# Grandpa's Sourdough Bread Recipe

January 2015
- adapted for use  with an ambient room temperature of about 20 degrees

- uses existing starter
- see instructions below for making starter if none is available

# Awaken the starter

- take the starter out of the fridge, there should be about 0,6L
- pour it into a bigger jar or container with about 1L capacity
- add 200g of white high grade flour,  200g of water and 1 teaspoonful of salt
- mix well & leave to work overnight
- by the morning it should be actively frothing & bubbling

# Split the starter

- put aside 400g starter for the loaf
- pour the remaining starter back into the smaller jar
- put it back into the fridge so that it goes dormant again

# Prepare the loaf

Mix together a total of 400g flour:

- 350g white bread making flour
- 25g of wholemeal wheat flour
- 25g of Dinkel wholemeal flour (Spelt)

Add in:

- 400g of starter
- 1 teaspoonful of salt
- 75 mL water - use this to rinse the starter jar out first

Mix thoroughly, then knead well for about 10 minutes. Shape
into a ball and leave it to prove for about 1 hour in a suitable
warm place.

# Let it raise

- pre-heat the oven to about 30ºC
- if you will be baking in a tin, oil it lightly
- if you are baking on a tray, dust the tray lightly with flour
- knead the loaf lightly
- shape into the desired form
- with a sharp knife, score about 3mm deep
	- if round, mark a cross on top
	- for torpedo shapes, mark on top longitudinally
- let the loaf rise; this will take 4-6 hours
- alternatively let it rise overnight in a warm place approx 20ºC

# Bake

Bake at 200ºC degrees for 40 minutes.

# Notes

## Different types of flour

The bread can be made entirely from white or different types of flour can be
added instead of the wholemeal wheaten and dinkel flours. For example a small
quantity of rye or buckwheat. The 75 mls of water may have to be adjusted for
different types of flour. More dinkel seems to need more water, as will all
wholemeal flours.

## Consistency of dough

The mixture should be fairly soft but not so soft that it is sticky - I think
that it makes better bread and it rises better if it is not too dry. The
optimum seems to be if it just doesn't quite stick to the hands. If the mix is
too dry after kneading you can dampen it by wetting the hands and kneading a
little more.

## Storing the Starter

If it is desired to store the starter for long periods it can be frozen.
Precool it in the fridge for a day or two then put it in the freezer. When
removed from the freezer take it out and  leave in the fridge for a couple of
days to thaw out then go through the adding flour, water and salt routine. It
can take 3 or 4 days to recover its activity. Once it is active again it can be
used in the normal way.

## Quantity of Starter

If the quantity of starter gets too small or too large adjust the qantity of
flour and water added appropriately but keep equal weights of flour and water.

## Making the Bread elsewhere

The above procedure has been optimised for conditions like that in Europe where
there is Central Heating in winter and Air Conditioning in summer so that the
ambient room temperature is always close to 20 degrees.

To make it in places where the ambient air temperature varies the times will
vary and will need to be found by experiment and adjusted accordingly.
If it is warmer the starter might only need 6 to 8 hours to work instead of
overnight. If it is cooler overnight might be too short. If an oven at 30ºC is
not used for rising, the loaf might need to rise overnight.

## Getting a new starter going from scratch

### Ingredients

- 5g Wheat bran
- 75g Organic whole meal wheat flour preferably stone ground
- 75g Organic wholemeal rye flour
- 150g White breadmaking flour

### Method

Mix together

- 5g wheat bran
- 25g wheat wholemeal flour
- 25g rye wholemeal flour
- 50g white flour
- 100g water

Leave for about 48 hours at room temperature.

Add:
- 25g wheat wholemeal flour
- 25g rye wholemeal flour
- 50g white flour
- 100 mL water

Leave for a further 48 hours at room temperature, then repeat the above but
also add 1 teaspoonful of salt as a retardant. This will make about 600g of
starter which should be bubbling and frothing vigorously by now and can be
used as above.

Start at the point where the starter is taken out of the fridge and
transferred to the bigger jar.

### Explanation

The aim here is to get the natural yeasts to multiply, take over the mixture
and suppress other organisms. The two active components in the sourdough
starter are lacto-bacillus bacteria which breaks the starch down to sugar and
lactic acid (which gives the  bread the “sour” flavour) and a yeast which then
breaks the sugar down to alcohol and carbon dioxide gas (which  makes the bread
rise). Hence the use of the organic flour, as most commercial flour is
sterilised and the natural yeasts have been killed. Also some milling occurs at
quite high temperatures which can also kill the yeasts hence using the stone
groundflour. The wheat bran has also generally not been sterilised so is a good
source of the natural yeasts. It doesn't matter if the flour is not exactly as
specified as long as one of the components has some natural yeast spores.