The last 2 years I have been making my own bread using levain or starter dough.  I bought the book by Daniel Lender - Local Breads - great book with lot's of recipes - go to his website -  I basically make 2 breads from his book 1) Pain au Levain or French Sourdough Bread and 2) Genzano County Bread from Italy for Pizzas.  From these 2 recipes I add different herbes or flour etc.  I am not a baker, I am a cook but I did go out and buy my electronic scale to make the bread and I use a pizza stone to make the bread/pizza.

The big thing is to create your own sour dough starter - It seems like a lot more complicated than it really is - It takes @ 10 days to create it - but only about 5 minutes of your time everyday until the yeast develops.  I have to say one thing though sour dough is very hard to kill once it is made.  They bakers make such a big thing about feeding and nurturing the yeast, but don't believe it.  I have left it in fridge for 3 weeks - fed it and it was back to life as strong as ever.  If you live in Sarasota and want a piece of my starter dough - no problem send me an email and we can meet for a coffee and sour dough This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

It is very cool to to create your own yeast from flour and water - and once you get the sour dough going - it is unbelievable - and very non labor intensive!

To get started you need 6 things: 1) 8 cup plastic container 2) bottled Spring Water 3) King Arthur unbleached bread Flour 4) organic rye flour and 5) Temperature between 75 and 80 6) electronic scale.  Just look at it this way - you are going to mix it together  and leave it outside on top of the counter.  Everyday you are going to add some more flour and water until depending on the temperature etc - you will have created your own organic starter which will replace the store bought yeast forever - all you to do is make bread once a week and the sour dough could live for a century or maybe 2 centuries. Just imagine something that you can leave for your grandchildren or great great grandchildren.  

Finally make sure your electronic scale has the metric system - grams and kilograms - I know - too complicated - but just think of it this way - we have 10 fingers and the metric system is also base 10 - no 12 toes or 16 oz!!

Day 1 - weigh 75 grams of H20 - 50 grams of Bread Flour and 50 grams of Rye flour - mix it up well - put it in the container and cover it and leave it alone

Day 2 thru 10 - weigh 30 grams of water - 50 grams of Bread Flour and ONLY 5 grams of Rye Flour add this to the yesterday's mixture

After a few days the dough should begin to rise overnight - bubbles form etc. - If after 10 days Nada - guess what you have to start again!! or call me and I will send you some of mine!!

Okay let's assume that on Day 10 the starter dough is alive and well! What do we do now?

Never forget "1 - 1 - 2" ->>> 1 part water to 1 part sour dough starter to 2 parts flour - this is the proportion you need to feed your sour dough once a week (or if you are like me - every 14 days!)

I usually need @ 200 grams of sour dough when I make my bread so therefore I need to make@ 400 grams of starter every week - 200 grams for the bread and 200 grams that I save in the fridge for next week

But right now you have @ 900 grams of starter in your container - keep 200 grams - and go visit your friends and give them some or throw it away

Take 100 grams of starter dough add 100 grams of water and 200 grams of flour (180 grams of unbleached bread flour and 20 gram of rye flour) and knead and live out overnight! Tomorrow we are going to make our first bread!! with only flour - sour dough starter and water and sea salt!!

But save the 100 grams extra in the fridge - in case by mistake some one throws  your starter dough away!!

Next article Pain au Levain!!!