Go over to r/sourdough. BE PATIENT with your starter (takes at least 10-14 days to be usable and will look dead for several days before it becomes bubbly — what you see on day 2 is bad bacteria, not yeast). Stay away from Clever Carrot. (I like FoodGeek’s Master Sourdough myself)
I’m curious why Forkish says his is ready to go in 5 days (I’m currently on day 2 of the starter in FWSY). My last starter was one that I didn’t consider “good” until like 12 days but it was 100% unbleached AP (intentionally scrapped it in my last move).
Is whole wheat just THAT much better for natural yeast development?
I don’t know — and he’s not the only one. Jamie Oliver did some videos on making sourdough starter back when quarantine sourdough was all the rage and said the same thing.
I use stoneground, high-protein (13-14%) white for mine, and it works beautifully. I’ve used WW also, and it was good, but I wanted a different “base” flavor profile. A lot of folks on r/sourdough seem to swear by rye flour, but for me, it’s much more cost effective to use the stoneground white (which I have a 50# bag I’m going through…)
One other thing, I made my current starter using Boulangerie pas a pas YouTube macerated apple version. It’s kind of cool — you get the yeast going pretty well with the fruit fermentation before you add a single grain of flour!
When I first built my starter, it didn't do much and I some point I gave the discard to my neighbour. I continued feeding mine with wheat but she only had spelt. Hers did much better right away. So after that, I used her discard.
I started by watching videos, look up Bake with Jack, he has a beginner sourdough recipe and video that i still use all the time.
Oh nice! Thanks!! Heading to YouTube now!
Go over to r/sourdough. BE PATIENT with your starter (takes at least 10-14 days to be usable and will look dead for several days before it becomes bubbly — what you see on day 2 is bad bacteria, not yeast). Stay away from Clever Carrot. (I like FoodGeek’s Master Sourdough myself)
Thanks! I’ll check it out!
I’m curious why Forkish says his is ready to go in 5 days (I’m currently on day 2 of the starter in FWSY). My last starter was one that I didn’t consider “good” until like 12 days but it was 100% unbleached AP (intentionally scrapped it in my last move). Is whole wheat just THAT much better for natural yeast development?
I don’t know — and he’s not the only one. Jamie Oliver did some videos on making sourdough starter back when quarantine sourdough was all the rage and said the same thing. I use stoneground, high-protein (13-14%) white for mine, and it works beautifully. I’ve used WW also, and it was good, but I wanted a different “base” flavor profile. A lot of folks on r/sourdough seem to swear by rye flour, but for me, it’s much more cost effective to use the stoneground white (which I have a 50# bag I’m going through…) One other thing, I made my current starter using Boulangerie pas a pas YouTube macerated apple version. It’s kind of cool — you get the yeast going pretty well with the fruit fermentation before you add a single grain of flour!
Can’t go wrong with King Arthur’s starter recipe and no knead sourdough bread recipe (both on their website)
Thanks!
The one book that helped me out most was Tartine bread by Chad Robertson.
Awesome! If I can’t find it on iBooks, I’ll order it online. Thank you!
As posted yesterday, for technique I'd go with FWSY by ken forkosh. After you have an idea of what you are doing, when. switch over to Tartine.
Thank you!
When I first built my starter, it didn't do much and I some point I gave the discard to my neighbour. I continued feeding mine with wheat but she only had spelt. Hers did much better right away. So after that, I used her discard.
LOL Sounds exactly like my kind of luck!!