Where can I buy sourdough starter?

[CRUZMISL]

Any ideas? I had saved some online sources but they were deleted.

Thanks,

J.

[slkinsey]

Sourdoughs International offers around 15 different cultures for something like 15 bucks a pop.

Or you can get Carl's Starter.

[glossyp]

Or you can get Carl's Starter.

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I just got mine a couple of days ago! I sent the sase just like they instructed and tucked a few dollars inside as appreciation for the effort they put into keeping Carl's Starter available. It took about three weeks all up.

[Just loafing]

It's not difficult to make your own sourdough starter. Basically, mix flour and water and leave it out at room temperature, feeding it more flour and water every few hours for the first few days, then after it's nice and frothy and cleanly fermented-smelling, refrigerate and feed every day or so, depending on how often you use it. If I'm not being totally purist, I use a grated potato to start ... the starches and sugars helped the starter get started. Never yeast ... that's cheating! Using some rye flour also helps to kick-start. I keep spelt, rye and ubiquitious so-called "french-style" starters on the go — those I inherited with the bakery which we bought, and I developed a kamut starter with kamut flour and water. Haven't tried a 100 per cent whole wheat starter — the french style is 2/1 unbleached to whole-wheat flour, and I use that for whole wheat bread, so it's not 100 per cent ww. Just Loafing

[jackal10]

Happy to send out starter to those in need. - IM me.

See the eGCI sourdough course for instructions.

It costs me around $10 in postage, so rather than send money around I suggest you make a donation to your favourite charity...

[helenjp]

I also had no trouble making my own starter from whole wheat (wholemeal) flour and water...even if you will later be using white flour to bake with. Apparently the surface of the wheat berry has the cultures you want right there, so you don't need to leave it open to "catch" wild yeasts. Try googling...

No doubt established cultures would be better, but the self-start approach certainly worked.

[Tepee]

I just started making mine 15 hours ago. It has 1/2 teaspoon of milk added to it. I didn't have wholewheat flour, so I just used organic plain unbleached flour. Hope it works , otherwise, I'll get the wholewheat flour.

[boulak]

A tip: If using tap water, let it stand at room temperature overnight or for 24 hours so that the chlorine will dissipate. Filtered water is OK, but avoid distilled.

[melmck]

www.sourdo.com

[polack]

I used Nancy Silverton's recipe, and with the help of Jackal, Boulak, and a few more people, I've made some of the best bread me and my family have ever eaten. She uses 1lb of grapes, stems and all in cheese cloth, with one cup of flour and one cup of water. The grapes are squashed and added to ingredients for 10 days in a closed container. After 10 days the grapes are removed and the starter is strained. You could make bread at this point or you could start feeding it 3 times a day to make larger quantities of bread. Let me tell you it works very good with excellent results.

Polack

Edited March 22, 2005 by polack (log)

[jackal10]

Please just use flour and water.

That is what the culture needs, since that is what it feeds on in the bread. Ideally use the same flour as you will use in the bread, so use wholemeal if you make wholemeal bread.

Anything else added competes for nutrients, and has to work its way out of the culture, taking longer to get to a stable culture.

You can add some rye flour or diastic malt which have more amylases to help break down the starch to simple sugars, but ordinary flour, unless chemically treated, bleached or otherwise sterilised will carry enough yeast and lactobacillus load to start fermenting.

Teperature (85F) is also fairly critical to select the right bugs.

Recipes with grapes and the like bubble quickly and start to ferment beacuse of all the sugar in the grapes, but it is the wrong yeast doing the fermenting. When the grape sugar runs out, they die, or compete with the right yeasts. Other things like milk, I guess are added in the mistaken belief that Lactobacillus in sourdough comes from or eats milk, which it doesn't - it converts lactose to lactic acid. They are just contaminats in the starter, and eventually drop out from the dilution of regular feeding.