I'm making a rye starter...

[Blues Heron]

and I do believe that puppy is already bubbling - it's only been 9 hours! :D

1/2 cup rye flour
3/4 cup water

Sourdough by next week!

[Lucinda]

1. Very cool! Rye is recommended in a lot of starter info I've seen.

Keep us posted on your progress? Are you a sourdough newbie? or a vet?

[Blues Heron]

3. hopefully it's the right kind of beasties!

made a bunch of sourdough bread last spring with some friends of carl starter, but couldn't revive the frozen starter that I had saved. Thought I'd give this a try after I had some excellent sourdough rye from a bakery that blew my recent breads away!!

[Lucinda]

5. I'm sure you'll do well, especially since you've worked with sourdough before

I may convert some regular starter over to rye since I have a tons of starter now. Your post inspired me! :)

[housewolf]

2. Yay for you!

Rye is a wonderful grain for starting up new sourdough starters. Keep us posted as to its progress. I'm so excited for you!

[Blues Heron]

4. thanks! will do!

I am optimistic about this one after the last attempt ended in an airplane glue-like epic fail!

[WhiteTara]

6. I'd love to know about this

my sweetie loves rye. I'm into baking bread but have never had the nerve for starter, but now I'm inspired and from the ingredient list, it looks possible. What are you doing?

[Blues Heron]

7. yesterday i just mixed the flour and water

Put it in a covered container and left it out on the counter. Temp here is around 73 inside. It was producing tiny bubbles within 9 hours of mixing. today I gave it a feeding of 1/4 cup water mixed with 1/4 cup rye flour.
One thing about the proportions: when I mixed it yesterday I started with 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water - but that seemed too thick, so I added another 1/4 cup water which gave me a pancake batter consistency. don't know if I packed the flour to tightly in the cup or what - all that i've read said go with 1:1 ratio flour to water.

Hope you try this! :)

[WhiteTara]

8. I'm going to...but then what happens?

use it instead of yeast? What's the bread recipe? I'm really excited.

[Blues Heron]

9. Instead of yeast

the idea is to build up a couple of cups of active starter, then use a cup or so in your bread recipe instead of yeast. Then you replenish the starter with another cup of flour and cup of water. The starter you use in your recipe accounts for one cup of flour and one cup of water, so adjust accordingly. The rise times are way longer than powdered yeast.

[WhiteTara]

10. so everytime you add flour

you knead? Add more and allow it to rise?

[housewolf]

11. Not quite... What you do is start up a starter...

and then once you get it active and stable, it lives in the refrigerator and needs to be maintained by feeding it water and flour on a regular basis (sometimes this is called a "mother" starter).

When you are getting ready to bake, you (again) feed the starter as many times as necessary to fully activate it (usually 1 or 2 times, depending on how well it was maintained in the refrigerator). Then you take some portion of that activated starter and it becomes the leavening for your bread. Use it to build your dough (add more water & flour, plus salt and any other ingredients you want).

Up to this point, _generally_ all this has been accomplished by stirring a mixture that is a batter-like (or thinner) consistency (although some people maintain a stiff starter so they need to knead the flour in a bit).

Once you've combined the starter and ingredients for the bread dough, you knead the dough as you would any other bread dough.

Your goal is to keep the starter alive and healthy in the refrigerator, and then bring it to a "fully activated" state so that it has the strength to fully rise and flavor your bread dough. It's a living mixture of yeast (related to but a differnt strain from regular baker's yeast) and lactobailli that live in a symbiotic state of harmony, making the mix of flour and water into what we call a "sourdough starter." The yeast is what provides mmost of the rise to the dough and the lactobacilli and yeast both provide the flavoring.

It's usually a very good idea for folks who are new to sourdough bread baking to work with a proven starter - because new starters take a little while to become stable and reliable, and with a proven starter, you'll be able to start making great bread in very short order. There are free starters like the Oregon Trail starter, commercial ones such as KA and other sources, or you could obtain one from a friend - it's easy to mail some starter batter in a zip lock back this time of year since it won't freeze now nor will it get too hot. That's probably the easiest way to get one, or else from a local friend or bakery who might be willing to share.

