8. Whole Grain Sourdough Starter Success!

Most people’s sourdough success stops before it starts! The starter phase creates unique challenges so learn how to make your sourdough success more sure and find answers to common questions and problems in this workshop from successful mom and veteran “sourdougher” Jessica Moody and her homesteading expert husband John Moody.

PART 1 VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

John Moody: Great. So I’m John.

[00:00:03] Jessica Moody: And I’m Jessica.

[00:00:05] John Moody: And she’s here to teach you today how to make your own sourdough stuff.

[00:00:13] Jessica Moody: So we’re gonna talk about how to make a brand new starter first. It’s not very hard to do. You can buy starters, you can be given a starter from a friend, and those are all good options as well, but it’s really not that hard to make your own.

[00:00:30] So I have a clear jar. You can make this in a bowl as well. But I like to do it in a clear jar so that you can see the activity of the sourdough through the sides of the jar

[00:00:57] Just gonna put a quarter [00:01:00] cup of flour in here. This flour is a wheat flour called Prairie Gold. And I just milled it, so it’s nice and fresh. You can use store-bought flour as well if you prefer. And this is a whole grain, but it doesn’t have to be a whole grain, Now I’m gonna put in about

[00:01:27] Three tablespoons of water, just a little bit more

[00:01:35] And I’m gonna stir well

[00:01:40] And you can see that was really easy, and that’s all you’re gonna do to start

[00:01:53] It’s pretty goopy. It’s not real liquidy, [00:02:00] but kind of slides off the spoon if you give it a chance. So that’s the consistency you’re going for. Don’t worry too much about the consistency. As you work with the starter, you will get a feel for the consistency you like to work with, and if it’s a little off it will still work in your recipes You might just need to add a little more or less flour to the starter when you’re preparing your recipe.

[00:02:28] So once you have this done You would just cover this and let it set somewhere, not refrigerated, just out on the counter covered for about 12 hours. So I like to feed my starter in the morning and in the evening. So I will let this set for 12 hours, and then you’re going to feed it again, and I’m gonna show you how to do that.

[00:02:55] Obviously, I just started this now, but [00:03:00] pretend that it’s been sitting for 12 hours. I’m gonna take out half of my starter

[00:03:14] And this is just gonna be discarded. You can feed it to pigs or chickens or compost. But because it’s not very– it’s not active yet, you’re not going to be able to really use it for anything else. And then I’m gonna do the exact same thing that I just did. I’m going to feed it one quarter cup of flour and three tablespoons of water.

[00:03:36] Stir well

[00:03:48] John Moody: So earlier, Jessica mentioned you can use a number of different flours or even store-bought flour to make a sourdough starter. But [00:04:00] not all flours or grains work equally well for starting a starter. So white flour works well for starting a starter. We have found spelt works well for starting a starter.

[00:04:14] We’ve had good success with… Or a lot of people say they’ve had good success with rye.

[00:04:19] Jessica Moody: Rye is-

[00:04:20] John Moody: Rye is generally considered one of the best.

[00:04:23] And also it’s good to note that organically grown grains do better when starting starters than non-organically grown grains because of the bacteria and yeast and other things that are on the grains, because the grains haven’t been sprayed with a lot of chemicals.

[00:04:41] So sometimes if you’re having trouble with your starter, it might be because you’re using lower quality grains or lower quality flours that have residual chemicals in them that make the yeast and the bacteria not real happy. So you can use a wide variety of [00:05:00] flours or grains that you mill into flour to make a starter, but you definitely wanna make sure you use the best quality ones you can and especially stick with ones that are more traditionally used to get a sourdough starter going.

[00:05:16] Jessica Moody: So now you would cover this again for another 12 hours. And then you keep repeating that same process. So the steps are, you’re going to remove half of what you have. You’re going to add a quarter cup of flour, three tablespoons of water, stir well, scrape down the sides so that it doesn’t… n-no nasty stuff builds up on the sides, and then cover and let sit for another 12 hours.

[00:05:44] So you want to keep up that process for about three weeks, and by then… actually, before then you should start to see, by three or four days, you should start to see a few bubbles and other signs of [00:06:00] activity. If you’re using a wheat flour, it will actually start to climb up the sides and as much as double in size by height.

