Sourdough starter in 48 hours
There are many different methods to create all kinds of starters for all your bread baking needs. But most of them take a lot of time to develop - a week or even more is what you’ll usually see. That can be quite intimidating for someone who wants to try their skills out at this wonderful hobby and many people just never take this step.
I’ve spent some time reading studies, learning all about existing methods and came up with a method which yields a healthy starter in just 48 hours. And this is the method I’ll share with you today.
I’m in the process of writing a big article series on sourdough, its chemistry and biology. It will explain all of the assumptions I’ve made during 48 hours starter recipe development. But this article will only contain summary of this information. Otherwise this post will become too large.
If you don’t want to dig into science behind my method and just want to create your very own starter then scroll down to Method section below.
Why make starter in 48 hours?
This is the question I’ve heard many times over the last couple of months. And I have plenty of reasons for anyone asking. Some of them are pretty minor, but some are quite important in my opinion.
Save time
The faster starter is created the sooner one will start baking. Waiting for a week or more is quite discouraging for many home bakers. And why would anyone want to discourage newcomers? If a starter can be reliably made in just two days then more people will start baking bread using sourdough. I believe that more experienced bakers should always try to encourage more and more people to try this amazing hobby.
Save money
The longer it takes for a starter to mature the more ingredients have to be used. And while flour and water are generally cheap, some people might prefer to save some money anyway. If the quality doesn’t suffer, there’s no need to overspend. Even if it’s peanuts.
Reduce food waste
As was said in previous reason, the longer the process the more ingredients will be used. And most of them will go to waste. Discard can only be reused once the starter matures, but before that baker has to throw away both water and flour. Food waste is a big problem these days in many parts of the world and there are no reasons to contribute to this problems.
Less complexity
If you regularly visit forums and other online baking communities then you’ve probably noticed that many people fail to create their first starter. Some even fail more than five times before they succeed. That can be very discouraging for a newcomer, but it’s not their fault. Fresh flour and water contain many different microorganisms, not just lactic acid bacteria and yeast. Starter matures only when bacteria and yeast manage to establish strong colonies and everyone else dies out. But there’s no guarantee that bacteria and yeast will win this survival competition and when they lose one must start from scratch. And the longer the process the more chances there are that the whole operation will fail.
Food safety
Fresh flour contains plenty of microorganisms and some of them might cause serious health issues. For example, e. coli can be found in fresh flour. Some rare “guests” might even survive baking as flour never reaches +100C in the oven. Mature sourdough is self preserving meaning that acids and alcohol produced by lactic acid bacteria and yeast kill a lot of bad guys making bread safer even before baking. If we can mature our starter faster then harmful microorganisms will have less chances to establish themselves. Yes, food safety is very high in developed nations these days, but why risk anything at all? And should we forget less fortunate and publish potentially unsafe recipes?
Ease of re-starting
Sometimes starters get killed for one reason or another. That’s life and many of us have been there. Faster method will get you back to your hobby faster. Awesome!
Advancing bread technologies
Everything can be improved in this world. So why stop somewhere mid way? Let’s find new ways to create starters simply because we, the humans, are curious and are never satisfied with what we have! This is my small contribution to this never ending process of human progress.
The price to pay
Everything comes at a price though. You will need a lot more ingredients and tools to create this 48 hour starter. First of all you will need a scale with at least 0.1g resolution. Normal kitchen scales have 1g resolution and that won’t be enough to make precise measurements of some of the ingredients. Another tool which will help you is a food thermometer. It’s not strictly required, but it will help a lot.
You will also need vodka (40% alcohol), water, dark rye flour (type 1740), non fermented and non roasted rye malt, salt, honey and vinegar. But I believe everyone should have these in their cupboard.
