Sourdough - getting started
Posted: 08 Aug 2012, 10:19
I enjoy cooking bread on my Kamado Joe - get it up really hot, cook your bread on the pizza stone and then let it cool & cook your main meal. Simple & delicious warm bread with your meal. My wife & I have been really wanting to try Sourdough but hadn't readily come across a way of getting a starter - the sourdough starter replaces the dry yeast you would normally put in a bread recipe.
After buying a sourdough loaf at a local mini-food festival, I thought I really needed to have a go at this so I did a quick search on youtube & a chef on there suggested that starting your own sourdough starter was actually pretty easy. 1 tablespoon of flour & the same of water in a pot. 8 hours later add the same again. 8 hours later add a 1/4 cup of each again - but this time you should see it bubbling & doing sourdough goodness. Sounded too easy so I was sceptical - but then the waste was less than half a cup of flour which was not going to break the bank Two days later I have my very own sourdough starter - which smelt horrible & looked like it had split. So I binned it. Reading some more, I realised I probably could have rescued it but only after I came across this brilliant website: http://www.sourdoughhome.com/
I followed this guys approach to creating a starter & it worked a treat - a week & a bit later we have a very active starter which doubles itself in size after feeding within a few hours & it has gone through the day 2-ish smelly stage & come out the other side smelly all yeasty & lovely. So rather than just cultivating it (binning half every 12 hours & adding back in equal quantities of flour & water), I am doubling the size of it ready to take some out to cook with.
I'll update this post after I cook our first sourdough loaf on the Kamado this week - but wanted to give people a heads-up to this persons site as it is pretty comprehensive on how to get started with bread & sourdough.
Enjoy!
After buying a sourdough loaf at a local mini-food festival, I thought I really needed to have a go at this so I did a quick search on youtube & a chef on there suggested that starting your own sourdough starter was actually pretty easy. 1 tablespoon of flour & the same of water in a pot. 8 hours later add the same again. 8 hours later add a 1/4 cup of each again - but this time you should see it bubbling & doing sourdough goodness. Sounded too easy so I was sceptical - but then the waste was less than half a cup of flour which was not going to break the bank Two days later I have my very own sourdough starter - which smelt horrible & looked like it had split. So I binned it. Reading some more, I realised I probably could have rescued it but only after I came across this brilliant website: http://www.sourdoughhome.com/
I followed this guys approach to creating a starter & it worked a treat - a week & a bit later we have a very active starter which doubles itself in size after feeding within a few hours & it has gone through the day 2-ish smelly stage & come out the other side smelly all yeasty & lovely. So rather than just cultivating it (binning half every 12 hours & adding back in equal quantities of flour & water), I am doubling the size of it ready to take some out to cook with.
I'll update this post after I cook our first sourdough loaf on the Kamado this week - but wanted to give people a heads-up to this persons site as it is pretty comprehensive on how to get started with bread & sourdough.
Enjoy!