[Blues Heron]

12. Update - we have bread!

A bit dense, but it's crusty and tasty. I may have jumped the gun a bit on the starter, could have used more lifting power....

I mixed

1/2 cup of the starter
1.75 tsp salt
3.5 cups AP flour
1.33 cups warm water
2 heaping tsp caraway seeds

let it rise overnight, not much rising, but definitely spongy texture. WAY too soft - kneaded in at least another 1/2 cup flour, let it rise another couple hours, formed a ball, placed on cookie sheet - ball became a disk. Dough still too soft, oh well, not much rise after another couple hours, decided to bank on oven rise, slit the loaf - definitely some air bubbles in there, baked at 450 degrees for 30 minutes - not bad oven spring! not quite done, finished at 350 degrees, total baking time 45 minutes.

A bit dense, but a nice crumb nonetheless, and it's actually sour! just the right amount of sour actually, which was something the attempts last spring were lacking. Got the caraway right this time too :)

Here's the loaf-



This was the starter on the day I made the dough-

[Inchworm]

13. *droool*

Excellent! I didn't think I could simply do flour + water to make the initial starter. Is AP flour the same way or is it overprocessed to ..hmm.. gather yeast?

:woohoo:

:9

[Blues Heron]

14. Don't know about AP flour

From what I've read, much of the yeast is actually in the flour already, so the more processed - especially heat during grinding - the less yeast. My starter is looking even better today after a couple more feedings - think I'll try for a less dense loaf!! :)

[hippywife]

15. Kudos!

It looks fabulous! :hi:

[Blues Heron]

16. Second try

Made a few changes this time - doubled the starter to 1 cup , by adding 1/2 cup AP and 1/2 cup water to 1/2 cup of the active rye starter.fermented for 5-6 hours. Once that got good and frothy I mixed

the cup of starter
1/2 cup warm water
1.75 tsp salt
3 cups AP flour

got a nice firm dough, let it rise several hours then refrigerated overnight

next day, let it rise 4 more hours, shaped it, let it rise 4 more hours on greased baking sheet

baked 450 for 18 minutes
then reduced to 400 and tented
total baking time 45 minutes

The dough seemed very firm compared to the recent breads (Ain5!) I was afraid it wouldn't rise, but it did - at it's own pace.
This one is a little milder than the first attempt, nice even texture, much less dense than the first try. I'm pretty happy about this bread! Very tasty! :)

[hippywife]

17. Looks fabulous!

Glad it's working out so well for you. :hi:

[Blues Heron]

18. Thanks hippywife!

I'm pretty amazed at how this has turned out! :hi:

[Tesha]

19. That looks wonderful....

well done! I guess I'll have to try it now... when Mr T sees this I'll get a request...:hi:

[Blues Heron]

21. Thanks Tesha!

I hope you try it!

[housewolf]

20. That is one gorgeous-looking loaf

Beautifully shaped, great slashes, mouth-watering color, lovely crumb...

Congratulations! That's a prize-winning loaf you made there! I'm so glad your starter is working so well for you!


You and Lucinda ought to consider entering your bread at your local fairs this summer, I'm sure you'd do well and probably have some fun with your bread too.

[Blues Heron]

22. Thanks housewolf!

I learned a lot from the ain5 process - especially high temp. initial baking for the oven spring and blistered crust. The dough this time was easy to slash - no sticking at all. I used a serrated bread knife. And doubling the amount of starter to 1 cup for a 4 cup loaf really made a lot of difference the second time around. I bookmarked your site and will follow your excellent maintenance guidelines. Starter is now in the fridge. chillin'!

[Lucinda]

23. Gorgeous! I'll take two slices for a ham sandwich please!

It looks perfect.

[Blues Heron]

25. you got it!

Thanks Lucinda! :toast:

[Lucinda]

27. I think I'm going to do a rye starter in the next day or so.

I'd love a patty melt soon. :)

[WhiteTara]

24. that is beautiful!

This is very encouraging. On my list of things to try very soon. Must clean my office first though...that may take something close to an eternity

You are an inspiration, Blues Heron :hi::namaste:

[Blues Heron]

26. Thanks WhiteTara! Can't wait to hear how it goes with yours

Start the starter - then tackle the office! there's a lot of down time with this! :fistbump: