Makes approximately 256 grams of active culture
Nutty, loose, and quick to ferment. Look for sweet and grassy flavors to develop over time.
INGREDIENTS
50/50 whole wheat and bread/flour blend
57 grams whole wheat
57 grams bread flour
113 grams lukewarm water
TOOLS YOU’LL NEED
Digital scale
16-ounce Ball jar and lid
Spoon
Day one. Pick a time that will be easy for you to return to over the course of several days. Use the scale to weigh 114 grams of flour into the jar. Use the scale to weigh 114 grams of lukewarm water into the jar. Stir vigorously. Loosely cover with the lid. Let the mixture rest in a well-ventilated room between 70 and 75 degrees, out of direct sunlight. In general, the kitchen counter is a fine place to begin. Taste it. It will taste wheaty, paste-like, and even chalky at first.
Day two. Check back at roughly the same time. Remove the lid and stir well. Taste. Are flavors developing? What does it look like? Smell like? Any signs of life? Replace the lid. Let rest.
Day three. Repeat day two.
Day four. Early signs of fermentation, such as bubbles and a slight acidic smell, will start to appear. Regardless of what you see, it is time to begin refreshment feedings. Trust that activity has been put into motion. Your role is to keep the movement going. Refreshing around the same time daily will train your culture to predictably ferment.
To refresh: Pour out all but 28 grams from the jar and feed it back 113 grams lukewarm water and 113 grams of the whole wheat and bread flour blend. Discarding a high level of culture maintains a low acidity, encouraging a stable environment for the bacteria. It also provides ample food for tired yeast. Several hours after refreshing, check for visible surface tension, a domed top, and dish-soap-size bubbles. In warm temperatures, a bubbly mass reaching the top of the jar will occur within 4 to 5 hours.
At the peak of activity, the culture will float. Test this by wetting your fingers and scooping some off the top and dropping it into a glass of water. Try not to degas the culture as you transfer it. If it sinks, repeat the test in thirty minutes. When it floats, it’s ready to use.
Eventually a divot will form on the surface and the culture will begin to collapse in on itself, receding down the walls of the jar. The visible bubbles will turn tiny and frothy, and it will smell quite sour. As this happens, the yeast die off and acidic flavors take hold. The culture is now less active. If you miss the peak, simply refresh it again and let it sit until it passes the float test.
Within seven to ten days from the start date, and with at least three to four refreshments, you should have a bubbling culture that smells sweet and slightly tangy. There are no hard-and-fast rules for how long it will take your culture to come to life. Activity depends on the weather, your environment, what kind of flour you feed it, and how often you check it. I recommend keeping a journal near your culture so you can record when you fed it, what flour you fed it with, the room temp, the weather, and how long it took to pass the float test. This way you have lived experience against the suggestions laid out here.
If you bake infrequently, store the culture in refrigeration. When it has been left dormant this way for a while, allow for several days of refreshing before you plan on baking. I’ve left mine for up to two months in the back of the fridge at 40 degrees and had it return to life easily. A thin layer of alcohol will form on the top of the culture. This does not mean it has expired. Stir in the alcohol, or pour it off if you prefer, and begin refreshing.