Sourdough bread

Any bakers out there share recipes methods etc

Howdy Daniel, this thread might have some ideas for you?

https://permies.com/t/197/cooking/sourdough-pancakes

There are a few other sour dough threads under the cooking topic as well.

Daniel, I just purchased sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour and also received care information and two recipes with it. You might also go to their website to get more recipes. Jolene

If anybody needs a starter, Carl Griffith's family brought one with them across the Oregon Trail in 1847. His family has shared it ever since.
There is now a network on the web that keeps his family tradition alive.
I believe that it is a SASE, and one of the members will send you a start.
They have distributed ~29,000 starters through the site:

1847 Sourdough started

It's not hard to make and maintain your own sourdough starter. You'll find tons of recipes online, but I keep it real simple:
- mix whole rye flour with water to the texture of a thick pancake batter and let sit at room temperature
- stir multiple times a day
- once you start seeing bubbles, every day discard half the starter and replenish with fresh flour and water
- continue until you have an active starter that smells pleasantly sour and fruity

If you want a wheat starter, simply start with a rye starter and switch to feeding it just wheat. Rye works best for starting a culture from scratch.
Starter will keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge. Then you'll need to bake with it or refresh it to keep it viable.

Unless you take special precautions, any starter will eventually become adapted to your locally prevalent strains of yeast and lacto-bacillus. So that 1847 starter will eventually taste just the same as one you started yourself.

Hi Daniel, I'm also interested in this. I would check Weston A. Price Foundation. I found some recipes there which are simple but require a few day leavening process. They give you reasons why this process should be followed. I think sometimes quick and easy recipes should be avoided.

Here is an excellent tutorial for making a sourdough starter, with lots of pictures:
http://cityhippyfarmgirl.com/2011/06/15/how-to-make-a-sourdough-starter/

I have read a ton about making starters, caring for starters, etc. For some reason, when I went to make my own, I completely forgot/disregarded the step where you are supposed to discard/use some of your starter everyday. Instead, I just feed mine everyday (100g water, 100g flour) and when I need it I use it (usually about every 3-4 days). Or when it is threatening to spill over the edges of my 80 ounce jar (I noticed a large pickle jar at my grocery store and knew I would have a use for it, the pickles inside it, however, were not quite as useful as the jar. They actually made one of my sons refuse to eat pickles for a while.). I have not noticed any oddities with it, it makes wonderful breads, cakes, pancakes, waffles, etc and it is always bubbling and active.

Here are two recipes I like to use when my starter begins to get out of hand, you can make double/triple batches to use up the starter then freeze the extras you are not going to use right away. Freeze the crusts with or without toppings, either works.

Sourdough Waffles (Use regular milk if you don't want to use coconut milk)
Sourdough Pizza Crusts (1 big crust or 2 smaller crusts)
241g starter
113g water
1 tsp salt
300g flour

Mix everything in a large bowl and let sit 6-8 hours. Refrigerate dough for 1 or more days. Remove from the refrigerator and let come to room temperature. Sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza tray. Shape the dough on the tray (this is the easiest way to do it, once the starter has been eating at the flour, it doesn't really hold its shape well). Bake at 500° Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. Top with toppings, bake for another 5-7 minutes until your toppings are heated through.


If you are used to making dough with commercial yeast, you may notice a bit of a difference when it comes to using starter instead. First off, those commercial yeasts are called quick rise for a reason, sourdough usually takes a good amount of time, not just to rise the bread but to ferment it. It takes time, but in that time, good things are happening to your flour. Next, the dough is a different consistency. It is generally much wetter and much stickier. The wetter your dough (to a point) the more the dough can rise. If you want large holes in your sourdough bread, you will want a sticky, wet dough that may seem pretty unnatural if you have ever cooked bread using commercial yeast. (Don't add more flour, trust me, it won't come out very good.)

