Hi, it's Lisa from the blog FarmhouseOnBoone.com where I like to write about food from scratch, natural living, a handmade home and our simple, natural life on Boone Street. And today I want to talk to you about my sourdough starter. I've talked on this channel and on my blog about other ferments, water kefir, milk kefir, and homemade sauerkraut, homemade kimchi, how to make fermented pickles, but I've never talked to you about my beloved sourdough starter. I have had this starter now for over six years. I want to tell you, if you're unfamiliar, first all about why it's so beneficial and why I am so in love with my starter. Back in the day, starters were passed down for generations. People kept them alive and they used them to raise their bread. Now the reason this is, is they didn't isolate yeast from the starter until the late 1800s. And so people relied on starters to rise their bread. They didn't have little yeast packets. So what a sourdough starter is, is basically it is a way, when you make it, to capture wild yeast that exists already in your environment, in your home, and capture it right here through a fermentation process so that you can then use it to raise baked goods. So yeast breads, pancakes, English muffins, cinnamon rolls - that's a fun one - you can use sourdough starter instead of yeast. So you may be wondering, "Well, there is yeast packets available today so why use a sourdough starter?" Have you ever noticed that if you leave grains out, they don't just spoil right away. They have something protective on them called phytic acid that allows them not to spoil that our body has a really tough time breaking down. So it's the reason why people can't tolerate grains so well because of that protective coating on the grain. Since conventional yeast is isolated from all the other parts of sourdough starter, it doesn't have available what is needed to break down the grains in a way that makes them digestible for your body. So we find a lot of people are very intolerant to grains, and gluten, and anything resembling anything with phytic acid in it. This is why it becomes so very important to utilize a sourdough starter in your own home kitchen. And I hope you can see how easy it is to do so. Sourdough starter has everything present in it to actually break that down and when you make something with the sourdough starter, it's a long process. You can't just open a yeast packet and expect your item to rise in an hour. You actually have to work with the dough and allow it to rest and ferment and proof and then rise. And so through that whole process the parts of the grain that are hard to digest are broken down before your body has to work on them. So it's way more easily digestible. People who can't usually tolerate grains can a lot of times tolerate something made sour with the sourdough starter. Also it imparts a delicious flavor that you just can't get anywhere else. Favorite things to make in this house are sourdough pancakes, we make those every week on Saturdays. We like making sourdough English muffins. I like the bread. I don't have so much time to fiddle with it. Sourdough English muffins are kind of like little miniature rolls that you can slice in half and make sandwiches with. So those work great in our family. The maintenance on a sourdough starter is, once you have one, you need to make sure to feed it once a week. Which feeding it involves adding water and flour and then the bacteria and yeast present in the sourdough starter feed on that. And that's how they live. So I like to call this my pet. When you go to feed your starter to keep it alive, here's the formula. Basically feed it equal parts -ish, you want it to be about this consistency, I don't measure anymore ever - um, of flour and water. I've switched to different flours before. I've used einkorn. I've used unbleached all-purpose. I've used whole grain that I've ground myself. All those things over the years and I've never had any problems switching around. Now I've always stayed in the wheat family so that's probably why I've not had an issue. I know you can transition over to rye and things like that. If you want to put your starter on a rest, you can keep it probably for a- up to a couple of months in the back of the refrigerator without feeding it. I've never gone that long. Probably the most I've gone is two or three weeks. Now I do store my sourdough starter in the refrigerator between times that I'm using it so if I'm making pancakes Saturday morning, I'm gonna get this out Friday morning, feed it, leave it on the counter until Saturday morning, use it to make my pancakes. Obviously I remove what I need to make the pancakes, leaving the master starter here in the bowl. You always want to leave more so that you can feed it and keep your starter going for years and years. If you are going to use starter every single day and leave it out on the counter all the time. You'd have to feed it every day. So the only reason that I can get away with feeding it once every week is I keep it in the refrigerator in between time