Having baked several loaves of bread in the last couple of months using both straight dough and pre-ferments (poolish and biga), I felt this week I would begin making a starter (or Levain) culture to use in some more advanced sourdough recipes – and document its progress in this blog.
I intend to stick to Ken Forkish’s recipes from “Flour Water Salt Yeast” so will also be using his method to create my starter – albeit using half what the recipe calls for in order to reduce the amount of “used” flour being discarded. Having checked the amount required in the recipes I believe using half the ingredients should be sufficient. I hope!
These are what I will be using to begin my stater with.
My flour of choice is Marriage’s Organic Strong Wholemeal Bread Flour. I ordered a 6-pack of these from Amazon but because the best before date is relatively soon, they sent me another 6 for free. Best get them used!
The beaker is actually one I removed from an old cafetiere. I stuck some tape on the side and marked out every 100ml on it. I wanted to use a container that is taller rather than wider in order to make it easier to track any changes in volume. It is wide enough so that I can also get my hand in for mixing! I couldn’t help thinking of my Grandad Cook when making this – it somehow reminded me of his old black and white TV that had a dial to tune it – which he had stuck labels around to indicate where each channel was! Plus he was also a baker so it just seemed like something he would do!
Day 1
The mixed wholemeal flour and water – 250g of each. It was very satisfying mixing by hand but it felt so much like porridge that I had to stop myself from trying to eat it! It was left for 2 hours before being covered up until the next morning.
Michelle has named it Breadric (as in Cedric)!
Day 2
After no movement at all in day 1 I was quite surprised to find the culture had increased in volume overnight by around 300ml and was bubbling already. It was also a bit smelly! Following the recipe I discarded three quarters of it (around 360g) and then mixed in another 250g each of flour and water.
By midday there had been a significant increase in volume! The above picture was taken later in the afternoon but you can see the mark it left on the beaker at around 1050ml. It slowed down just as I was about to reach for a bigger container and then started to decrease. Phew! Let’s see what tomorrow brings…
Day 3
Not much movement overnight. Breadric was probably exhausted from yesterday afternoon and had settled at around 500ml. After removing another three quarters (450g) and mixing in 250g each of flour and water the volume came to 550ml.
I am writing this about 30mins later and he has already grown 25ml. I think he might have outgrown his beaker by this afternoon!
Breadric only grew 100ml today. I was expecting to see a growth spurt in the evening or when left overnight tonight – but then around 22:00 I noticed some liquid forming on the surface, commonly known as “hooch” (visible on the right in the above picture) – I also got a strong waft of vinegar whilst performing a smell check.
From what I have read online this just means he is hungry – but I don’t really want to feed him tonight as I am still worried he might out-grow his container whilst I am asleep! I think he will be OK until the morning, though I suspect I will see a deeper layer of this liquid tomorrow.
Day 4
Breadric wasn’t looking too bad this morning – the hooch had not increased but appeared to have sunk below the surface slightly and smelt quite vinegary. I gave him a good stir and continued with the recipe by disgarding all but 100g. Then added another 250g each of flour and water. This brought the volume to just over 500ml. Hopefully I will see a better growth today…
Still not much growth… Breadric grew about 100ml by the afternoon and then stayed there all evening. There were some small bubbles on the surface though and you can see some in the mix itself. I did see a very thin layer of liquid on the surface too, though not as much as yesterday – so he is still alive! The recipe calls for feeding a smaller amount of starter with a mix of white and wholemeal flour on Day 5 so I will see how this plays out…
Day 5
Breadric stayed the same overnight. This morning I emptied him into a bowl and cleaned his container. I then put 75ml back into the container along wtih 200g white flour, 50g wholemeal flour and 200g water at 85°F. As a result, he now looks a bit lighter than before and with less hydration (80% instead of 100%)
The recipe I am following advises that the starter should be ready to use by this afternoon but I am not sure this will be the case for Breadric as he seems to be a bit behind at the moment! I will just continue to feed him for the next few days before I think about using him…
Days 6-7
I am sad to say that I ended up discarding of Breadric on the evening of Day 7. He was, for the most part, showing no signs of life for around 60 hours. He did look a tiny bit foamy on the surface and was tempted to feed him again; however made the decision not to in the end.
At first I thought maybe he wasn’t warm enough with it being Winter – so I tried various ways of keeping him warm but nothing seemed to have any effect. After some further research I think maybe it was a result of the unfiltered tap water I was feeding him with – and the various chemicals present in it that were having a negative effect on his growth. I was also concerned about the amount of flour I was going through every day to feed him!
The good news though is that I began my second attempt yesterday and it seems to be going well so far…
Fredrick is gonna escape one day, and take over your home. We may never see you and Michelle again !!