Sourdough, But Please Make It Easier

Have you tried sourdough and ended up feeling like your feeding a monster & you don't know how you ended up with 14 quarts of sourdough in your fridge when all you wanted to do was feed your family and now it feels all complicated and you've used way too much flour and then you went out of town and couldn't keep up so you ended up throwing it all away?! Me too & it wasn't funny. Also, I exaggerated a little, but still.

So, I was about to start over again when my good friend gave me a different kind of sourdough starter & a link to a recipe. She said it was so easy & her favorite... not going to lie, this new starter changed my life. So, that's where my adventure began with what she called a 'dry starter'!

Our recipe is adapted from The Elliott Homestead Everyday Einkorn Bread recipe. I have found that I am not fond of sourdough bread when we use much einkorn flour, the dough was much harder to work with & my family wasn't as fond of the flavor & texture. (I do love feeding my starter with Jovial's All Purpose Einkorn Flour though... but it's not a must!) Rather than using einkorn, we use an organic all purpose flour.

We’ve learned quite a bit about flour & we used to buy Costco’s Organic Flour, thinking it was great because, hey, it’s organic! We didn't realize that organic can still be bromates, which is not good! (More about this below…)

Look for organic, unbleached & unbromated all purpose or bread flour. We have had great results with both! If you're wanting to keep the gluten as low as possible, use organic all purpose white flour. Typically, this does not have added barley, which increases gluten content of the flour. Artisan & bread flours usually have more gluten, which results in fluffier softer bread. We have also used Bob's Red Mill conventional flours when we could not find organic (hello me procrastinating grocery shopping during the holidays when errybody is baking & flours are sold out). We made delicious breads from Bob's Red Mill Unbleached White & Unbleached Artisan Flours. We do love feeding our sourdough starter with Jovial Foods All Purpose Einkorn Flour & sometimes we do use this flour in our sourdough bread recipe. I will publish our einkorn recipe in the near future as well.

BE CHOOSY WHEN IT COMES TO FLOUR!

We were super disappointed because we had been purchasing Costco's Organic Flour for quite a while & did not realize it was bromated. From our research, we've found that Bob's Red Mill is always non-GMO, unbleached & unbromated. King Arthur & Arrowhead have these standards as well!

What’s up with bleaching & bromating?
Here's what Bob's Red Mill has to say about bleaching & bromating, "Bleaching agents and bromate are sometimes added to flours, but not ours! The bleaching process makes flour whiter, but we use a sifting process to achieve the same result. Bromate can be added to flour to enhance the rise of the dough when baking, but we opt for adding malted barley, which has the same effect naturally. For more information and a deeper dive into the topics of unbleached and unbromated flour, check out our blog post."
​“What does "bromated" mean? Bromated, by far the less common of the two terms, is a process in which potassium bromate (bromate) is added to flour to improve baked goods.
​Why would bromate be added to flour? It is added to improve rise and elasticity of dough. In many countries around the world, bromate is a banned food additive. It is not banned in the United States. Why you ask? In theory, because bromate is an oxidizing agent, it should be fully consumed in the bread baking process and there should be no bromate in the finished good. However, if the conditions are off (think not baked long enough), some bromate will still be present in the baked good and that, in our opinion, is not good. You see, bromate has been linked to cancer in some lab studies and, while it is not a banned food additive, the FDA discourages its use by bakers."

We've also used King Arthur Flours & are equally impressed.

We just purchased 25lbs of Azure Market Organics All Purpose Flour. If you haven't checked out Azure Standard, we wrote all about them HERE.

FEED YOUR STIFF SOURDOUGH STARTER

Remember to feed your starter so you don't use it all up! You only need 10 grams of starter to keep it going, but I like to feed mine before it gets that low. Here's how!

10 grams sourdough starter
30 grams warm water
60 grams all purpose flour

Mix 30g warm water into 10g sourdough starter until starter mostly dissolves. Add in 60g all purpose flour & mix until well incorporated. You can work with it in your hands a bit to help catch some of the wild yeast in your atmosphere. Place in a pint size mason jar or glass container with a loose lid. Leave at room temperature for 6-10 hours until you see bubbles forming. I usually do this overnight & by morning, I have a refreshed starter!

