beginning to rise and get puffy, cover it well with plastic wrap and place it in your refrigerator. The bread will be ready to bake 12 to 14 hours later.
Professional bakers retard their dough in special coolers that maintain a temperature of around 50°F., but the refrigerator is a practical alternative for home bakers. Refrigerator temperatures are a bit low and can seriously slow down the action of the dough, so place the dough on the top shelf if possible (it's usually slightly warmer near the top of the refrigerator). The dough may need some time at room temperature for the last bit of rising, but if the bread looks ready to go the minute you pull it from the fridge, it is fine to put it directly into the oven. Cold dough going into the oven, will, however, reduce the initial baking temperature in the oven, so compensate by preheating the oven 50 degrees higher than the recipe calls for. Once the bread is in the oven, reduce the heat to the recommended temperature and bake as usual.


BE PATIENT
If your young starter doesn't appear active after the first week, don't be discouraged. Simply continue the twice daily feeding schedule. It's not uncommon for sourdough starter to require more than a week to become established. Cool temperatures and the absence of wild yeast in your kitchen are factors that extend the time needed for a starter to become mature and ripe. the value of a long, slow process is the central theme in the world of sourdough. Again and again, we are reminded that time is a critical ingredient with no substitute.