Sourdough workshop

It was lovely to meet everyone from the Toowoomba Simple Living group today, where I conducted a workshop on making sourdough. For all those who took sourdough starter home with them, this is the care instructions promised:

Before you go to bed tonight:

• feed your cup of starter with 1 cup of water, and 1 cup of bakers flour
• stir well 
• you can leave it on the counter for an hour, if you plan to bake the next day, otherwise, place back in fridge immediately.
• you can bake at any point between tomorrow and day 4-5
• keeps active for up to 4-5 days, before having to repeat the process of splitting and feeding again (so long as it's kept in the fridge.
• You can push it to 5-7 days if you want, but it will decrease in activity over time. See what works for you

This is now your magic, 2-3 cups of sourdough starter (approximately) in which to make your own bread. It fluctuates, depending how much it's expanded.

Be sure to remove starter from the fridge, 2 hours before you split and feed the starter again. As it needs to be awake, in order to feed.

Always use half the contents of your starter jar, to 1 cup of bakers flour and 1 cup of room temperature water, to make one Restaurant size loaf of bread.

In winter, plan to have your starter jar out, 3 hours before feeding, if it's cooler in your house.

Notes on doubling amounts of starter for baking

If you want to double your starter for making 2 loaves
(after doing, above)

• Split starter and feed each amount, 1 cup of water and 1 cup of flour each
• Should be about 2-3 cups in total, for each bowl
• Return one bowl to your starter jar and place back in fridge (as usual)
• Keep the remaining bowl on the counter, and plan to split the remaining starter/sponge, in 8 -12 hours and feed again. Remember to stir regularly
• Four hours after the last feed, you can make up your two loaves into dough

You can always increase your starter for 2 loaves on a permanent basis, by increasing your storage jar capacity, and placing both bowls in it, instead of holding one back to split and feed again. Bear in mind though, its better to bake every 4-5 days to refresh your starter again, with baking. So unless your family goes through 2 loaves in 4 days, the starter may eventually wane in activity, with the larger amounts of starter to feed, if you're not using it.

For my separate tutorial on how to make starter from scratch, see this post.
For how to make the sponge, or splitting and feeding, see this post.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment, or contact me at:

 c dot d dot riley at optusnet dot com dot au


Happy Baking!