[00:06:13] So you’ll see lots of little Pockets of air that are signs that it’s fermenting and that you have lots of good bacteria growth in it. And so you want to keep that up, that process up for three weeks, and then after that time, you’re going to switch from making your new starter to maintaining your starter.

[00:06:39] And this is a similar process, but you don’t have to discard [00:07:00] anything.

Part 2

It’s important to maintain you sourdough starter appropriately, so learn how to make sure it is ready when you want to bake.

PART 2 VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

John Moody: Great. So in our first session, Jessica talked about how to make a sourdough starter, and now once your sourdough starter is through the newborn stage, which we’re gonna be re-entering soon you need to know how to maintain your starter. So that’s what we’re gonna cover next.

[00:00:19] Jessica Moody: So I just transferred my starter into a bigger jar or container so that I’d have a little more space to work with here.

[00:00:30] Normally, I will keep it in my jar until I am giving the final feeding before I’m ready to bake. And I’m gonna go ahead and show you how to feed this just like I normally would. I normally feed it morning and evening just like I did in the stage where I was making a new starter. So to give it a feeding every morning and evening, I just take a [00:01:00] scoop of flour, maybe a little more than that, and then I stir it in.

[00:01:09] And I add a little bit of water to get it to the consistency that I’d like to get it to.

[00:01:15] John Moody: And that consistency is?

[00:01:18] Jessica Moody: It’s very similar to the consistency or basically the same consistency as we were aiming for when we were making our starter. You want it to be goopy.

[00:01:28] John Moody: So not soupy and not stiff.

[00:01:32] Jessica Moody: Not soupy and not stiff, just in the middle where you can stir it and then as it sits, you’ll begin to be able to see little bubbles, air bubbles and the activity in it.

[00:01:46] If you can’t see activity, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your starter is not active. It might just mean you don’t have enough water in there. So next time go for a slightly adding slightly more water to get to that right [00:02:00] consistency.

[00:02:01] John Moody: Now normally Jessica does the starter in peanut butter jars, and this is great because you really want a jar you can keep an eye on your starter through.

[00:02:11] You also want a jar that’s easy to keep covered. And since we’re gonna talk about, common problems with maintaining your starter peanut butter jars keep you from tying up your nice drinking glasses or similar kitchen equipment. And every couple days we’ll move to a brand-new clean jar for the starter to cut down on mold and other problems.

[00:02:34] So have a couple peanut butter jars. It really makes caring for and maintaining a starter much easier and keeps you from using other stuff around your kitchen.

[00:02:45] Jessica Moody: So I just showed you how I would do a normal feeding, but like I said, I’m going to, my daughter actually is going to be baking some bread tomorrow.

[00:02:53] Whoop. And so we need a little bit more starter on hand. So if I’m going to make something like bread [00:03:00] where I need a really good rise out of it and the gluten’s gonna be developed, I want to double my starter for the last few feedings before I make the dough so that it’s really active and I’m, it’ll help me get a really good rise out of it.

[00:03:17] So I’m going to just go ahead and feed it again.

[00:03:26] And she’ll need about a cup of s- or she needs a cup of starter for the recipe, so I’m going to go for, I don’t know, about a cup and a half just so that I can make sure I’m doubling what I already had on hand. And I doubled it this morning. I don’t remember if I doubled it last night or not. I think I did.

[00:03:49] So three feedings is a good thing to aim for, but if you’re starting with a small amount, you’re not ending up with too much excess starter[00:04:00]

[00:04:01] at the end

[00:04:06] So I want some more water

[00:04:16] I’m gonna need a little bit more

[00:04:19] John Moody: And the thing with the water is you can always add, but you can’t subtract.

[00:04:25] Jessica Moody: If you do add too much water, you can just put a little bit more-

[00:04:28] John Moody: Flour …

[00:04:29] Jessica Moody: flour in. But then you’re gonna have a little bit of extra starter at the end, which still is okay. And I’m gonna do just a little bit more water

[00:04:45] So now this is ready. I like to give it seven or eight hours before I make the dough for something, and it should it should be really active by then. I’ll see lots of bubbles. It [00:05:00] will rise up higher in the container that I have it in, sometimes doubling or even a little more than doubling, depending on what type of flour I’m using.

