One of the things that I’ve learned in my baking journey is that fresh flour, and good flour are key to a better bread experience.
I buy most of my flour online now, at Barton Springs Mill in Texas or Central Milling in Idaho.
One of my favorite recipes, at the moment, is a whole wheat sourdough. I’ve done 100% whole wheat, and it’s super tasty but quite dense. I’m happier with a 50/50 split of whole wheat and some tasty bread flour.
Rouge de Bordeaux is a heritage grain dating back to the 19th century in France.
Yecora Rojo is a more modern grain from the 1970s from Mexico.
Day 1
Soaker
flour
weight (grams)
Notes
whole wheat
120
water
170
Mix until hydrated, cover and let sit on the counter overnight. This fermentation period breaks down bran a bit and vastly reduces the bitterness of the whole wheat.
Poolish
flour
weight (grams)
Notes
Yecora Rojo starter
95
This starter is 1/3 Yecora Rojo, 1/3 starter, 1/3 water
whole wheat
95
water
170
Mix until hydrated, cover and let sit in the fridge overnight. Again, the fermentation breaks down the bran and adds a wonderful complexity to the flavor.
Day 2
Dough
flour
weight (grams)
Notes
Yecora Rojo
255
soaker from above
290
poolish from above
360
Mix until everything is incorporated and let sit for 30 minutes
Add 11grams of salt and mix in well
Either knead until it passes the onion skin test, or fold every 30 minutes for a few hours until glutens are well developed
Recently my mom, Marti, got me a fantastic birthday present. A baking cloche.
This new tool has upped my baking game considerably.
I was using cast iron pots for a while, but had varying results. When baking with a tool like this, you typically do a long bake with the lid on, then take it off at the end for additional color. The iron skillets retained too much of the water vapors and the parchment would actually stick to the bread. Sometimes the bread was done more on the top that it was on the bottom resulting in uneven coloring.
The cloche that I have now eliminates all these issues.
This article is from The Perfect Loaf. I did not write this. I wanted to grab it for later reference and share with my friends.
July 30, 2018
• 17 min read
I’ve fallen hard for these pointy sticks. Their beautifully exaggerated shape starts with a thick center and transitions into dangerously sharp instruments at the ends. Colors stretching from the periphery of black to almost-too-light; contrast that elicits stares. A creamy and tender interior that’s so porous it soaks the butter inevitably spread thick during moments of eager anticipation. Pure sourdough baguettes are a tricky thing, I think, but when everything lines up just right all your past shortcomings discovered in testing vanish in an instant. All the trials and tests and tweaks fade away, leaving only a sense of accomplishment — that feeling of satisfaction that only comes when expectation and end result align.
These beautiful baguettes do take concerted effort and practice but the results are absolutely worth the work. Ok, technically these are demi-baguettes given their shorter stature and perhaps reduced dough weight, but the nature of this bread holds to the ideal. The slender shape, thin-crust, and delicate interior simply exude baguette, even if their specs are a little skewed.
I’ve been working on this recipe relentlessly, and if you follow me on Instagram you know this, but all the work put into these revolves around the simple fact baguettes are just plain challenging. I find that beyond the required fermentation attention, flour selection, hydration adjustments, cold versus warm bulk decisions, and seeking that correct proof point, there’s the matter of coercing the dough delicately into the correct shape. As with many things, they simply require practice.
Their challenge stems from the fact that even small shaping mishaps will show themselves quite clearly in the end result. There’s a reason why many bakers consider baguettes to be one of the hardest breads to make… A benchmark of sorts. But even if the shape or the interior isn’t exactly perfect, they’re always delicious and incredibly rewarding to make. Plus, the more you make them, the more the process slows down internally, the more all the small adjustments add up to large improvements.
Because shaping these sourdough baguettes can be frustrating at times, I’ve written an entire guide to shaping baguettes—complete with a video (which is also included below) to help illustrate things in real-time. I plan to flesh the guide out even further with alternate shaping methods as I experiment and work at these into the future. But as-is, the guide is a concise reference point for shaping sourdough baguettes.
Let’s talk about flour.
Flour Selection
In my early iterations of this formula, I worked in 10% white spelt flour (that’s spelt flour that has some percentage of bran/germ sifted out). My intention was to introduce more extensibility in the dough along with the classic, and wonderful, flavor of spelt. After many trials I decided to drop the spelt due to a few reasons:
at 73% hydration, this dough had plenty of extensibility
while whole grain spelt flour has an amazing flavor, 10% white spelt just didn’t contribute enough to the end result
white spelt flour can be hard to obtain
In the end, I substituted out the spelt for a higher protein white flour (in this case Central Milling High Mountain, 13% protein). This formula could easily be adapted to be 100% lower-protein white flour, omitting the high protein flour entirely. If you take this path, know that the dough might be a little more extensible and sticky, potentially requiring a longer mix time.