If you want sour sourdough, you want to let the dough rest in the refrigerator. From what I have read, when you refrigerate the dough, the bacteria is able to continue to make the dough sour while you are not in danger of the yeast overproofing the dough. (If the yeast overproofs the dough before you bake, it will fall and leave your bread flat) The longer in the refrigerator the more sour. One day gives it a bit of tang, whereas 3+ days makes the bread noticeably tangy. I made a batch of sourdough english muffins that I left for 4 or 5 days before I was finally able to get around to baking them. Even with butter and jam added to them you could still taste the tang of the sourdough starter. If you do choose to refrigerate, make sure you factor in the time it will take for your dough to come back to room temperature before you can start to use it again (around 2 hours).

Hi Daniel, I love all things fermented. You should check out http://www.culturesforhealth.com/free-ebooks-fermented-cultured-foods. They have 6 eBooks on fermentation and one is on sourdough and they are all free. I consider these books to be just as good as anything you could buy and they are filled with great recipes. Sourdough has been a great way to make sure the carbs I eat are as healthy as possible. I make a lot of tortillas, pancakes and pizza crusts with sourdough. I don't make a lot of regular bread though. But you should definitely check out the cultures for health website. Lots of free info from people passionate about fermentation.

http://www.culturesforhealth.com/free-ebooks-fermented-cultured-foods

I am also trying to mostly eat bread that is fermented. My wife also makes sourdough pizza crust. Yummy and healthy. I am slowly learning how to make sourdough bread. I 'm sure it will be easy once I've made it a few times.
John S
PDX OR

This might interest you as well. There is even a wealth of information, I think, in the comments after the article.

http://readynutrition.com/resources/survival-food-series-3-ways-to-naturally-make-yeast_02032011/

This was my "go to" recipe but I don't make it too often as I try to be as low carb/paleo as possible. The nice thing about this recipe was that you can make the starter (biga) each time. I would often grind up to 1/3 of the wheat that day, the texture was good. More than 1/3 whole wheat wasn't as successful.
Also, it's much better to weigh ingredients then to go by volume - especially for bread. And grams is better than Imperial but I've include all in the recipe.


A Rustic Italian Loaf
Makes 1 large loaf, about 2 1/2 pounds -
Start 24 hours before eating

For the biga:
In bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook combine:
315g (11 ounces (2 cups)) bread flour - if using whole wheat - do it now

1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

240g 8 ounces (1 cup) water, room temperature

Use beater on lowest speed (stir on KitchenAid) until it forms a shaggy dough, 2 to 3 minutes.
Transfer biga to oiled medium bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let stand at room temperature until beginning to bubble and rise, about 3 hours.
Refrigerate biga at least 8 hours or up to 24 hours.

For the dough:
Remove biga from refrigerator and let stand at room temperature while making dough.
In bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook combine:
470g 16.5 ounces (3 cups) bread flour, 
1 teaspoon instant yeast

300g 10.7 ounces (1 1/3 cups) water, room temperature 

Knead on lowest speed until rough dough is formed, about 3 minutes.
Turn mixer off and, without removing dough hook or bowl from mixer, cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap;
Let dough rest 20 minutes.

Remove plastic wrap, add:
biga
15g 2 teaspoons salt FORGETTING THE SALT IS THE ONLY WAY I EVER SCREWED THIS UP!

Continue to knead on lowest speed until ingredients are incorporated and dough is formed (dough should clear sides of bowl but stick to very bottom), about 2 minutes.
Increase mixer speed to low (speed 2 on KitchenAid) and continue to knead until dough forms a more cohesive ball, about 2 minute.
Transfer dough to large bowl (at least 3 times dough’s size) and cover tightly with plastic wrap.

Let dough rise in cool, draft-free spot away from direct sunlight, until slightly risen and puffy, about 1 hour.

Turn dough. Replace plastic wrap; let dough rise 1 hour.

Turn dough again, replace plastic wrap, and let dough rise 1 hour longer.


To shape the dough:
Dust work surface liberally with flour.
Gently scrape and invert dough out of bowl onto work surface (side of dough that was against bowl should now be facing up).
Dust dough and hands liberally with flour and, using minimal pressure, push dough into rough 8- to 10-inch square.
Shape dough and transfer to large sheet parchment paper.
Dust loaf liberally with flour and cover loosely with plastic wrap; let loaf rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. If using baguette pan divide into 2 loaves.
Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to lower-middle position, place baking stone on rack, and heat oven to 500 degrees.

