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I used to blog here... long ago. Well, it's time to start again. So without boring you with a sob story about work and kids and cleaning my garage, let's get to it.

I've decided to make sourdough. Sourdough is a bread that has been made since ancient times. The sour taste comes partially from the fermentation process, which cultures natural, or "wild" yeast naturally present, rather than adding yeast. The process of preparing the start also cultivates acids, which share responsibility for the complex sour flavors added.

I've chosen to start with the traditional, "basic" sourdough recipe in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" - a book I've referred to before (search my blog for keyword Anadema)

The entire starter process takes about a week, first I will make a "seed" which cultivates the wild yeast that will then be developed in the starter, or "barm"

Tonight is night 1. The seed process will probably take about 4-5 days, depending on the environment you work in. Temperature and humidity in your kitchen will both affect the quality of your seed and the amount of time it takes to properly develop.

The seed in the recipe I'm using calls for starting with Rye flour, but I don't have any, and whole wheat flour can easily be substituted. The flavor is really all that will be affected. The nice thing about sourdough is that once you are comfortable with the process, you can make all sorts of changes - nothing will ruin the flavor, it will just make it unique.

The steps for tonight are easy:

1. In a small bowl, mix 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup of room temperature water. Ensure that all the flour has been hydrated. Depending on how you measure your flour, you may end up with either a thick paste or a very stiff dough ball (should be more like a paste - if not, see prior recipes for a discussion of how to measure flour)

2. Press the dough into the bottom of a 4 cup liquid measuring cup. Mark the current level of the seed with a piece of tape, and wrap the top with plastic wrap. Set it on the counter and let it rest for 24 hours.

That's it. We'll come back tomorrow and feed it, re-mark it, and re-wrap it.

Happy Baking!

Start with good flour



Good old fashioned water



A proper cup of flour



The seed mixture



Marked and ready to rest