Sourdough Baguettes
Similar to my Kamut demi-baguette recipe, I utilized a short warm, and long cold, two-step bulk fermentation for this dough. When I tested cold proofing these baguettes in shape the results always yielded a slightly thicker crust compared to a warm final proof. Further, a cold bulk also adds to the flexibility and convenience of this dough.
This flexible dough can be warm-bulked for same-day baguettes or cold-bulked overnight for baguettes fresh the next day.
The entire process is split up over the course of two days. This affords you the option to bake the baguettes the next day when you want them — for breakfast, lunch, or even dinner.
Vitals
The following sourdough baguette formula results in 6 demi-baguettes. I baked these in two batches of three in my home oven. When baking the first three, the remaining three were rested in the fridge on a proofing board.
Total Dough Weight
2100 grams
Pre-fermented Flour
4.00%
Hydration
73.00%
Yield
6 x 350g sourdough baguettes (appx 14″ long)
Total Formula
This is a roll-up of the entire formula for this dough. Read on to see the levain and the dough mix broken out into two separate tables.
Note:Going forward this will be how I list dough formulas here to help avoid confusion. The Total Formula table below shows a snapshot of the overall percentages of each ingredient, their weights, and a description of the flour. Each subsequent table (Levain, Dough Mix) shows only what you need to mix for that component (Levain and Dough Mix), independently.
For an in-depth explanation on how I use Baker’s Percentages below, see my beginner’s sourdough post.
Weight
Ingredient
Baker’s Percentage
1056g
White bread flour, malted (Giusto’s Artisan Bread Flour, ~11.5% protein)
90.00%
117g
High protein bread flour (Central Milling High Mountain, ~13% protein)
10.00%
856g
Water
73.00%
24g
Salt
2.00%
47g
Starter (100% hydration)
4.00%
Levain (liquid & mild)
One of my goals with these sourdough baguettes was to keep the flavor profile mild and just-barely-sour. Utilizing all white flour in the levain, high hydration, and using it before it becomes overly ripe all ensure acidity is kept low. These properties eventually transfer over to the final dough itself. See my discussion on what a levain is and how to adjust the flavor profile for more information.
Weight
Ingredient
Baker’s Percentage
47g
Mature liquid starter (100% hydration)
100%
47g
White bread flour, malted (Giusto’s Artisan Bread Flour, 11.5% protein)
100%
47g
Water
100%
This is a fast levain build: we go from feeding to maturity in only 3 hours. The high inoculation percentage and warm temperature expedite the maturation of this levain. If you’d like to stretch this time out a bit, to better fit your schedule, drop the inoculation down to 50% mature starter and it’ll be ready in around 5-6 hours.
At 100% inoculation my levain was ready to be mixed into the dough after 3 hours when kept at 77-80°F (25-26°C).
Above you can see a picture of my levain right before mixing it into my dough. Plenty of bubbles on top and the sides, and if you look closely, you’ll see it just starting to fall at the edges.
Note that the table below shows the weights for the ingredients only for the final sourdough baguette dough mix. In other words, the weight of the flour here will be less than the Total Formula lists above because some flour needs to be used to build the levain, above.
Weight
Ingredient
1009g
White bread flour, malted (Giusto’s Artisan Bread Flour, ~11.5% protein)
117g
High protein bread flour (Central Milling High Mountain, ~13% protein)
Build the levain (everything listed in the Levain section, above) and store somewhere around 78°F (25°C) ambient until ripe, about 3 hours.
2. Autolyse – 12:45 p.m.
Add the called for flour, and all but 100g of the called for water to a mixing bowl. Mix by hand until fully incorporated. Cover the bowl and let autolyse for 1 hour.
To the mixing bowl, add the liquid levain, salt, and the rest of the reserved water.
Mix in the bowl for 5-8 minutes until the dough starts to smooth out some. Alternatively, you could scoop the dough out to the counter and slap/fold (French fold) the dough until you see medium development (my preference and it took me about 5 minutes of mixing).
At the end of mixing, the dough won’t look incredibly smooth or firm; it’ll still look shaggy and feel slightly slack. Further strength will be imparted during bulk fermentation physically (through stretch and folds) and organically (through fermentation itself).