To bake:
Using a lame, single-edged razor blade, or sharp chef’s knife, cut slit 1/2 inch deep lengthwise along top of loaf, starting and stopping about 1 1/2 inches from ends;
spray loaf lightly with water.
Slide parchment sheet with loaf onto baker’s peel or upside-down baking sheet, then slide parchment with loaf onto hot baking stone in oven.
Bake 10 minutes, then
reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees and quickly spin loaf around using edges of parchment; continue to bake until deep golden brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into center of loaf registers 210 degrees, about 35 minutes longer. (Only 25 minutes if divided into 2 loaves)
Transfer to wire rack, discard parchment, and cool loaf to room temperature, about 2 hours.


I was actually able to find a pic from 5 years ago!



I make everything with my starter, bread, pizza, flatbread, pitta bread, pancakes, pan au chocolates, dumplins, even pasta sometimes, pie crusts, it is so diverse and I love it

Ingredients:

1 cup ripe (fed) sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1 to 2 teaspoons instant yeast*
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
5 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

INSTRUCTIONS
Combine all of the ingredients in the bowl of standing mixer, kneading to form a smooth dough.
Allow the dough to rise, in a lightly greased, covered bowl, until it's doubled in size, about 90 minutes.
Gently divide the dough in half; it'll deflate somewhat.
Gently shape the dough into two oval loaves; or, for longer loaves, two 10" to 11" logs. Place the loaves on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover and let rise until very puffy, about 1 hour. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F.
Spray the loaves with lukewarm water.
Make two fairly deep diagonal slashes in each; a serrated bread knife, wielded firmly, works well here.
Bake the bread for 25 to 30 minutes, until it's a very deep golden brown. Remove it from the oven, and cool on a rack.

Anna Drozdova wrote:I make everything with my starter, bread, pizza, flatbread, pitta bread, pancakes, pan au chocolates, dumplins, even pasta sometimes, pie crusts, it is so diverse and I love it

Mmm pancakes are the best!

Lucky sourdough starter is easy to make. I made one recently using this recipe and it turned out great.

Also do several different things with my sourdough starter-- naan, pizza, crepes, bread, primarily.

For bread, our primary bread has been greatly improved by starting with a very wet dough-- around 3.5 cups whole wheat, 1 cup rye, 3 cups water, left overnight. The wetness softens the bran of the wheat, which helps to improve the rise (no sharp bran bits popping yeast bubbles and deflating the dough). I then add a bit of white flour the next morning (1 or 2 cups).

Pancakes, pitas and other flatbreads. I don't think it is a good idea to purchase a starter. You should cultivate your own with the yeasts in your area. I tried a San Francisco starter in Ohio a few years ago and it didn't work that well.

One of my daughters has several kids that don't handle gluten well, even from fresh ground flour (so no additives).  One of her friends told her that her kids had a similar problem, but they could handle sourdough bread.  My daughter tried it and reports her kids are fine on sourdough.  Not a scientific study, but the kind observation that leads to studies.
On an different note, I read a long time ago about people starting sourdough starts by dropping some juniper berries in the water/flour mix (it was in the southwest).  The claim was that the "dust" on the outside of the berries was wild yeast.  (Take the berries out once things start making bubbles).  I'm pretty sure that the dust on local blueberries, grapes, etc will also turn out to be wild yeast.

My daughters theory about why the sourdough was good for her kids was that maybe the extra time, maybe higher acidity, allowed the yeast to do something the gluten that it can't do in the normal, quicker rising, lower acidity bread making environment.  Sounds reasonable to me given the little I understand about the process.

I'd second that the often encountered instruction of using/disposing of a portion of a starter every so often (every 3 days, every week, etc) is something I have found to be not really necessary, with rye at least.

I tend to make batches as large as my equipment can handle, because more food less cleaning and time.  Although I guess I don't really make bread, it's more of a cracker.

