Article: Sourdough Starter

I used to have a small crock of sour dough starter, it's easy to make and easy to maintain, and it's very versatile to use!

Most people would associate it with bread, however I never used mine for bread! I use to make sour dough pancakes and add fresh apple and cinnamon to the batter. They were awesome. When I lived in Salem OR we had a raspberry vine nearby and on Sunday mornings I'd go out and pick a bunch of raspberries and make sourdough raspberry waffles! Great with apple smoked bacon. My specialty was sourdough pizza crust with our favorite toppings! As you use the starter, you can replenish it and it keeps going on forever, mine lasted almost 2 years, I kept it in a crock on the kitchen counter.

Tdemex

(Mike Summers) yeast to speed the process. If you take a 1 gallon jar, half full of water (I think it was a cup of sugar and 1 cup of flour stirred in and left uncovered) then add 1 cup of flour each day until the yeast in the ambient air infect the flour/water mix nicely, then you have your starter. You can cheat a bit and seed it with a few grains of a bit.


(Tdemex) Hey Mike, good to hear from you! That's an interesting way to do it, seems like a lot. Mine was much smaller, like 1 cup water 1 1/2 cups flour, tsp sugar and a little yeast. I kept it in one of those small brown crocks with a rubber gasket on the lid and it had a wire over the top to hold the lid in place. I'm sure you've seen them before. In total it was may be 2 1/2 to 3 cups. The trick was when blending it in with the recipes to let that sit for awhile and let the action work the new dough to get the flavor going. I used it for at least 2 years and just threw some flour and water in it to get it going again. But it sure made some good eats!

(Mike Summers) I was taught this way by some hippie bakers in Courtenay BC.

They told me that there are many yeasts floating around in the air, and that by keeping the lid off the jar, those yeasts would infect the mix, thus souring the dough mix.

Here is an interesting slight variant. They added grapes to take advantage of surface yeasts on the fruit.