Fast Track White Sourdough Starter

My white starter

Back To Basics...

To see a little more about the history of bread you should take a look at my post for my basic slow-proved boule here. Essentially though, before you could go out and buy yeast in it's processed form, you had to cultivate the yeast naturally found in the flour and the air around you. This is a fairly slow process and so a lot of people shy away from the whole process.

However, that length of the process imbues a fantastic complex depth of flavour to the bread you make and it is something I have been passionate about for a really long time now.

I am going to show you my absolute favourite (and fastest) way to make a great sourdough starter. This will only make the starter and this is not the recipe for the bread which I will post up separately to this.

The key to understanding why this method works is to know what is going on in your starter. When you get your starter prepared and you leave it to ferment, you want two organisms to be cultivated in the mix. The first one is yeast, which you know is to leaven the bread and make a nice airy bread. The second is what gives sourdough its distinctive flavour, lactobacillus. It is the same bacteria you get in fermenting milk when you are making yoghurt and it creates a slightly sour note in the bread.

However, lots of stuff will be growing in your mix and some of it is a bit yuck so usually for the first 10 days your starter isn't really any good. Not enough yeast and too much of other stuff. When the lactobacillus grows it makes the environment slightly acidic. The yeast absolutely loves this, whereas some of the yucky stuff hates it.

For this reason, I have been able to make a healthy, lively starter without having to do traditional feeding intervals simply by adding a teaspoon of yoghurt and using the lactobacillus in that to give the starter an unbelievable jump start.

• Makes a delicious, healthy sourdough starter! (500g)

• Prep - 5 Minutes

• Cooking - N/A

Let's Get The Ingredients...

• 250g Strong Bread Flour
• 250ml Dechlorinated water (Can use a Brita filter or bottled water, in a pinch, you can boil and cool normal tap water)
• 1 Teaspoon Natural Yoghurt

In The Making...

You want to start with a nice large jar... a Kilner is perfect however I am currently using a large mayo jar. 

Pour the water into the bottom of the jar and then tip in the flour. Finally, drop in your yoghurt and stir it all together using a stirrer or a butter knife until it makes a lumpy paste. Screw on the lid, or secure the Kilner lid and pop the jar on top of your boiler, or in a nice cosy warm place. 

You don't want it to be hot. so radiators are a no-no but wherever is toasty in your home is great. 

Usually, you would need to then feed this daily until its ready to use in 8-14 days if you hadn't added the yoghurt.

What you need to do is once a day, unscrew the lid and take it off for a few seconds and put it back on.

On the third day, you want to make sure you are loosely screwing the lid on to let out any extra pressure.  

You should now see it has swelled and bubbled up the jar, should be at least twice the size it was when you mixed it in.

It is ready to use. Try out this sourdough recipe for a boule and pizzas!

Now you need to do a bit of maintenance with it, it is a live organism after all.

Every day you need to feed it and to do this you need to get rid of 450g of the mix, leaving 50g in the jar. and you need to add 225g of flour and 225ml into the jar with the remaining starter. It is pretty wasteful to get rid of that much starter so I use that discard to then make my bread. However, you can also put some olive oil and diced shallots in a frying pan with some rosemary and garlic, get it heating and then all that discarded sourdough starter just chuck into the pan and let it start frying up, flipping after it is firm enough to do so. You will end up with a delicious fried flatbread, great with some poached eggs!

Now it is a lot to have to do this every day, especially if you arent making bread daily. If you don't want to do this then you can feed it once as above and then seal the lid and keep it in the fridge for up to two weeks. and when you want to make some bread, take it out of the fridge the day before, put in a teaspoon of flour and a teaspoon of water and mix into the starter and leave at room temp overnight so it is ready for your bread the next day.

You can use this for pizzas or bread alike and my favourite basic sourdough recipe is here.