[00:05:12] This is spelt, and so it doesn’t rise as high as if I’m using a wheat flour. So that’s all you have to do for feeding your starter, and again, you want to keep up that schedule of feeding every morning and every evening until or just- Always you want to keep up that schedule unless you’re going to take a break from sourdough for a time.

[00:05:39] And it’s not hard to maintain if you can keep that consistent feeding [00:06:00] schedule

Part 3

Learn methods to remedy common issues with your sourdough starter as well as uncommon issues such as when your daughter pours salad dressing into the starter.

PART 3 VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

John Moody: So we wanted to finish up covering some common questions and problems you might run into early on in your sourdough journey. So the first question Jessica’s often asked is how often do we bake?

[00:00:14] Jessica Moody: We usually bake two to three times a week. So we’ll keep just a little starter in our jar for most of the week, and then like we’ve talked about before, I’ll give a bigger feed either one or in the case of a bread, two or three feedings before I make the dough You can bake as little as once a week or even less often than that, and you can bake as often as once or twice a day.

[00:00:42] It’s really what you can fit into your schedule and what the needs of your own family are.

[00:00:47] John Moody: Can you imagine how big I’d be if you baked once or twice a day? What if you need to take a break from baking with sourdough?

[00:00:57] Jessica Moody: If you need to take a break you [00:01:00] can either put your starter in the fridge or in the freezer, and in fact, we like to keep a backup starter both in the fridge and in the freezer in case anything happens to the starter that we- we’re using.

[00:01:14] And in fact, that did happen once where my daughter poured some salad dressing into the starter, and we were able to salvage it, but after that we’ve always kept a backup, a couple of backup starters just in case.

[00:01:28] John Moody: Yeah, and this is really crucial, especially if you do have kids in the house or uncaring compatriots who might…

[00:01:36] I’ve heard about people having their sourdough starter thrown away by roommates or other people cleaning their house.

[00:01:43] Even with our backup, Caleb managed to destroy-

[00:01:46] Yeah. We- we’ve had the backup destroyed sometimes. So a- and it’s another reason to share your sourdough because if you have friends in the area who are also baking sourdough with [00:02:00] progeny from your starter, then if your backup and your main starter both get damaged or something goes truly terribly wrong, you have a backup to the backup.

[00:02:10] So it’s the old adage, two is one and one is none. Can’t really have too many sourdough starter backups, especially because your starter gets so much better with time.

[00:02:21] Jessica Moody: Yeah.

[00:02:22] John Moody: So-

[00:02:22] Jessica Moody: So you don’t wanna lose all of that work, and yeah.

[00:02:26] John Moody: Because you can have a starter again in a month or so, but it takes years to get a really good starter that has really good aroma and flavor and rise and other things.

[00:02:41] Which is why starters have been prized and protected for hundreds, if not thousands of years and handed down.

[00:02:49] Jessica Moody: And if you do put your starter in the fridge or the freezer, to get it going again, you’ll just wanna take it out and feed it [00:03:00] twice a day like we’ve talked about before until you start to see that activity, and then it’s ready to bake with again.

[00:03:06] It doesn’t take long once you take it out of the fridge. It does take several days if it’s coming out of the freezer to get that activity going again.

[00:03:15] John Moody: Now, what do you do with excess starter?

[00:03:19] Jessica Moody: A lot of our recipes use excess starter, And so you can bake with it. Sometimes I’ll stick the extra starter, if I have a whole lot extra, into the fridge and save it up for making pancakes or waffles or another one of my recipes that uses a whole lot of starter.

[00:03:38] You can also feed it to the compost or if you had pigs or chickens. But one thing about the way that we do starter is we’re not tossing out half of our starter every day like a lot of people recommend doing. And so we do have excess from time to time, but it’s not a daily thing where we’re throwing it away [00:04:00] regularly.

[00:04:01] John Moody: So how do you avoid problems with mold, bugs, and other such unwanted accoutrements in your starter?

[00:04:10] Jessica Moody: Mold can be a problem, and I guess the first thing is I always keep it covered. You can also, when it’s in one of the jars, you can actually stick a rubber band around the top of the jar to keep it in there so bugs won’t get in.