Transfer the dough to a tub or thick-walled bowl for bulk fermentation.
4. Warm Bulk Fermentation – 2:00 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.
During this phase (of the two-step bulk fermentation phase), give the dough three sets of stretch and folds, starting 30 minutes after the beginning of bulk (i.e., 2:30 p.m.). After the last set, let the dough rest untouched for 15 minutes.
This warm bulk fermentation will last a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes. The dough will clearly show signs of fermentation activity: it will be smoother and show some small bubbles on the surface.
At this point, you can choose to cold-bulk the dough until the next day (as I do in this post) or continue to bulk ferment the dough on the counter for a same-day bake. Same-day baguettes tend to have an even more mild flavor profile. This pushes the flavor of the grain itself forward, resulting in reduced acidity and sourness.
If you choose to make same-day baguettes, proceed with bulk fermentation on the counter until the dough looks ready to divide, likely 1-1.5 hours more. Then, shape them and proof in the same way as described below.
If you choose to proceed with a cold bulk fermentation, place the covered bulk container into your fridge until the next day.
6. Divide & Preshape – 11:00 a.m. (next day)
I chose to remove the dough from the fridge at 11:00 a.m. the next day, but this time is very flexible. I’ve removed it a few hours early, and up to 5 hours later, and the results were equally great. As I said earlier, this dough is very flexible.
In the image above you can see the top of my cold-bulked dough right when pulled from the fridge. Plenty of activity, but not exceedingly gassy or risen. Relaxed and active.
Gently scrape the dough from the bulk container to an un-floured work surface. The dough will feel cold, slightly damp, and firm. Divide into 350g pieces and preshape the pieces of dough into rounds (my preference) or rough tubes. Because the dough is cold and firm, very little bench flour is needed to pre-shape. Let the preshaped dough rest for 30 minutes, uncovered.
After the preshaped rounds have rested 30 minutes, shape each piece into a long baguette, approximately 14″ long for a home oven.
Proof the pieces until they pass the poke test, about 1 hour and 45 minutes at room temperature. I shaped these baguettes in my typical way, as seen in the video to the side. For more in-depth information on shaping check out my guide to shaping sourdoughbaguettes.
Shaping baguettes are something that requires practice. Try not to get discouraged when shaping, take it slow and focus on one motion at a time.
8. Proof – 12:00 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.
Try to keep your proofing board away from drafts as the dough can quickly develop a crust on the outside. It may help to drape the edges of your linen over the shaped baguettes or cover them loosely with plastic. If you cover with plastic, be aware the dough may stick.
9. Bake – Preheat oven at 12:45 p.m., bake at 1:45 p.m.
Preheat your oven with baking stone/steel for one hour at 500°F (260°C).
One challenge with these baguettes is you’ll likely have to bake these in two batches. If you have two racks each with a baking stone (or Baking Steel), you could utilize both surfaces and bake all six simultaneously. My method is to break the bake up into two sessions: in the first, three are loaded and baked. Then, the remaining three baguettes are left on the couche, folded up gently, and placed into the refrigerator until it’s time to start the second baking session.
To start the first baking session, ready a pizza peel lined with parchment paper. I use one large piece to cover the entire peel, which is the same width as my baking surface.
Grab the right end of the couche and pull it out, moving the piece of dough away from the rest. Then, using a dough transfer board (a smaller pizza peel or a small cutting board could also work), place the board to the inside of the baguette (the side closest the rest of the dough pieces). With the hand holding the couche, quickly flip the dough onto the peel by tugging up and slightly over the transfer board. The baguette should now be seam side down on the transfer board.
Slide the dough off the transfer board and onto the prepared pizza peel with parchment paper, seam side down, and continue until you have three pieces.
Once all three baguettes are on the parchment paper, score each with three slashes. Each slash should be reasonably shallow to the dough, and the beginning of one should overlap about 20% of the previous.
Slide the parchment paper with dough onto your baking surface. Due to the smaller mass, these baguettes will take less time to bake than a large hearth loaf. Once you load the dough, steam the oven and turn it down to 475°F (246°C). Bake for 20 minutes with steam. Then, remove the pans used for steaming, vent the oven, and turn it down to 450°F (230°C). Bake for an additional 20-25 minutes until done.
Cool on a rack and repeat for the remaining three baguettes from the fridge.