As a result of this, I commonly keep my sourdough starter for 2 to 3 months, in a pint jar in a fridge.

The pint Jar must be mostly full, so that when retrieving it months later for a new batch of bread, you can dispose of the blue green fuzz mold topping and about the top inch of somewhat darker and off-smelling starter, and still have about a half cup of the bright good stuff left in the jar.  

After going on two dozen rounds of leaving the starter untended in a fridge for months, one time I disposed of a jar of starter.  Not sure what happened, maybe I didn't add enough salt, or something new happened to contaminate it, but the starter had lost its bright color to the bottom of the jar, and the smell was not so familiar or pleasing---> garbage.

I also started salting the top of the starter pretty heavily because it seems to really reduce or eliminate the blue green stuff you get growing on top of the mixture when left untended for months.



"Ninja Biscuits"

1.6 lb chickpeas
1.3 lb Rye flour
1 lb flax seed
0.6 lb Sesame seed

1/2 C caraway seed
1/3 C rye starter
2 T molasses
1 T salt (I think most people would prefer another teaspoon or 2)



1. Add ~2.5 C water, 2 T molasses, 1/3 C sourdough starter, about half the salt, and stir to combine.  Then stir in the rye flour, make a dough and ferment it until it's real bright and sour.  I usually let it ferment for 5 or 6 days at about 60-65 F (I must stir it each day or I'll get unsavory fuzz on top.)

2. Sprout Chickpeas (3-4 day process.)  Another common and wasteful instruction I encountered online, I have not found it necessary to rinse sprouting grains or beans repeatedly, daily.  The first step of a malting process I found online seems to work well with everything; soak for 24 hours, rinse very thoroughly, drain thoroughly.  Let sit in a covered but not airtight container which has a maximum depth of the thing being sprouted of ~1.5 inches, for 24 hours.  Submerge again in water for 8 hours. Rinse briefly, drain thoroughly, return to container, place them in a mostly dark, cool place (I think 50-55 f is ideal.)  Mist them once per day, until they are as sprouted as you want them.  I stop when I see the first bits of yellow/green (which must be chlorophyll and not mold.  HA)  

3.  About 48 hours before Rye and Chickpeas are done, combine flax and sesame seed, add water until the seeds stop absorbing it when left for hours and the mixture can be stirred easily.  I should be able to be more precise than this, but I don't measure here.

4.  Food process chickpeas and seed mixture with remaining salt.  Grind the caraway seed in a spice grinder. Combine all ingredients.

5.  If you thought that was a way too involved and complicated process, wait till you try to cook this stuff.  It's more of a "frustratingly sticky paste which tears with ease" then a "dough"  This batch makes 5 flat breads I can fit on my cast iron pizza pan.

               A.) preheat oven to 450 with caste iron pizza pan inside.
               B.) Flour surfaces liberally, and press ~20% of dough out to ~1/4 to 1/3 inch thickness on pizza peel.  Slide into oven and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool on rack.  Repeat 4 more times (unless you happen to have a really big oven and lots baking pans or something.)
               C.) at this point, you can eat it and its delicious and nutritious, but texture is still more like doughy mush in the middle.  No matter how I tried, I could not press or roll this dough any thinner on a peel and then get it to slide off the peel in an orderly fashion.  So there's more steps...
               D.) as soon as the flat breads can be handled, cut them in half though their thickness.  Sounds difficult, but its easy and quick because the outside surfaces are pretty solid, and the middle is still pretty pasty.  I rip off about 1/4 of a flat bread, and then so halve it with a butter knife.
               E.)  After all of it is now about 1/8 of an inch thick and looking more like irregular crackers, dehydrate it until it's all got a hearty crunch.  It can stab your mouth if you bite it wrong.  HA.

Your done! Bag it up, and eat it with stuff.  I think I've got this down to about 3 hours of total hands on time, I probably make it every month.  Packed with protein n' nutrition compared to most breads and crackers.  They can make you almost Bruce Lee shredded,  but only if you also do Gong Fu.  HA

MMMMMmmmm Sourdough! Love it. I hope to plunder all of the recipes on this thread.