The theory
A starter matures when yeast and bacteria settle in and all other microorganisms die out. That happens because lactic acid bacteria produces lactic and acetic acids and yeast produces alcohol. These chemicals are deadly to many microbes, fungi and other bacterias. Lactic and alcoholic fermentations are widely used in food preservation for thousands of years in pickling, brewing, etc. So, what if we create a similar environment from ingredients one can buy in a supermarket? And use this environment to create our starter?
I came up with this idea after learning about and trying out some alternative starter creation methods. Russian bakers have a specific starter called Concentrated Lactic Acid Sourdough (CLAS) which only contains bacteria without any yeast inside (similar sourdough is used in Germany as well and is called bread fermentation). It was developed in the first half of 20th century and was recently optimised to produce fully mature starter in just 24 hours. But it comes with a few drawbacks: complex development process, unusual 190% hydration, complex feeding process, it also requires adding yeast to all recipes and since it is a lot more active, it requires reformulating all recipes.
Another quick sourdough starter was developed by French baker Xxx in Yyy. It is made in just 60 hours, but it is a stiff starter and is tailored specifically to wheat breads. While it is possible to improve acidity and bacteria activity of such starter to make it better suited for rye breads, such operation would require additional time. Using rye starters in wheat breads is easier - one just has to lower starter to flour proportion slightly in the final dough.
These developments helped me understand what I have to do to create my very own starter in just 48 hours and after some trial and error I came up with a recipe in sharing here.
Sourdough starter in 48 hours
This starter requires only three steps: initialisation and two feedings. Initialisation phase is when we pre set the environment for bacteria and yeast to thrive and everyone else to suffer. And then we need only two feeding sessions to help our colonies grow to their full potential.
Pre-setting the environment
I decided to add alcohol, salt, vinegar and honey to water to pre set the desired environment. Final solution should contain about 2% alcohol, 2% salt and 2% honey. The amount of vinegar is miniscule, but it lowers pH of this solution considerably and my tests showed that such amount is just enough.
Lactic acid bacteria can easily contaminate beer and wine and can usually tolerate at least 5% alcohol depending on the species. Some yeast strains has lower alcohol tolerance, but even commerciall baker’s yeast can produce and tolerate 3% of alcohol. I deducted that 2% should be enough and safe considering that I will be adding additional ingredients.
Salt is a very important ingredient. It is heavily used in fruit and vegetable lactic fermentation. Basic salt powered fermentation recipe calls for 2% salt in water and this what I decided to stick to. Salt inhibits unwelcome microflora and also boosts lactic acid bacteria performance. Please use plain salt without any additives like anti-caking agents, iodine and all of the minerals present in Himalayan salt.
I guess many have noticed that starters swing back and forth during first days of development: they bubble one day, then smell awful the next one, then they look dead for a while and so on. That happens because food availability changes over time. Enzymes break down complex proteins and carbohydrates, microorganisms consume them and release waste products and that changes which chemicals are abundant at a specific time, which microorganisms are happy and which are starving. Honey mostly contains fructose and lactose which are preferred food of both lactic acid bacteria and yeast. Adding just a bit gives that competitive edge to our friendly microbiota since the first seconds of starter development.
And finally rye malt. Another important ingredient. Malt is a germinated grain, germination process creates plenty of enzymes and attracts many bacteria and yeast. Replacing some flour with malt improves colony sizes from day one and enzymes break down complex nutrients into easier to digest versions making microflora happy and healthy. Rye malt should be non fermented and non roasted. Heat and fermentation destroy microorganisms and enzymes rendering it useless for this application. Baking shops in UK only stock roasted malts, so I’m buying mine from home brew shops. Correct malt has EBC colour of 4-10.
Feedings
I’m using scalded dark rye flour for feeding during development phase. The idea behind this approach is that scalding will partially sterilise the flour lowering the risks of contamination and it will also kick start enzymatic break down of starches turning them into better food for our tiny friends. Less competition + more food = faster development, less risks and better result. Otherwise it is just a regular feeding session. You can switch to normal feedings for maintenance once the starter fully matures.