Homemade sourdough: Revive tradition with a two‑ingredient starter

Baking bread at home has gained popularity as a way to return to traditional culinary practices. With the rising awareness about food quality, many people opt for homemade sourdough bread. Thanks to the sourdough, not yeast, the bread achieves a unique taste and aroma you won't find in store-bought products. How to prepare sourdough starter? The recipe contains only two ingredients, and the process is surprisingly simple.

You need very little to prepare a homemade sourdough starter—just some time and patience. Start by gathering the basic ingredients: rye flour or spelt flour and water. The necessary tools are a litre-sized jar and a wooden spoon. It's important that the jar is clean, preferably sterilized, to ensure the proper conditions for fermentation.

Recipe for rye sourdough starter:

Ingredients:

  
• 100 grams of whole rye flour (type 2000) or 100 grams of whole spelt flour (type 2000 or 3000)
• 100 millilitres of warm water

Tools:

    
• Litre-sized jar (sterilized)
• Wooden spoon
• Linen cloth or cheesecloth

How to make sourdough starter?

      
1. Day 1: In a jar, mix 50 grams of rye or spelt flour with 50 millilitres of water until you get a smooth mixture. Cover the jar with a cloth or cheesecloth and leave it at room temperature for 24 hours.
2. Day 2: Bubbles should appear on the surface. Add another 50 grams of flour and 50 millilitres of water. Mix, cover, and leave it for another day.
3. Days 3-4: Continue feeding the starter, adding the same amount of flour and water daily. Mix well each time and cover.
4. Day 5: The sourdough starter should be active by now, with numerous bubbles, and its volume should have significantly increased. You can now use the starter to bake rye bread or store it in the fridge, feeding it once a week.

Remember, sourdough starter is a "living" culture and requires regular "feeding." If you don't use it for an extended period, always remember to add flour and water weekly.

Preparing sourdough starter is a step towards traditional baking methods that offer health benefits and a unique taste. Sourdough starter, a mixture of flour and water, through natural fermentation, enriches the bread with probiotics and reduces gluten content, making it more digestible. Baking bread at home is a return to roots and a unique opportunity to control the ingredients we consume and incorporate nutritional values that you won't find in stores.