I'm pretty much addicted to sourdough rye. A super great resource for this is: The Rye Baker:Classic Breads from Europe and America by Stanley Ginsberg. I haven't yet tried every single recipe in the book, but I'm well on my way.

Oh, I also love Shannon Stonger's 100% Rye. If you are keeping your starter going, this book provides a great way to use starter you may have "thrown away" otherwise. The book's got: Pancakes, focaccia, crepes, brownies, clafoutis, and other interesting recipes, as well as a sourdough bread, boule, and soda bread.

Last night I used my starter to make cornbread, a first for me, and it might be one of the best breads I have ever made, not even kidding, and without sounding too jerky we make a LOT of bread.
This sourdough cornbread recipe I used almost as written, except I used half whole wheat and cut the butter by half (it is a lot of butter), and instead of the maple syrup I used maybe 1/3 cup of sugar (no maple syrup where I live). It was an amazing thing, highly recommended.

(only caveat- it overflowed as soon as the pan got hot and made a mess on the oven floor. put something under your skillet if the dough is within a cm of to the top)

The sourdough keeps killing it!!!
Last night I made steamed Chinese buns. The northern Chinese have a sourdough tradition, which I only learned about recently. We eat a lot of steamed buns, but I am branching out into baked Chinese breads as well, and from what I understand this is the traditional use for "sourdough" (often translated as "old yeast dough"- sometimes started from flour, other times from glutinous rice). Even though I have only read about using an "old starter" in steamed breads from one source, I figured what the heck, I have the starter, why not.
So I made these steamed scallion buns last night and instead of using the recipe I just sort of eyeballed the flour and my starter (maybe 1/2 c of the newly fed starter). I might have forgotten the salt. I let it proof all day while I worked and then made up the buns in the evening (correcting the amount of flour as I kneaded and rolled out, I make a lot of these so you kind of get to know the "right" texture). Then I let them sit an hour before steaming. They didn't really rise in the second proofing but they did when they were steamed, and were fabulous.
I am really, really glad to see that sourdough can work in so many different areas. I kind of got excited about sourdough when I had my stomach/IBS issues this year. I cut out wheat (and a bunch of other things) for about 2 months and when I reintroduced it I seemed to do okay so it's not critical, but sourdough is supposed to make wheat more digestible, so I'm glad to see I can use it some of our most favorite foods.

(PS. I love Chinese food, and then moved to a place where the only good Chinese food I can get involves a plane ride-- but thanks to the internet, that has changed. The more permie I get, the more I go down the rabbit hole of home-style Chinese cooking, particularly from northwestern China, where they have a lot of veggies and foodways that are familiar and accessible to me, and I get to use my produce and eat like a king. The blog cited above is a major source for food in my house, probably a full third of what we eat came in one way or another from her recipes. Very heavy on fresh produce and basic skills that really, really are not that hard in the grand scheme of things. Highly suggested!)

Finally made a proper sourdough loaf, it was marvelous. Mild taste (I like mine more sour, but the husband doesn't), recipe was easy enough. Hardest part quite frankly is figuring out why the photos don't want to post.
Before taking off the lid:

Straight out of the oven:

Cross section


I used the recipe from Artisan Sourdough Made Simple found here

This dough involved minimal kneading, did a 14 to 16 hour bulk rise, and pretty much did not rise at all in the second proofing stage. Recipe also did not require preheating my dutch oven, which was nice.
The only thing was I used cornmeal on the underside and when I removed the loaf to do its last 10 min on the oven rack, it was right above the gas flame the cornmeal burned, but I was able to grate off that part easily enough.
It was a marvelous accompaniment to a beef stew on a cold winter night here in the Southern Hemisphere.

Last night I made sourdough pita bread, since my sourdough is chugging along doing a loaf or two each week but most of the rest of the time just taking up space in my fridge. I saw a few recipes using starter but most used a tiny bit (20g?). I hunted around til I found one that used way more (250g, baby!). 20g starter is what, a tablespoon?
Anyway, I used this recipe and it was DELICIOUS.
https://www.butterforall.com/traditional-cooking-traditional-living/real-sourdough-pita-bread/
It was much more difficult than a typical yeast-risen pita or naan bread (difficult to portion out, roll, and especially difficult to transfer to the baking stone. I ended up putting it on a baking sheet on top of the stone, otherwise it would have been impossible). The dough is very sticky and super fragile, hard to handle. But the final product was really superlative.

