In your sourdough starter, you will find microbial partners for baking bread. These can come to live in your starter from the air and wheat, and can be passed on for generations. Yeasts eat the sugars in your flour, the reaction producing bubbles of carbon dioxide which make the dough rise. Compared to store-bought yeast, which contains one type of yeast, sourdough starters can contain a multitude of different yeasts, as well as lactic acid bacteria which help provide a complex, tangy taste.
Feeding your starter (how to care for your sourdough bread mother)
Your sourdough starter can stay alive for a long time if you keep it in the fridge. When you want to use it, take it out of the fridge and “activate it” by feeding it.
How to feed your starter
1 part starter
1 part flour (any kind, but rye gives extra flavour)
1 part water
- Mix all ingredients together. Place a cloth or similar over the container.
~2-6 hours later (you can slow it down by putting it in the fridge) - When your starter has doubled in size, it is active and ready to use.
Tip: If using a cylindrical container, you can place an elastic to mark where the starter was to begin with. Otherwise, you can take a bit and put it in water, if it floats, it is ready.
Recipe: A basic loaf
60 g active starter
300 ml water
310 g bread flour (Manitoba)
80 g whole wheat flour
8 g non-iodized salt
Note that there are many other ways to bake sourdough bread. The above is simply one example which we have experience with.
Plus, you can use it to make pizza dough, crackers, pancakes – basically anything you would think of using baker’s yeast in. So explore and let us know how it goes… Happy baking!
Fermentorskab 
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