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kaberettGetting start(er)ed: I used instructions from Shipton Mill, lo these many years ago, but you can equally well refer to Leiths or Doves Farm or wheresoever you prefer. Shipton Mill are particularly good to my mind in that they're clear about how adjustable proportions are and explain what you're aiming for; they don't explain in quite so many words why they recommend wholemeal stoneground organic flour, but the idea there is that it's likely to come pre-inoculated with at least some of the kinds of wild yeast you're trying to catch, in a way that more processed flours (with less of their remaining exteriors) won't.
We have a water filter jug, and I find the starter's much happier being fed with that than with mains water straight out of the tap.roadrunnertwice's recent excessive bread exposition indicates that actually the key thing going on here is probably that water from the filter jug has typically been sat around for a few hours, allowing the chlorine to evaporate.
I've only done this -- the starter-capture -- once, so I don't have a good sense of how necessary throwing portions away as you go along is. (Probably fairly unless you're willing to end up with a frankly ridiculous amount of starter you'll never get all the way through.)
(You can absolutely use buckwheat or other gluten-free flours to catch and maintain a gluten-free sourdough. Doves Farm provide further advice about gluten-free sourdough preparation, but this isn't something I have any direct experience with. eta 2020-05-29: the Graun's also just put out a guide to gluten-free sourdough.)
For bonus motivation, you can catch yourself a starter for science!
Maintenance: most places will tell you to throw away half your starter, then feed it; there's an enormous range of recipes for using up "discard" rather than just binning it.
I don't bother with either of those -- the discarding, or the frantic Using It Up baking. (Mostly. Blini are a good time if I'm feeling enthusiastic.) The key principles are:
How long your starter takes to be ready to bake with after feeding is down to the specific culture you end up making. Mine's usually good to go (from a room-temperature start) after about four hours; from fridge temperature it needs a bit longer; but 12-18 hours is often quoted, and it will probably take some experimentation.
... bread? I swear by the Leiths recipe, somewhat modified for laziness. To whit:
Add 500g flour. I have varied this from ~75:25 wholemeal:white to 100% white to 90:10 white:rye and quite a lot in between, and have yet to need to noticeably adjust water to take into account flour type. Whisk it in with a fork, as the Leiths recipe says, until it's combined and sort of lumpen but there aren't any remaining big clumps of flour.
(If I'm adding caraway seeds, or similar, I whisk them in at the same time as the flour.)
Leave to rest for at least 30 minutes (but it's very forgiving about being left longer): you're giving the flour a chance to absorb the water evenly and for the various proteins to start doing their thing. You can cover with a tea towel; I mostly don't bother, and it's fine. It's fine.
Mix the salt (I aim for 10g) with another 25ml of water. It won't all dissolve; that's fine. You just want it mostly in suspension. Swirl it around, pour it over the dough, and do your first round (~30s) of fold-and-turns (see the Leiths recipe for more detail, or ask me to send you photos, or shake Youtube until something useful falls out).
Give the dough at least 10 minutes to rest between each round of folding. Again, it's very forgiving: you can in fact forget about it, wander away, go "... oh right I was making bread" Several Hours Later, wander back, and poke it. It'll be fine.
Eventually (5-10 rounds later) you'll have a smooth elastic dough that doesn't want to stick to the bowl (or you) more than it wants to stick to itself any more. If I'm adding nuts and dried fruit and similar, I usually do so after about 3-4 rounds of folding, when the dough is recognisably transforming into bread but isn't all the way there yet.
At this stage, you can do the Leiths-recommended thing of two more rounds of very deliberate specific folding. I... mostly don't, because it's extra executive function; as best I can tell the primary function of this step is to reduce the extent to which the finished loaf contains Massive Bubbles.
You then want to set the dough to shaping. It's rather runnier than standard yeasted doughs, so it does need something to give it shape and structure: I have a banneton, but I've also used a bowl lined with a (heavily) floured tea towel, and that perfectly well too.
At this point you can leave it around two hours and bake it, or you can leave it overnight (and bake it first thing in the morning, for breakfast bread). If I'm leaving it for an overnight ferment, I pop it in the fridge: this slows down the yeast activity, meaning that (1) it's still relatively happy and enthusiastic in the morning for a final burst of excitement in the oven, and also (2) less by way of acid is produced, resulting in a better shape -- while the acids are good for flavour they're also (en masse) damaging to gluten, so you end up with a trade-off between flavour and structural integrity.
Baking: pre-heat your oven to ~220°C, optionally with a heavy-duty baking sheet or griddle in it. Once it's up to temperature, turn the dough out onto your baking substrate (this is the point at which you find out whether you developed the gluten and floured your proving vessel adequately, but never fear, if you have to peel the dough off tentacle-by-tentacle it'll still be perfectly well food), deeply score the top with a sharp knife (so that the poor thing can actually expand in the oven), and fling it in for 30 minutes. Turn out to cool; consume.
I engage in the superstition of dumping a mug of boiling water in a roasting tray in the bottom of the oven right before I put the bread in, but I'm honestly not sure how much of a difference it makes to the crust.
There are variants involving baking in a lidded casserole or Dutch oven, on a similar keep-the-steam-in basis, but this isn't something I've particularly experimented with.
And finally...
Ornamentation! you have so many options, my goodness. Link is to a YouTube video of exciting scoring options (with timelapse photography!), including 100% of the motivation for the title of this post.
