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Sourdough Starter (Wild Yeast)

Olive
You can use this wild yeast to bake delicious sourdough bread. Just be patient.
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Equipment

Digital Kitchen Scale
Mason Jar
Tablespoon
Measure Cup
Small Bowl

Ingredients
  

For Days 1-7

  • 1 ⅓ cup Bread Flour or all purpose flour
  • Water tepid / use filtered or boiled cooled water

Day 8-14 (Week 2)

Instructions
 

  • In a small jar (2-cup capacity) measure 3 tablespoons bread flour and add 2 tablespoons water. Mix well.
  • Loosely cover jar with lid and place jar in a warm place in your kitchen. I put mine in the cupboard.
  • After 24 hours, take the jar, add 3 tablespoons of flour and 2 tablespoons of tepid water. Stir until well mixed.
  • Put the lid back loosely and return the jar in the same place.
  • By day 3 you will see bubbles forming...sign that there is some bacteria present. Congratulations. You may now start thinking of a name. :D
  • Keep feeding your starter for a week.
  • Day 7 - by this time you already have a young starter.
    Start discarding some of the starter before feeding to freshen the batch and make it stronger.
  • Use a digital kitchen weighing scale. Put a bowl on top and make sure the scale is on "0"
  • Pour 100 grams of sourdough starter in the bowl then press the scale to "0" to measure the water. Or ⅔ cup flour and ½ cup water
  • Pour 100 grams of tepid water to the sourdough mixture in the bowl. Stir well.
  • Press the scale to "0". Add 100g of flour to the bowl and stir until it's well mixed.
  • Pour the contents of the bowl into a clean and bigger jar (1 quart capacity) to give more room for your sourdough to rise. Loosely cover the jar and keep it in a warm place
    Put a rubber band around the jar so you can keep track of it's growth.
  • Repeat for a week. You will notice by the end of week 2 (day 14) that you have a happy, bubbly wild yeast in your care, ready for its first baking experience. At this time you may try using it for simple sourdough bread recipes if you like.
  • To continue, on Day 15, I started feeding my sourdough starter every 12 hours.
  • Continue to do this if you are baking almost everyday.
    After 6 weeks I noticed my sourdough starter is okay even if I missed a "feeding". It has a more sour smell when it is hungry then after feeding, it smells sweet again.
  • As an insurance, in case I unintentionally "killed" my wild yeast, I kept an ounce of sourdough starter in the fridge 5 hours after feeding it an ounce of flour and one ounce water with the lid tighly closed.
    I plan to feed it once per week.
  • That's it. You can now use your sourdough starter at this point to make delicious sourdough bread. Enjoy your new "baby"
  • Good Luck:)
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