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Rye flour is vastly under-appreciated in my opinion. Love that stuff. For a lot of things you can't really get away with fully replacing wheat flour, but you c

Rye flour is vastly under-appreciated in my opinion. Love that stuff. For a lot of things you can't really get away with fully replacing wheat flour, but you can usually do half / half with good results. I haven't made sourdough for a few years, but I think I was either doing 1 : 1 : 1 (white, wheat, rye) or 2 : 1 : 1. Also, the easiest way to create a sourdough culture is literally just mix rye flour and water in roughly equal parts. Cover with a cloth to keep bugs out, and then dump out (our use) half each day and add in more flour and water to get back up to the original level. It's basically the most idiot-proof process I can think of. The main reason I keep getting out of the habit is that you need to monitor the thing basically daily. Otherwise you can put it in the fridge and take a bit less care of it, but then you need to build it back up for a few days before you can use it. I've always wondered if I'm just being too cautious about the starter though. I know that people have said they thrive on neglect.

jwr 7y ago
There is one trap when starting a culture: baking bread too early. The levain will start to rise madly after 2-5 days, but this does not mean it's ready! It needs much more time (two weeks?) to become more acidic and develop a good balance of yeast and bacteria. Once you get a good one, maintaining it is rather easy, though. Feed it every day, and if you forget for a day or two, it doesn't matter that much. It's fairly abuse-proof: for years I even left a portion of dough as the levain for the next bread, which you should not do, because it contains salt (which slows the development of either yeast or bacteria, don't remember now). Everything was fine. It's all pretty magical: the levain doesn't spoil, because of the low pH. The bread also keeps for a long time (a week, easily).

jwr 7y ago

There is one trap when starting a culture: baking bread too early. The levain will start to rise madly after 2-5 days, but this does not mean it's ready! It needs much more time (two weeks?) to become more acidic and develop a good balance of yeast and bacteria. Once you get a good one, maintaining it is rather easy, though. Feed it every day, and if you forget for a day or two, it doesn't matter that much. It's fairly abuse-proof: for years I even left a portion of dough as the levain for the next bread, which you should not do, because it contains salt (which slows the development of either yeast or bacteria, don't remember now). Everything was fine. It's all pretty magical: the levain doesn't spoil, because of the low pH. The bread also keeps for a long time (a week, easily).