Tereza Okava wrote:Last night I made sourdough pita bread, since my sourdough is chugging along doing a loaf or two each week but most of the rest of the time just taking up space in my fridge. I saw a few recipes using starter but most used a tiny bit (20g?). I hunted around til I found one that used way more (250g, baby!). 20g starter is what, a tablespoon?

I have pinned the Pita recipe. In fact, I am using sourdough not only in bread, but also in pizza and other baked goods. I have recently bought a new book on sourdough and it has recipes for different pizzas, flatbread, muffins, waffles, pasta, soup etc.
Recently I have seen the idea (was it someplace here?) to fry sourdough in a pan when you have too much after feeding which I haven't tried but which sounds like an excellent idea (drop into the hot oil and sprinkle with chives etc.
It is in the end of this interesting video on frequent sourdough mistakes:  

First try at sourdough from a starter I made.  

And it tasted like regular bread.

Had more holes than my 5 minute bread but basically same flavor and no sourdough taste.

Any suggestions?  

M Johnson wrote:
And it tasted like regular bread.

Had more holes than my 5 minute bread but basically same flavor and no sourdough taste.

Do I understand correctly that you want a bread with a more sour taste? Often people aim for a very mild taste instead...
Well, you could try to let the starter rise longer and at a lower temperature to get more acidic. At the same time it may lose some of its rising vigour, so try to find a balance. Have you mixed in some rye and some wholemeal wheat flour? Both will also give you a stronger flavour.

There is also a relation between the flour-water percentage which can make the starter stronger or milder, but I don't remember if a denser or more liquid starter will help in your case.
Anyone else remembers?

The way we make sourdough bread in my family is very simple and don't require a lot of work or maintenance.
Making the bread is flour, salt, water and starter and letting it rise on the kitchen table overnight.
For rye bread make a wet dough and bake for 1.5-2 hours at 160C. Knock on it to hear if it sounds like it is baked all the way through.
For wheat bread the methods are very similar to long rise no-knead yeast bread. Usually people here like the wheat bread less sour and therefore use a very small amount of yeast together with the sourdough starter.
I have never seen anyone feeding their starter here (in Denmark), instead we sprinkle a layer of salt on top and keep it in the fridge. It will keep for a long time even if it might turn ugly and smelly. If there is mold I would bin it and get a fresh from sourdough-making friend (I think some would scrape of the mold). I have never heard of anyone starting their own sourdough starter here, so the starters in circulation could be very old and have travelled very far! I like that thought:)
Personally I also use sourdough starter for pancakes/dosa/injeera. All types of flour can be used or whole grains/lentils that are soaked and then blended.
A good trick is to get the new starter from the new dough BEFORE you let i rise and then allow it to ferment in its own jar. Then you wont accidentally bake everything and not have a starter (this happens for many people)

M Johnson wrote:First try at sourdough from a starter I made.  

And it tasted like regular bread.

Had more holes than my 5 minute bread but basically same flavor and no sourdough taste.

Any suggestions?  

Try increasing the amount of whole grains. My whole grain bread always tastes more sour. Also, try doing a small inoculation (like 1-2% starter) and let it bulk ferment over night.

So a formula you can use for a 700g-ish loaf would be:

200g bread flour
200g white whole wheat flour (or whatever wholegrain wheat you have on hand)
300g water
4 to 8 grams of starter
6g salt

Mix it together the night before, then leave it on the counter and check it the next day.

I know some here already follow the channel Pro Home cooks.
The latest video talks about making sourdough without "all the equipment".
Sourdough without equipment

I love that approach, it empowers you to familiarize yourself with the process instead of following a recipe.

Last year I had a phase when I mostly used recipes and it made me lose my confidence that I can just follow my intuition.
Lately I have gone back to baking just by my gut feelings and I always have tasty, beautiful loaves.

Sourdough bread is the standard staple carbohydrate in our diet. At bare minimum I make 2 loaves a week, but it might be double that depending on our meals and how much activity we are getting, and more if I am also baking to give to the extended family. It's probably close to a 24 hour process, but it's almost all hands-off. Getting into a schedule for it makes it easy. We also prefer our bread really sour, so I leave to proof longer. We could probably halve the time and still have tasty, albeit less sour loaves.

I use all organic whole grain flour which I get from a localish stone mill. When I started with sourdough at home, it was mostly wheat-based (adding small parts of rye, oats, or buckwheat), but over the last few months we have switched to majority rye. Most of the bread I make now is 60-75% rye flour and the remaining flour usually whole wheat, although sometimes I will also add some oat flour or buckwheat to add variety and a nice taste. Spelt makes the most delicious snappy crust.

I keep about 250-300 grams of starter for use. I feed it once or twice a week, and now I keep mine in the fridge when not needed. I take it out before I want to use it, so it can come back to temp. I divide it and use half at a time to make levain. I also know that some people use all of it at a time to make their levain, and then spoon out some of that to keep before they proceed with the bread. There is not only a single way :)

I have found the daily discard and feed routine did not work for me. Maybe my house is too cold, as my kitchen is almost always below 20C and low light. When I was originally starting mine (couple years ago now) I found not discarding daily, and then adding a dried prune for a few days, is what really helped it become established. (raisins or other fried fruit also probably works the same) I also don't keep mine at such a high hydration, I keep it a much thicker sponge. Seems to be more reliable this way, for me. Sometimes it loves a bit of yogourt mixed in with the water to feed it.
--------

I will mix about 600-800 grams flour with the starter(which is about 125-150 gr) and about 500- 600ml water that has a teaspoon of raw honey dissolved in it. Let it sit overnight in the covered bowl. Next morning it is expanded, bubbly and sour-sweet smelling, and I will add in another maybe 400-500 mls water (or sometimes milk, if we have to spare), another 500-600 gr flour, and salt. (sorry I make basic measurements when I change up a lot, but for home bread I often adjust by sight and feel. I have worked so much with dough my hands, eyes, and nose do a lot of the measuring.

Rye is very sticky compared to wheat - for me, the best results I have to making bread come from keeping a very loose dough, letting it rise longer in the tins, as well as using high-sided tins to prevent spread. Instead of flour, I use wet hands and a lightly wet surface to divide and gently shape the sticky dough, then plop them into the tins. I will use wet fingers to smooth the tops over a bit more, then let it rise for more hours - between 4-8 usually - before dusting the tops with flour and putting them into the oven with a pan of water. I usually bake rye a bit lower, I will heat the oven to 200 and lower it to 170-180 when I put in the bread.  Bake until cooked and hollow sounding and then they get cooled and eaten. :)

My bread goal is a sturdy loaf that I can slice wafer thin and it will still keep it's shape. I took all my rye-bread baking pointers from the Danish pastry chefs I used to work with, when I worked in a Danish bakery. Our main focus was laminated dough for wienerbrod, but we also used to make dark rye sourdough, filled with nuts and seeds. It's always dark and chewy (not ever gooey or mushy like soft, super white commercial bread), and toasts wonderfully crispy.

I still make other kinds of bread with wheat flour: focaccia, brioche, cardamom breads for christmas, milk buns for parties, etc. but our regular diet consists of this type of darker sourdough bread.

Lots of good stuff in this thread! I started working with sourdough a few months back and am really enjoying it! My first culture began as a "friendship bread" starter I made with wild yeasts while I was stuck in the house after surgery. Because I don't have (many) friends, I ended up with lots of discard, so researched other ways to use it, which introduced me to the technical details about the fermentation process. Since then I've maintained the original starter, and feed it different types of sugar, flour, milk to keep it more sweet to use for dessert-type things. I've also started a "typical" sourdough culture (started with commercial yeast I had in the fridge) which I have been keeping a bit tangy to use in the more savory breads.
So far, it's been a fun project that has yielded lots of tasty results. I also keep some discard in the freezer from different feedings to use later, which I think will be neat to compare flavors and see how my starters evolve as time goes by.