If you do not see bubbles forming by 10 hours, go ahead and add 10 more grams of starter, 30 grams water & 60 grams flour. Wait 6-10 hours again & you should see those bubbles! Your starter should smell really good, like a good sourdough bread yeast.

Why a "Stiff" starter... also, what and how?

One of my good friends gave me this "dry" sourdough starter and said it was the easiest starter she'd ever used... I was for sure intrigued and I began researching how & why it was different than what I was used to... no feeding my starter regularly? no discarding? no waste?

This "dry" starter isn't REALLY dry (there actually is that, but it's actually completely dry, like sourdough flakes... also really cool, but that is not this). I'd say it is much drier than the traditional starter. I've also heard it called a "stiff starter", so that's what I'm going with. Rather than feeding this starter with equal parts of flour & water, we're using half the amount of water to flour, resulting in a more dry and potent starter! I love it! It's consistent & since it's more potent, you need much less for your baked goods! Fantastic results & it's not fussy either! You keep this starter in your refrigerator & just grab a glop when you want to bake! Going on a vacation or just not into making anything for a while? No worries! This baby will be so happy in the back of your fridge until you're ready for it! To warm it up and make it active when I bake, I like to make sure my warm water is about 100-110 degrees if my starter is coming straight from the fridge. Warms it right up & its happily bubbling in that 3-6 hour initial first step of baking. I've also found I can start a sourdough recipe before I head to bed & finish up in the morning... so easy!
Can you convert your current sourdough starter to a stiff sourdough starter?
I'm so glad you asked! Yes, you sure can! Here's how:

30g sourdough starter
50g warm water
100g all purpose flour

Mix the above ingredients & then knead with your hands a bit and form into a ball. Place it in a glass pint sized jar or dish with a lid and let it sit at room temperature overnight or for a full day. You'll see it's all bubbly & ready to use! You can also just place it in your fridge if you aren't ready to use it. Your starter will get more established and more sour as time goes on & you feed and use it. It's the love.

🥖 Sourdough Bread Recipe {photos coming!}

30 grams stiff sourdough starter
120 grams warm water
130 grams all-purpose flour

315 grams warm water
600 grams all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt

1. In a large non-metallic bowl, combine 30g sourdough starter & 120g of warm water, mix with a fork until the starter fully incorporates. Add in 130g of all-purpose flour & combine until smooth. Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for 3-6 hours or until small bubbles begin to appear on the surface. The temperature of your kitchen will determine how long this takes. Start checking at the 3 hour mark.

2. Add 315 grams of warm water to your bubbly sourdough & stir to combine. In a separate bowl, weigh 600 grams of all-purpose flour & combine with 2 tsp salt. Pour half of this mixture into your bubbly sourdough & use a wooden spoon to gently mix it in. Add the rest of your flour/salt mixture & mix with your wooden spoon to fully incorporate. Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap again & set aside for just fifteen minutes.

3. Wet your fingertips & loosen the dough from the sides of the bowl & stretch & fold the dough in on itself from each side, working all the way around (so you will stretch & fold about 4-5 times total). Let rest for fifteen minutes.
Repeat the dough stretching & folding process two more times, letting the dough rest 15 minutes between. Set aside for 4-6 hours to proof. Once again, timing will depend on the temperature of your kitchen. Your dough should increase by about 30% during this time.

4. Use a bowl scraper (or mason jar lid) to scrape the proofed dough onto a lightly floured surface. Gently shape the dough by grabbing the edges of the dough and pressing them back into the center with your fingertips & from dough into a round ball. Transfer to a floured proofing basket or bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let proof at room temperature for 1 hour.
PREHEAT a Dutch oven with it's lid in a 450-degree oven while your dough is proofing. I usually do this about 30 minutes into the proofing time to ensure the Dutch oven is nice & hot at that 450 degree temp.

5. When you’re ready to bake the bread, remove the Dutch oven from the hot oven. Remove the lid, then carefully flip the dough from the proofing basket/bowl into the Dutch oven. Slice the top of the dough with a razor blade or sharp knife. Replace the lid and bake for 20 minutes. Then, remove the lid and bake for an additional 25-30 minutes until the bread is deeply golden and sounds hollow when tapped.

6. Carefully turn out your bread from the Dutch oven onto a wire cooling rack. Let cool for at least an hour before slicing. (Cutting the bread too soon will result in a gummy texture, so be patient!)