These sourdough baguettes taste rich, exquisite, delicate, and yet, they have an exposed rough side. The brittle crust grounds the eating experience and gives body to the otherwise tender bread. It’s through this contrast that the bread is elevated to the next level—a baguette with a soft, flimsy crust would be a sad baguette indeed.
The only downside to making these baguettes is also what makes them so unique: because of their small circumference and thin crust, they’re best eaten on the day you bake them. After the first day, they begin to lose their texture, and the crust either becomes overly hard (if in a dry climate) or soft (if in a humid environment). This puzzle is easily solved, however: invite your friends over, slice every baguette, and stand back as they’re gone before the end of the night.
Crust
The golden, dark crust on these baguettes is just thick enough. Thick enough to provide great mouthfeel and structure, but not overly thick as to diminish one of the defining characteristics of a baguette itself. A commercially yeasted baguette may yield a thinner crust, but I dare say these come close. Plus, it’s hard to deny the exciting flavor from natural leavening and overnight proof.
Crumb
The interior is tender, open, and glossy. I love the contrast between the extremes: when cut the crust wants to shatter like a cracker, and the crumb wants to stretch and tear like cotton candy.
Taste
Even though they’re comprised of 100% white flour, they have depth and richness that seems to defy logic. These sourdough baguettes taste like they have a very light spread of butter even without a trace of the stuff. Perhaps it’s the supple texture of the interior playing tricks on me, maybe its the grain, or perhaps it’s the magic of sourdough and fermentation. Whatever the cause, I’ll take it.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it a million times more: fermentation is a mysterious and beautiful thing. I hope you try this recipe and you show up to your next gathering with an armful of exquisite, and incredibly delicious, pointy sticks.
Sourdough Baguettes Troubleshooting
Why are these scaled to 350g?
One (of the many) reasons I like to do a cold proof with almost all my other doughs is because scoring is much easier. When the dough is warm, it’s easy for your blade to drag and get stuck. The best advice I have here is to use a new, super sharp blade and make your cuts as smooth and fast as possible. If you notice you didn’t cut through the skin of the dough sufficiently in the first pass, lightly drag the blade inside the cut to give it a little help.
There are two ways to handle starter. Leave it on the counter, or toss it in the fridge.
If you leave it on the counter, it needs to be fed every day. I’d only recommend this approach if you actually use it daily to bake with. It does consume a lot of flour, so there’s that.
The fridge approach is better for the very casual baker. You can feed it, let it sit for a few hours to start fermenting, then toss it in the fridge. Mine lasts in the fridge for up to a week. So, when I’m not on a baking kick, I only feed it once a week. I’ve kept this last batch going for about a decade now with this method.
To feed it, the best ratio of starter/flour/water is 1/3 of each. I recommend using all purpose, unbleached flour. Plain old tap water is fine, unless you live in a place like Flint, MI where the water can kill you 😉
You can keep it dryer or wetter, depending upon your baking approach. I tend to keep mine wetter, like very thick pancake batter. I tend to make more hydrated breads.
Also, you don’t need a ton of it if you aren’t baking. For instance, you can keep just a few tablespoons going with the fridge method, thereby reducing your flour consumption.
So, when you want to use your starter, it’s best to feed it the day before you use it. That’ll put it at its maximum peak for yeast. When I know I’m going to bake, I take the counter approach. I leave it on the counter (instead of the fridge) for a few days before I bake to bulk up the amount to be twice what I’ll actually use when baking. When you increase the size, it loses some of its sourness. So if you do it for a few days to bulk it up, it’ll be nice and sour once you do bake.
Then to use it, just follow any ol’ online recipe for something with sourdough in it. There are a billion recipes available 🙂
If your starter seems to be lack luster, not very sour, sort of flat, or other, you can perk it up.
This article, which is just a repost from an amazing book, uses fruit juice. I’ve heard raison juice is very affective too.
Sourdough can be pretty easy, and can get more complicated. The easiest form of sourdough is starter + flour + water + salt. Getting the starter going is a bit more complicated and and the type of flour you use can add complexities to the baking process.
Here’s the easy recipe:
Ingredients
Ingredient
weight in grams
bakers %
cups
starter
230
40%
1 cup
flour
575
100%
2.5 cups
water
375
65%
1.5 cups
salt
14.2
 0.024%
 0.5poz
Explanation The ingredients listed above are by weight. I included cup measurements in case you don’t have a scale. The cup measurements are approximate. I’ve tossed in the percentages just because I’m geeky that way.
It’s important that you use “bread flour”. Bread flour has a higher protein content than all purpose flour. It’s the proteins that help form gluten which helps the bread taste better and rise and all that. You can find bread flour at any grocery store.
You can use whole wheat, rye or spelt flours too, but be sure that you only substitute 25% or less of the bread flour with the hardier flours. Otherwise the bread won’t rise as much. You can play around with it later, but if this is your first time, stick to bread flour. I’ve done a 50/50 split with whole wheat before and it rose ok.
Making the dough
Mixing In a big bowl, mix all the ingredients together till a sticky dough forms. It’s ok if it’s sticky, but should definitely not be soupy and spread easily. It shouldn’t be super dry either. If it’s flakey or tears it’s definitely too dry.
Once you have a the dough made, you have to knead it. If you have a bread mixer attachment for your mixer, great. Mix it on level 6 (just above 1/2 way) for about 5 minutes. If you don’t have a mixer, then knead it by hand. It should take maybe 10 – 12 minutes.
You’ll know when it’s done when you take a hand full of dough and stretch it. If it gets super thin without tearing you are done. Here’s an image of what it should look like.
You don’t want to over knead the dough. Just stop when it gets to the point mentioned above. That’s important.
Once you have the dough done, then put it in an oil sprayed container at least twice the size of the dough, slap a lid on it, and toss it in the fridge over night. Refrigerating the dough over night slows the rising process, and enhances the flavor of the bread. You could bake the dough in the same day, but waiting over night significantly improves the flavor of the bread. It’s worth the wait.
The next morning, pull out the dough and let it sit in the container on the counter for a few hours to bring it up to room temperature.
First Proofing Take a big bowl, spray the inside with spray oil so the dough doesn’t stick, toss the dough in, and spray the top of the dough with spray oil again. It’s best to cover the bowl with plastic wrap or something. That helps keep the outside of the dough from drying up.
This is the first proofing. You want it to double in size. If your sourdough starter is quite active, this will happen in an hour or two. If it’s not so active, it may take all day. If it takes more than 4 hours, then move on to the second proofing.
Second Proofing Once your first proofing is done, punch down the dough. Literally push the center of the dough down with your fist. Then fold over the four sides of the dough onto the center and then flip it over in the bowl. Re-spray the top of the dough with spray oil, cover it, and let it sit for another hour or more until it doubles in size again.
Forming Once you are done with your second proof, you’ll need to form it. I usually form it on a counter sprinkled with flour, then toss it on parchment paper for the final rise. I use the paper just cause it makes it easier to move around into and out of the oven. You can skip it though. Don’t spray the top, just cover with a cloth. It’s ok if it dries out a little bit. FYI, I have a pizza spatula to help move the bread around. It can get tricky without some sort of flat thing to move the bread.
So, forming means shaping. You can shape the bread any way you like. You can make a long baguette/batard shapes, or a round boule (bowl) shape, or whatever floats your boat. Here’s a funky little post about it with pretty good photos.
So let it rise on the counter till it doubles in size again. Or at least larger. You don’t need to spray or cover with plastic now. It’d be good to toss a cloth over the top to keep the flies off. It’ll be another 30 minutes to an hour. It could take longer or go super fast, depending upon how active your starter was.
If you want to get fancy, and get a crustier crust, you can slice the top of the bread just before you put it in the oven. three diagonal slices on a baguette works, or a cross hatch on a boule. Just think about the good bread you can buy at an actual bakery and slice it the way they do it. You’ll need a razor blade or extremely sharp knife to do this. FYI, slicing actually helps with the final rise inside the oven.
Baking About 1/2 way through the rise, pre-heat the oven to 550 degrees. If your oven only goes to say 450 + just push it as far as it’ll go. You want it higher than 450 as you’ll be dropping the temp down to 450 once you start baking. The rack should be at it’s lowest position, but not on the floor of the oven. If you have a pizza stone, toss that on the rack to pre-heat as well. Finally put a baking tin, or cast iron skillet under the bottom rack to pre-heat as well. Basically any sort of oven proof metal container.
Boil a few cups of water. You’ll need this to steam the bread.
Put the bread on a baking sheet then into the over or directly onto the pizza stone. Again, I leave my bread on the parchment paper in the oven. It just makes it easier to move around. Take a 1/2 cup of the boiled water, toss it into the baking tin or skillet under the bread and shut the oven door for about 1.5 minutes to let the steam hit the bread. After 1.5 minutes take about an 1/8th of a cup of the water, open the oven, and toss it onto the side of the oven and shut the door to steam it for another 30 seconds. Repeat that last step one more time. Be sure not to throw the water onto the light inside the oven. It’ll break it 🙂
Steaming helps develop the crust into something extra wonderful, as well as helps the bread rise.
