Sourdough Starter

Many times in the past I have made food with only local ingredients to enjoy the flavors of New England.  Local cider, home grown vegetables and locally hunted deer meat make for a meal that can't be replicated perfectly anywhere else.  This can be taken a step further with naturally fermented foods.  Of course we could talk about making local hard cider but I'll save that for another time. I want to talk about a food that many forget is actually fermented at all.

Sourdough bread.  All leavened bread is fermented at least a little so that the yeast produces carbon dioxide and makes the bread rise.  This will always lend a little flavor to the final product.  Sourdough takes this a step further and relies on wild yeast and bacteria to give it the distinct flavor we are looking for. 

Yeast and other microbes are all around us and they are like the fingerprint of your area.  Not only are the strains of wild yeast unique but they change with the seasons. Some beasties are happier in the summer weather and they will lend distinctly different flavors when compare to their cousins that are more active in the winter. The flavors that come from wild yeast and bacteria are wildly variable. A few times in the past I have brewed with wild yeast but I have never tried baking with it.  This will be my first attempt.

Sitting on my counter right now is a shallow and wide container with 3 tablespoons of whole wheat flour mixed with 2 tablespoons of water and the juice of a tangerine.  The initial acid helps to promote the growth of the bugs we want and stave off those that we don't.  The sour part of sourdough comes from acid producing microbes similar to those found in lambic style beers and yogurt.  I am hoping to get a strong culture of wild yeast and company bubbling along soon

I will be feeding this culture for about a week and I will keep you updated on its progress.  There is not much to report that is exciting at the moment but that will change when I am baking a brewing up a storm in the last stretch of winter.  If only my new ingredients and brew pot were not delayed by the weather.