To make sourdough bread you need a sourdough starter, if you know someone who has one all you need is 50 grams and you can start the daily feeding process (now this is not a big job, I timed how long it took me and it was 3 1/2 mins to feed the starter) and start baking… if not here is the recipe I followed. Super easy and the key here is the rye flour.
Health Benefits of Sourdough – Grandma knew best…
Have you ever heard of phytic acid? Basically, it’s an antinutrient found in grains, beans, and nuts that interferes with the absorption of certain nutrients. They are present on grains to keep them from spoiling.
There is a reason they are there, but we now have good evidence that our bodies weren’t meant to handle them. Proper preparation of grains eliminates most, if not all, of the phytic acid in offending foods.
It is all about going back to basics…
Traditional cultures soaked and fermented their grains, seeds, and beans. Due to our fast past world, we have lost that art and we now have found that lots of people can’t handle grains anymore. Sourdough is an easy and great way to improve you and your family’s health. So instead of buying supermarket bread or using instant yeast. You can follow on from traditional cultures with a fermented starter that has captured the yeasts in the environment.
Sourdough Starter Recipe
Equipment:
- Wide mouth glass jar
- Electronic scales
- Chopstick for mixing
- Cloth to cover jar
Before you start weigh empty jar and write weight on jar
Day 1
Add to jar
- 100 grams rye flour
- 150 grams lukewarm water
- Mix with chopstick
- Cover with a loose clean cloth and put in a cupboard (I put in the cupboard above the fridge so it is out of the way) and allow to sit for 24 hours
Day 2
70 grams mature starter – place jar on scales and then remove starter till you have jar weight + 70g (my jar was 285 grams ~ 285 + 70 = 355 I removed starter (we call this sourdough discard) till the weight came to 355 grams).
Add to the 70 grams of Starter left in the jar
- 50 grams rye flour
- 50 grams unbleached white flour
- 115 grams lukewarm water
- Mix well with a chopstick
Cover with a loose clean cloth and put in a cupboard (I put in the cupboard above the fridge so it is out of the way), allow to sit for 24 hours.
Day 3
Same as day 2
Day 4
- 70g mature starter (left in jar, discard the what you don’t need)
- 50g rye flour
- 50g unbleached white flour
- 100g lukewarm water
- Mix with chopstick
Cover with a loose clean cloth and put in a cupboard (I put in the cupboard above the fridge so it is out of the way), allow to sit for 24 hours.
Day 5
Same as day 4
Day 6 – Daily feeding (each day from now on)
- 50g mature starter ~ place jar on scales and then remove starter till you have jar weight + 50g (e.g. my jar was 285 grams ~ 285 + 50 = 335 I removed starter (we call this sourdough discard) till the weight came to 335 grams).
- 50g rye flour
- 50g unbleached white flour
- 100g lukewarm water
- Mix well with a chopstick
Tip: Keep your sourdough discard in the fridge ~ Instead of throwing your discard away after feeding your sourdough starter, add it to a jar until you have enough to make a sourdough discard recipe!
You will know it is working when it has bubbles and doubles in size
Watch my video: Sourdough Bread Tips
Sourdough discard recipes to try…
[…] a great way to use my leftover sourdough starter. I used to compost it, but now instead of composting it, I pop it in a jar and kept it in the […]