Once steaming is done, reduce the heat to 450 and bake for 15 – 20 minutes. If you have two loaves, you might need to flip them around half way through to cook them evenly.
The bread is done with the top is golden brownish (darker or lighter depending upon your own taste), and when the bread makes a good hollow thumping sound when you tap the bottom (yes flip it) with your finger.
YOU MUST LET THE BREAD COOL BEFORE EATING IT. The cooling process actually condenses air inside the bread and enhances the flavor. Don’t skip this step. It’s pretty important.
This is a repost from Peter Reinhart’s blog.  I’m archiving it here for my own purposes, just in case his blog dissappears 🙂  If you’d like his recipe, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to buy his book.
Hello Again,
I have been receiving e-mails from readers of the “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” (the BBA for short) about a problem that our recipe testers have already faced–sourdough (i.e., wild yeast) starters that bubble away early and then go dormant. I have addressed this in American Pie and will do so with more detail in the upcoming whole grains book, but this is for those new folks who are writing to me, so I can refer them to this site for a quick explanation and solution.
Through the work of a diligent group of home bakers at the King Arthur Baking Circle (www.kingarthurflour.com), led by one of our current testers, Debbie Wink, it was discovered that a strain of bacteria called leuconostoc exists in a lot of flour (more so now, it seems than a few years ago). This bacteria masquerades as yeast in the early stage of a seed culture starter, in that it generates a lot of carbon dioxide making it appear that the wid yeast cells are growing rapidly. However, the wild yeast really needs a more acidic environment than exists during the first few days of the starter’s existence and, unfortunately, the leuconostoc interferes with yeast growth during this grand masquerade. At a certain point, as the bacteria causes the dough to become more acidic, the acid actually de-activates the leuconostoc (it actually contributes to its own demise), but the wild yeast have not had a chance to propogate and grow in numbers, so there is a domancy period in which nothing seems to be happening. Many folks have assumed they killed their starter when it did not seem to respond to a Day 3 or Day 4 feeding, and threw it out. Others waited and saw mold form on the top of the starter and, of course, they too threw it out. That’s about the time I start getting their e-mails. So here are two solutions to the problem:
First, if you are starting from scratch, use canned pineapple juice instead of water during the first two days of feeding. The acid in the juice is just at the right ph level to acidify the dough to the yeast’s liking but not to the leuconostoc. The starter should then work as written. You should then switch to back to water from Day Three onward, and slowly the pineapple juice will dilute out as you feed and refresh your starter over time.
Second, and this is a big breakthrough I think, you should stir your seed culture starter two or three times a day, for about one minute each time, to aerate it. Yeast loves oxygen and multiplies faster when you stimulate the mixture with air. In addition, the stirring evens out the hydration of the dough and exposes any surface organisms that may have drifted onto the starter to the acidic environment within, and thus deactivates them while the yeast and the good lactobacillus organisms continue to grow. I’ve lost count of how many people solved their starter problem simply by this aeration technique. Once your starter is fully established it will be healthy enough to not need this added process, but it would be wise, I think, to continue the aeration throughout the seed culture phase.
If you are already into the process of beginning a seed culture but did not know about the “pineapple juice solution,” fret not. Just begin the frequent aeration and see what happens. Most likely, your starter will come to life and when it does, it will probably stay on the schedule as written in the book.
Yup, it’s official, I’ve got it back 🙂 All this time later, I finally created a yoghurt/milk/flour version and it’s cooking along quite well 🙂
Yogurt Sourdough Starter
1 cup milk–organic is best
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup flour
Mix the milk and yogurt in something other than a metal container and put a lid on it but don’t let it completely seal since if things work right, the biproduct of this happy union will be gas–CO2–and you don’t want your container to explode or anything; that would be messy. Let that sit on your counter for 24 hours.
After 24 hours, dump in the flour and give it all a good stir. You’ll stir your starter everyday for the next 3-5 days. If it bubbles and smells a bit like bread and beer then you’ve succeeded! If there are no bubbles then it’s failed.
Yes folks, my sourdough starter died recently. Â So sad!
Update 9/2018: My starter has died so many times over the years. Fear not, I just made more! Plus, I learned how to resuscitate it when it looked dead. Just use pineapple (or I’ve heard raison) juice instead of water when feeding the starter. It kicks it right back in gear.