We have a water filter jug, and I find the starter's much happier being fed with that than with mains water straight out of the tap.
roadrunnertwice's recent excessive bread exposition indicates that actually the key thing going on here is probably that water from the filter jug has typically been sat around for a few hours, allowing the chlorine to evaporate.I've only done this -- the starter-capture -- once, so I don't have a good sense of how necessary throwing portions away as you go along is. (Probably fairly unless you're willing to end up with a frankly ridiculous amount of starter you'll never get all the way through.)
(You can absolutely use buckwheat or other gluten-free flours to catch and maintain a gluten-free sourdough. Doves Farm provide further advice about gluten-free sourdough preparation, but this isn't something I have any direct experience with. eta 2020-05-29: the Graun's also just put out a guide to gluten-free sourdough.)
For bonus motivation, you can catch yourself a starter for science!
Maintenance: most places will tell you to throw away half your starter, then feed it; there's an enormous range of recipes for using up "discard" rather than just binning it.
I don't bother with either of those -- the discarding, or the frantic Using It Up baking. (Mostly. Blini are a good time if I'm feeling enthusiastic.) The key principles are:
- you need to at least double the mass of your starter when you feed it (to give it enough to eat, keep its environment comfortable for it, etc);
- you want to feed it a very roughly 50:50 mix of flour and water each feed;
- you want to aim to have a minimum of ~2tbsp left over once you've extracted a portion for baking, to keep it going.
How long your starter takes to be ready to bake with after feeding is down to the specific culture you end up making. Mine's usually good to go (from a room-temperature start) after about four hours; from fridge temperature it needs a bit longer; but 12-18 hours is often quoted, and it will probably take some experimentation.
... bread? I swear by the Leiths recipe, somewhat modified for laziness. To whit:
- 350ml + 25ml water
- 100g starter
- 500g flour
- 8-12g salt
Add 500g flour. I have varied this from ~75:25 wholemeal:white to 100% white to 90:10 white:rye and quite a lot in between, and have yet to need to noticeably adjust water to take into account flour type. Whisk it in with a fork, as the Leiths recipe says, until it's combined and sort of lumpen but there aren't any remaining big clumps of flour.
(If I'm adding caraway seeds, or similar, I whisk them in at the same time as the flour.)
Leave to rest for at least 30 minutes (but it's very forgiving about being left longer): you're giving the flour a chance to absorb the water evenly and for the various proteins to start doing their thing. You can cover with a tea towel; I mostly don't bother, and it's fine. It's fine.
Mix the salt (I aim for 10g) with another 25ml of water. It won't all dissolve; that's fine. You just want it mostly in suspension. Swirl it around, pour it over the dough, and do your first round (~30s) of fold-and-turns (see the Leiths recipe for more detail, or ask me to send you photos, or shake Youtube until something useful falls out).
Give the dough at least 10 minutes to rest between each round of folding. Again, it's very forgiving: you can in fact forget about it, wander away, go "... oh right I was making bread" Several Hours Later, wander back, and poke it. It'll be fine.
Eventually (5-10 rounds later) you'll have a smooth elastic dough that doesn't want to stick to the bowl (or you) more than it wants to stick to itself any more. If I'm adding nuts and dried fruit and similar, I usually do so after about 3-4 rounds of folding, when the dough is recognisably transforming into bread but isn't all the way there yet.
At this stage, you can do the Leiths-recommended thing of two more rounds of very deliberate specific folding. I... mostly don't, because it's extra executive function; as best I can tell the primary function of this step is to reduce the extent to which the finished loaf contains Massive Bubbles.
You then want to set the dough to shaping. It's rather runnier than standard yeasted doughs, so it does need something to give it shape and structure: I have a banneton, but I've also used a bowl lined with a (heavily) floured tea towel, and that perfectly well too.
At this point you can leave it around two hours and bake it, or you can leave it overnight (and bake it first thing in the morning, for breakfast bread). If I'm leaving it for an overnight ferment, I pop it in the fridge: this slows down the yeast activity, meaning that (1) it's still relatively happy and enthusiastic in the morning for a final burst of excitement in the oven, and also (2) less by way of acid is produced, resulting in a better shape -- while the acids are good for flavour they're also (en masse) damaging to gluten, so you end up with a trade-off between flavour and structural integrity.
Baking: pre-heat your oven to ~220°C, optionally with a heavy-duty baking sheet or griddle in it. Once it's up to temperature, turn the dough out onto your baking substrate (this is the point at which you find out whether you developed the gluten and floured your proving vessel adequately, but never fear, if you have to peel the dough off tentacle-by-tentacle it'll still be perfectly well food), deeply score the top with a sharp knife (so that the poor thing can actually expand in the oven), and fling it in for 30 minutes. Turn out to cool; consume.
I engage in the superstition of dumping a mug of boiling water in a roasting tray in the bottom of the oven right before I put the bread in, but I'm honestly not sure how much of a difference it makes to the crust.
There are variants involving baking in a lidded casserole or Dutch oven, on a similar keep-the-steam-in basis, but this isn't something I've particularly experimented with.
And finally...
Ornamentation! you have so many options, my goodness. Link is to a YouTube video of exciting scoring options (with timelapse photography!), including 100% of the motivation for the title of this post.