Question for people who don't feed their starters but instead keep in the fridge with a layer of salt on top:  What do you do with the salt when you remove it from the top to get starter for baking bread?  Throw that layer out?  Reuse it?  
Thanks!

My husband made a sourdough starter with a recipe from America's Test Kitchen 3 years ago. He uses it weekly for bread, pizza crust, English muffins etc. We sell sourdough bread at farmer's market and have many return customers. Now we are trying to use locally grown wheat, but whole wheat is too dense. We're experimenting with different grain varieties, sifting and additional grinding to get the bread flour texture. It can be a challenge.

For those who can't have gluten:  it is not so very difficult to make a sourdough starter with gluten free flours, and I think it is really worth it for the flavour and disgestibility of some of these grains.  I've just started one recently with brown rice and buckwheat flours, and some potato cooking water....and it is bubbling and doubling and doing all of that great sourdough stuff!  Have used the "discard" to make pancakes, crackers and a focaccia bread so far....it's sourness is still young and I"m hoping it will get more complex, sour, and generally fantastic as it grows along.  

I did try sourdough with 100% organic rye flour, to test if my gluten intolerance could be bypassed by the fermenting....but it only took two days of eating that delicious, fantastic bread for all of my gluten-sensitive symptoms to return, unfortunately.

             Sourdough! It can be so easy.
I've been baking fresh ground organic sourdough for my small off grid island community for the last 4 years.  We do a delivery service, operating roughly on a CSA model. People love getting fresh bread in their mailboxes.  I bake about 50 - 80 loaves a week, all mixed by hand. The bread is all custom ordered, from a choice of 4 or 5 varieties (which is probably the most complicated part of what I do).
Here are a few things that have helped me along the way, simplifying the process and having consistent wonderful results.
 1. Feeding the starter half whole grain half white ( by weight) and then equal weight of water ( non chlorinated if you can). It really likes this half/half feeding

2. Feed your starter for a few days in a row, and then about 12 hours before you mix your dough give it a really good feeding , ( this developes younger more active sweeter Smelling yeasts).  This should get you to pass the fabled float test.
3. If you can use at least some fresh ground flour in your recipes, there will be more wild yeasts available.

4. I mix, let sit half an hour for autolease and then do a pretty simple knead right in my mixing bowl ( kneading by pulling the edges to the middle like wrapping a parcel) . And that's it! No repeated kneads every few hours, no long knead.  Way easier than many recipes.  I couver with a damp linen for about 12 hours (depending on your house temp). Wait til it has gotten noticeably bigger.

5. When the dough is ready, I tuck them into tight balls  (like wrapping a package) on a lightly flowered marble (wood works fine). Pop them into lightly oiled bread pans, let sit one hour. Bake at 475.  

6. I make a fairly wet but workable dough.
For 2 loaves 1000 gram flour 200 gram starter 750 gram water

Happy baking! (:
Gabriel

I have what I think is a cool method.  After starting my own sourdough colony (rye/wheat flour mixed to a paste and set in my garden till it started getting bubbly, then feeding it as normal inside), it got a little too large and vigorous for my limited space.  I found (somewhere on the internet) instructions for long term storage by very thinly spreading some of the starter mix on plastic, letting it dry, and storing the completely dried flakes in a glass jar with airtight lid (think canning lid, not plastic).  It stores indefinitely at room temperature, and can be restarted by adding a teaspoon of flakes with the normal flour/water feeding.  It does take a week or two to completely wake up and start actively multiplying, but last year, when there was no yeast to be found in the stores (yeah, COVID panic buying), all my neighbors got gifts of local variety sourdough starter.  I feel a little better knowing I have a good flavored colony in "dry sleep" for awakening if need be.

Good advice Katie. this is useful if you have a good old yeast that you want to preserve.
If you don't mind working with wild yeast, you can have a starter ready in one week. The second week it tastes better. During lockdowns, that's what we had to work with.