I picked up a package of Sourdough Starter at Whole Foods Market the other day. Today I started the culture. I had purchased a small bag of Red Mill Organic Rye Berries some time ago, to make a natural sourdough culture, but hadn’t used it (actually I had a couple of packages, might have used one, and also tried to make the culture using spelt, but never had success when I tried.) So I ground the rye berries today, used 3 cups of that flour, with 3 cups of spring water, and the “starter culture” … GoldRush Sourdough Starter … ($2.99 at Whole Foods) and we’ll see what turns out in 24 hours from the start (around 3pm.)
I’ll get more Rye Berries later, and keep the original culture going with that, as well as create a Spelt version of the culture from some of the original Rye culture, and see how that all works out.
One response to “Sourdough Culture (food)”
The culture is coming along. I just fed it and I’ll do so again in about 6 hours, which will be right before bedtime, so then I’ll feed it again in the morning, about 12 hours after the last feeding of today.
The instructions say to proof it at 80 to 95 degrees F., but I’m not doing so, I don’t have such an area … but I am getting results, just slower, and I anticipated that.
The instructions say to discard 1 cup then feed. So I took 1 cup out of the original culture and put it in a different container and added white spelt and water to create a different flour based culture, like for pizza dough for instance (I don’t like whole grain pizza crusts, I prefer lighter ones, and so I use white spelt flour for those generally, sometimes I add a little whole grain spelt flour, just a little.)
I do have a “sour dough bread” cook book by Ed Wood, and he has a different way of treating cultures, so I’m trying to get a handle on what I really want to do with what I have.
The starter I used said to use equal flour/water ratio, basically. Ed says in his book to make a “liquid culture” and that you can do a “sponge culture” but to start out with “liquid” and keep that sort in the fridge as backup in case your sponge or other culture goes bad or you make a mistake, etc. HIs ratio is different than half and half.
He also says not to leave cultures out, but to refridgerate them. The starter I got says you can leave it out and it makes it better over time if you really want good sour taste and texture. All that is about culture that is “finished” … not being on First Activation status, in other words.
So my SD Culture experiment continues, two-fold thus far, one with Rye and another one a Rye base and White Spelt feedings beginning today.