Sample Lesson: Sourdough Baking Course

It’s really easy to start your own sourdough mother, and it’s like growing your own pet that will require feeding and minding. It simply requires flour, water and time.

What flour to use?

You can start a mother (culture) with most flours, but make sure to choose a flour that is easy to come by, is not that expensive, as the mother will require regular feeding. We use a white flour-based mother culture in our bakery, and I also have a wholemeal spelt mother at home.
A white flour will have more sugars available and less fibre than a wholemeal flour, so the mother will grow quicker and therefore require more regular feeding. Wholemeal flour has a higher fibre content, so it will absorb more moisture and be slightly less active than white flour.

Method

In a 400-ml clean jam jar, add:

• 50g of flour of choice (we prefer 100% wholewheat or wholemeal spelt)
• 50 ml of water

Mix well until homogenous. Cover with a tea towel to stop flies from entering while still allowing air and natural yeast to enter.

Leave it to sit on the countertop for 3-5 days out of direct sunlight.

Once it smells yeasty and slightly beer-like or brewery-like and has small bubbles in it, it is ready to go and get its first feed. You now have your very own sourdough mother to love and look after, which will hopefully nourish you and your friends and family!

It is important to note that whatever flour your mother culture was created with is the flour you will always have to feed it, so for example, if you used wholemeal spelt flour, then your mother culture needs to always be fed wholemeal spelt flour. You can change the type of flour over time, but this is a gradual process.

Feeding your new mother culture

Your sourdough culture will now need to be fed daily. If you are going on holiday, either get a friend to feed it or simply put it in the fridge, and it will live for a week without feeding (when starting to bake from using your mother from the fridge, it will require 1 good feed before baking once out of the fridge to get it active for baking bread).

Pour out half of your mother culture into a bowl; this will be used to make bread. Now in the same jar, add:

• 50g flour (ensure it is the same flour as your mother culture was created with)
• 50 ml of water

Mix well, and leave.

How regularly should I feed my mother?

If your mother is living outside of the fridge, it will need to be fed daily. If it is in a warm environment, such as 20 degrees C, it might need to be fed twice daily. If your mother is living in the fridge, it will need to be fed weekly or, at a stretch, every second week.

If your mother is living in a cold environment, such as a kitchen in winter that is approx. 5 degrees C, it will need to be fed once per week, as this environment is similar to a fridge.