Learn how to make your own sourdough starter with Alex Poulter of East Bristol Bakery. Pick up your scraper and paper instructions from any participating bakeries and create your own unique culture. Start now and your starter will be ripe and ready for our culture swap taking place during the festival, keep an eye on our website for details.
The East Bristol Bakery is a small, award-winning craft bakery in the heart of Easton.
Alex Poulter:
“Choose carefully when you plan to start your sourdough starter, once you start your culture you will need to feed your starter at the same time every day for 4/5 days. Start in the evening or in the morning, when ever is convenient for you. The culture needs to be kept in a warm place, such as next to a radiator (not on top of it!) or in a airing cupboard.”
“You can start your culture in any clean pot or jar, but it should be covered but not air tight. This is really important because yeast produces gas which will need to escape, and we want fresh air to get to the starter.”
Day 1 – Mix 40g lukewarm water, 40g Wholemeal flour (preferably organic)
If you do this in the evening by the morning you might have a few signs of life forming already, one or two small bubbles may appear on the surface of the starter.
Day 2 – Add another 40g lukewarm water and 40g wholemeal flour.
If the starter has been kept in a warm place the yeasts in the flour should start to feed on the flour and will begin to reproduce. Bubbles will start to appear over the next 24 hours, and you may see a remarkable change as the yeasts begin to bubble and the starter begins to expand in your container.
Day 3 – We want to lighten the starter a little today, feed the starter 60g lukewarm water, 30g white flour, 30g wholemeal.
After feeding on day 3 the starter will be a little lighter in colour and thiner in consistency. The yeast should begin to bubble within a few hours, and the culture will smell quite ‘fruity’. About 6-8 hours after feeding the culture should smell a little like cider, maybe quite sweet. As the yeast break down the sugars in the flour it will begin to smell vinegary and acidic.
Day 4 – By day 4 your culture should be bubbling and alive.
At this point you want to strengthen your culture by feeding it once more. Before feeding you need to remove about half of the sourdough starter. You can give this to a friend, but it also composts very well. Feed your culture once more 60g lukewarm water, 30g white flour and 30g wholemeal.
Here’s a timelapse video showing the whole process.