Taste Testing Sourdough Starters and Sourdough Sandwich Bread Recipe

Reader Contribution by Tammy Kimbler

I’m a big sourdough fan, making wild starters in almost every place I’ve lived. I’ve cultivated and eaten wild sourdough from south eastern Oregon, the north coast of California, famed San Francisco, ultra urban Los Angeles and now sourdough from Minneapolis, Minnesota (Kitchen Sink Sourdough here). Memory being what it is, I can’t quite remember the differences. I wish I still had samples of all my sourdough starters, but life has a way of making you leaving such treasures behind.

Time to do a taste test! How different is my Minneapolis sourdough from the classic San Francisco sourdough? Since I no longer live in the city by the bay, I ordered wild San Francisco sourdough yeast from Cultures for Heath. I followed their instruction for culturing the starter, which took about 4 days. Once the starter was active, I began my test.

I took my Minneapolis starter and the San Francisco starter and, following the exact same culturing method, made two very bubbly, healthy starters from the same flour and water. Then I took 1/2 cup of starter from each batch, placed each starter in a clean mason jar, added 1/2 c flour and 1/2 c water to each jar, stirred to combine (don’t use the same spoon or you’ll cross contaminate your starters!). I covered each jar with a piece of cheese cloth held with a rubber band, and then set them on the counter for 24 hours. I repeated this process for 5 days – yes you are throwing out over half your starter everyday. You will have leftover starter, which can be thrown in to regular pancakes and bread recipes, or thrown away.

Once the starters are bubbly within a few hours of being fed, you are ready to make bread. Using a soft sandwich bread recipe, I fermented and rose the bread for almost 24 hours, using the same ingredients, rising time, baking temperature and pan size.

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