[00:04:26] John Moody: Which is another advantage of the peanut butter jars because you can use a cloth and a rubber band seals real nicely around the peanut butter jar, whereas a lot of other types of jars and containers it’s harder to keep fruit flies and other critters out.

[00:04:41] Jessica Moody: Yep. And with mold the most important thing to keep mold away…

[00:04:47] Okay, two most important things. The first is to feed it twice every day. So the consistent feeding is gonna keep the mold away, and the second thing is every couple of days, I’d say at least [00:05:00] twice a week, to change the container that you have your starter in. We’ve talked about this before. You wanna… I usually do this when I’m getting ready to bake with it.

[00:05:12] Tonight we’ll take out what we need from this container, and I’ll have a little bit left, and I will put it in an empty container

[00:05:22] John Moody: that’s clean. And not just empty, but a clean jar.

[00:05:24] And not sanitized or sterilized. It’s just a, washed, cleaned, rinsed jar.

[00:05:30] Jessica Moody: Yep. Because even though we scrape down the sides every time we feed it, there’s still…

[00:05:37] I’m not sure if you can see that on the camera or not, but there’s still a little bit of residue there, and that’s going to build up over the few days you have it in there. And so it works out really well since we’re baking two or three times a week. Just every time we bake, we have when we’re using the starter, we have a little bit more in the jar.

[00:05:57] Sometimes it’s in this jar. Then [00:06:00] I’ll take it all out, measure out what I need, wash this jar, and get a clean jar from the cupboard.

[00:06:06] John Moody: Great. So what do you do if your house is too hot or too cold?

[00:06:12] Jessica Moody: The reason that the house being too hot or too cold can be a problem is that-

[00:06:17] John Moody: It’s too

[00:06:18] Jessica Moody: hot … you might not get the right amount of activity in your starter.

[00:06:23] If it’s too cold, it might take longer for your starter to develop. So you might wanna stick it in a warm place. We have a wood stove, so in the winter sometimes the starter gets moved over next to the stove. Also, on top of the refrigerator is a little bit of a warmer place or near the oven. So that can help a lot.

[00:06:45] If it is really hot, like in the summer months it can get really hot here, and what I will often do is actually do three feedings a day. I can keep an eye on it. If I’m in the kitchen, I might look over [00:07:00] and notice that it’s really active around noon. And then when it’s really active, it domes on the top, and then right after that it deflates a little bit.

[00:07:11] So- if it, once it does that, it might be a good time to feed it again. So in the summer I will often feed it a second time around 2:00 in the afternoon. So say 7:00 in the morning, 2:00 in the afternoon, and then again at 7:00 or 8:00 at night.

[00:07:28] John Moody: Great. So cross-contamination. Say you’re making kombucha and kefir and sourdough and sauerkraut, can that cause problems, and if so, how do you avoid them?

[00:07:42] Jessica Moody: It can cause problems, and so you wanna keep your different cultures in different parts of the kitchen or in different parts of the house. And also make sure that you’re not ever using the same utensils in your sourdough as you’re using in the other cultures without first washing them, [00:08:00] which I think is pretty self-explanatory.

[00:08:01] John Moody: And I would say there, that is one time, like if you’re using wooden utensils, you do want to sanitize those because washing alone won’t get-

[00:08:12] Jessica Moody: All the microbes …

[00:08:13] John Moody: all the microbes and, fungi and other things out. So it’s usually best if you have a number of different, especially really different fermenting things going on, to try and have standalone equipment you use for each, and then you’ll really reduce running into problems.

[00:08:34] Jessica Moody: We typically just use our own metal spoons, which is another frequently asked question that we get. Some people say not to use metal with sourdough. We have never had any issues. We use stainless steel, just flatware, and it has not, we have not had any issues.

[00:08:50] John Moody: Great.

[00:08:51] I did hear some beeping.

[00:08:53] You did hear beeping.

[00:08:54] So hopefully this has helped you move along on your sourdough journey, [00:09:00] and we’ll probably catch you in one of the other videos showing you how to make cinnamon rolls or other fun things with your sourdough starter. So thank you all so much.

Learn more from Jessica and John Moody’s book, DIY Sourdough available now in the Mother Earth News Bookstore.