which kind of puts the bacteria, the yeast, on a rest in the refrigerator. I want to explain a little bit about how to actually make a sourdough starter from scratch. So you can buy pre-made sourdough starters on websites like Cultures for Health and that's a great option. I have a DIY spirit, I always have. And so when I went out to start using sourdough starter about six and half years ago, I had to make my own. The basic way that you do it, which there are plenty of tutorials online, I would love to link some very helpful information - this will be a brief overview of the process. You start with about a cup of flour and a half cup of water in a bowl. You want to keep it in a warm environment which just means about above 70 degrees-ish. Don't worry if it's you know about 68, it'll still work. You mix it up. You want to use not-metal, so like a wooden spoon, glass bowl. Those are great for not reacting with the bacteria that you're trying to cultivate here in your sourdough starter. After 24 hours you want to remove half of that. And then again add a cup of flour and a half a cup of water. Stir it around. Put a little towel over it. Let it sit for 24 hours. Repeat that process where you remove half and then feed again, for about four days. Then on days five, six, and seven you want to start feeding it twice a day. The entire time this is out on the counter. So it is collecting the native yeasts that are in area, in your home. It sounds maybe gross, maybe a little bit hokey. It really is capturing yeast in the air. You're not aware of their presence but they're here. And it's evidenced by the bubbles that you can see in my starter and the rising of my bread. I'm actually going to insert a closeup shot right now. This is freshly fed starter. So I fed this this morning. And so it's kind of real bubbly and nice by now. It's been about 12 hours and this is just what you expect from a mature start - a mature starter like I have. Starters get better with age. Each time it's fed and left out more and more yeast take it over and they multiply and that's why they were valued things that were passed down for generations back in the day. I remember reading in a Laura Ingalls book to my kids, and they were talking about their sourdough starter. They use it to actually rise their bread and it's such a vital part of their family and their life. I love using sourdough starter. It helps me to know that when I bake things for my family with it, even just regular old pancakes, I'm giving them something that has a lot more health benefits already in it because it's taking care of the parts that actually are anti-nutrients in the grain. And so our bodies can more easily digest them and actually utilize the nutrition present in a whole grain. Flours should you feed a sourdough starter. You can use rye. You can use whole grain that you've ground fresh. You can use unbleached all-purpose. I would recommend using unbleached flour and a filtered water. Which we've always used our Berkey for that since we've had the starter. Because anything with chlorine or bleach could interfere with the good bacteria present. I would just recommend that if you're gonna start your own sourdough starter be patient. If the first time it doesn't quite work out and it doesn't rise like it's supposed to, just try again. Use maybe a different kind of water or a different kind of flour. Experiment with it. The process really is simple and you can do it. I will leave some great information linked below on how to do it. You will know it's working if it doubles in size. If it raises your bread products that you're making. If it has bubbles all throughout you will know that you have a good starter. And hopefully you'll have it for years to come. And maybe you can even pass it on for generations. I will share some of my favorite recipes that we like to use in our family in the description below. The pancake, English muffins, there's something called impossible sourdough pie which is excellent. A great resource for all things sourdough and fermenting for that matter is GNOWFGLINS which I will link. She has an e-course on how to make your own starter. It's really a simple process. you wanna know more about the science behind it, it's a great information to get. Please be sure to check out my other fermentation videos. I have one on sauerkraut and milk kefir. Also on my blog I have a great post on homemade water kefir and kimchi. All great things to introduce good bacteria to your body. So thank you so much for stopping by the farmhouse and learning about my pet sourdough starter. Please be sure to subscribe to my channel for more food from scratch recipes, natural remedies. I also do a lot of DIY, home decor and a handmade home. Thank you so much for stopping by the farmhouse and leave any questions in the comments below. I will do my best to answer them or at least point you in the right direction if I don't know the answer. I can tell you from experience all that I know about sourdough starter and there's plenty of uh, information out there available.
