sourdough for morons-- need a primer on "properly prepared" grains

[Llyra]

I'm having trouble with this. The last time I started a sourdough, the starter scared me-- it stuck to the jar so badly, and was so difficult to handle, and I was never sure how to tell the difference between sour and just plain old spoiled. I'm a wuss about fermentation in general, and regularly throw out what is probably perfectly good food whenever I get doubtful about it. So I threw it out. I wasn't really all that committed to using it, I guess. It was an experiment for me at that point.

Anyway, I've been on the SCD for a few years, and I'm starting to gradually reintroduce grains and other starchy foods back into my diet. I started potatoes and corn and turnips and stuff like that back in December, and I'm doing fine, and then soaked brown rice and quinoa a month ago. So now I want to venture into the wild world of WHEAT again. I haven't tasted any in two years.

I regularly bake yeasted whole grain breads and muffins and stuff like that for the kids and DH. I'm a really good baker, actually, I think.

But now I want to find out how to make bread I might have a fighting chance of actually being able to digest, and I need to do it on a budget. So I have to start with ordinary whole wheat flour-- grinding my own or buying special sprouted flours is out of the question.

So sourdough, right?

Is there a book I can start with, maybe one that has pictures of what the starter is actually supposed to look like when it's working correctly, or at the very least clear, basic instructions? I can't read Nourishing Traditions again-- I have at the moment a very love/hate relationship with dear sally and the book just digs up all my issues and makes me cranky, and I wind up sending it back to the library before I've extracted the information I need.

Please help!

[JMJ]

This website has way more information on sourdough than you could ever want. It's really not a "for dummies" version, though, and his 100% whole wheat sourdough recipe is fantastic! Do 4/3 the recipe, though, if you want a more standard sized loaf or just do what he says for a little smaller loaf.

If you have somebody around who can give you some starter that is already healthy, that's great. You might try posting in finding your tribe. All you'd need is a Tablespoon of somebody's white starter to start turning it into a whole wheat starter, and a healthy starter is hard to kill. There have been so many times that I've forgotten to feed mine for a few weeks, and the whole top part has died and turned hard. I just scraped off the dead part and fed the live part below a few times, and it livened right back up. I'd say that as long as your starter can double within 12 hours on the counter right after a feeding, you're doing fine. I haven't poisoned my family yet.

[BedHead]

It's really hard for sourdough starter to 'spoil'. The wild yeast and bacteria outcompete anything else that lands in it. As long as it still has a 'yeasty' smell to it it's fine.

I ordered free starter from this site about 2 years or so ago and it's still going strong. It's been left in the fridge, left out, taken camping, forgotten about and generally abused, and it still make totally wonderful bread. I love it.

[Koalamom]

I love the book Sourdough by Dan Leader. It has great pictures and goes into the nitty gritties of sourdough bread making. But I am not crazy about the making a starter section.

Making a starter is so easy. We can help you through it if you need step by step.

[Prairiemother]

I love http://www.thefreshloaf.com A number of people there use AP flour, but there are some who use fresh ground whole grain, and who make sourdough. There are a number of very skilled bakers on that site.

[Bri'sgirl]

Originally Posted by BedHead

It's really hard for sourdough starter to 'spoil'. The wild yeast and bacteria outcompete anything else that lands in it. As long as it still has a 'yeasty' smell to it it's fine.

I ordered free starter from this site about 2 years or so ago and it's still going strong. It's been left in the fridge, left out, taken camping, forgotten about and generally abused, and it still make totally wonderful bread. I love it.

Thanks for the link. They have a new site URL as of this month. http://www.carlsfriends.org/ I'm going to send for my starter.

[Llyra]

I'm so discouraged. The starter I started (according to the sourdoughhouse site) is in a jar now, and on its fourth day. I've been doing everything just like the site said, and yet right now it's separated, and smells so awful that I can't even stand to be near it when I'm feeding it or stirring it. I realize it's supposed to be sour, but this is not just sour, and has no tinge of yeastiness about it. It's just smells gross, like somebody's socks would smell if they'd been dead a month and wearing the socks the whole time.

I am exploring the idea that there's something wrong with the flour. But it's the same organic stone-ground whole wheat my kids and DH eat all the time in yeasted breads, kept in the fridge and used up quickly. I don't know why there would be something wrong with it.

I think I'm maybe just not meant to eat bread, and this is the universe explaining that to me. I'm going to get on facebook though and see if anybody I know locally has a starter I can have part of.

But I have a question: how is an active healthy starter supposed to smell? Does it smell sour? HOW sour? Yeasty? Or is the rotten smell normal?