Sourdough Bread "Experiment"

Here is a great experiment or science project!

Sourdough bread:

First, you must start out by making a "starter" for the sourdough. This allows you to make bread with NO packaged yeast because you are using the natural yeasts found on the flour and in the air. It may sound gross, but who doesn't like a nice San Francisco sourdough? (ok, my son doesn't like it but he is weird!)

To make the starter you must have a clean jar, like a Ball jar, with a lid. Poke a hole in the lid so the gasses leftover from fermentation can escape. Now add about 1 cup flour and about 2/3 cup of warm, not hot, water. Stir it up and put the lid on. Place the jar someplace warm, between 70 and 80 degrees. See photo at top.

After a while the starter will start to ferment. See second photo.

Every day remove about half of the starter, then add 1/2 cup flour and about 1/4 cup warm water and stir. Replace the lid and set in a warm place. Do this every day at about the same time. After a few days to a week you should be getting some nice fermentation and the sourdough smell.

To make bread, pour all of the starter into a bowl and add one cup flour and one cup of warm water. Let this bowl sit with a dish cloth over it until it turns bubbly. It can take up to 8 hours so check on it every so often. In the meantime wash and dry the jar and lid for the starter.

When the bowl of starter is bubbly, you can remove about 2 cups into another large bowl. The remaining starter goes back into the jar with a half cup of flour and 1/4 cup of warm water stirred in. You can place the starter into the refrigerator and now feed it once a week.

Add about 4 tablespoons of butter, melted, a teaspoon of salt, 4 teaspoons of sugar and about 3 cups of flour to the 2 cups of starter in your bowl. Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time stirring well after each addition. You want a pretty dense dough. Knead the dough adding flour if necessary. Allow this to rise until double in size and again, this can take several hours. Knock the dough down and knead again, adding flour if the dough is not firm. Form into a round and place on a greased cookie sheet. Allow the dough to rise again for about an hour. Bake in a 350 degree oven until the top is browned and sounds hollow when you rap on it.

The photo of the finished bread shows what happens when the dough is not dense enough! A sourdough pancake! The flavor is there, though, so I will just make a better loaf next time!

Resources:
Sourdough Bread: How to Begin

How to Make San Francisco Sourdough