Sourdough - getting started

[KamadoSimon]

I enjoy cooking bread on my Kamado Joe - get it up really hot, cook your bread on the pizza stone and then let it cool & cook your main meal. Simple & delicious warm bread with your meal. My wife & I have been really wanting to try Sourdough but hadn't readily come across a way of getting a starter - the sourdough starter replaces the dry yeast you would normally put in a bread recipe.

After buying a sourdough loaf at a local mini-food festival, I thought I really needed to have a go at this so I did a quick search on youtube & a chef on there suggested that starting your own sourdough starter was actually pretty easy. 1 tablespoon of flour & the same of water in a pot. 8 hours later add the same again. 8 hours later add a 1/4 cup of each again - but this time you should see it bubbling & doing sourdough goodness. Sounded too easy so I was sceptical - but then the waste was less than half a cup of flour which was not going to break the bank Two days later I have my very own sourdough starter - which smelt horrible & looked like it had split. So I binned it. Reading some more, I realised I probably could have rescued it but only after I came across this brilliant website: http://www.sourdoughhome.com/

I followed this guys approach to creating a starter & it worked a treat - a week & a bit later we have a very active starter which doubles itself in size after feeding within a few hours & it has gone through the day 2-ish smelly stage & come out the other side smelly all yeasty & lovely. So rather than just cultivating it (binning half every 12 hours & adding back in equal quantities of flour & water), I am doubling the size of it ready to take some out to cook with.

I'll update this post after I cook our first sourdough loaf on the Kamado this week - but wanted to give people a heads-up to this persons site as it is pretty comprehensive on how to get started with bread & sourdough.

Enjoy!

[aris]

I've always wanted to try this - never found the time or inclination. I'm avoiding wheat these days due to an intolerance, but I may well indulge for something special like this.

[KamadoSimon]

Getting it started is a bit of a pain until it becomes routine - we were doing the dividing & feeding at breakfast & last thing at night. But once it is going, you can then keep the culture in your fridge & go for 3 weeks or so without feeding - assuming you're not wanting to make bread from it. Then you get it out a couple of days before you want to make bread with it & feed it. Good thing about sourdough loafs is that they keep a lot longer too.

[hifigary]

Been wanting to make sourdough for a while - need to get myself in gear and do it.

A guy on another forum I use has written up a good guide with a few other breads to make with
your starter

http://www.birminghamplus.com/forums/in ... =0&start=0

[aris]

Hmmm. I'm thinking one could bake this in a smoker/UDS if you moderated the temperature correctly.

[Big Mick]

It is definitely worth the effort to make sourdough bread, head and shoulders above shop bought bread. My starter is just coming up to its first birthday and although I only have time to bake from it once or twice a week (it is a long process but not much actual work involved - mostly waiting).
Give it a go you won't regret it.

Mick

[RobinC]

I haven't made sourdough bread yet but I've made bread quite a few times in my kettles. The results aren't quite as good as I can do in the oven (mainly because it's not so easy to quickly ramp up/down the temp on a kettle) but certainly more than passable

[keith157]

Getting the urge to make up a dough mix as we certainly like sourdough. Robin_C would it benefit from being cooked using a pizza stone?

[RobinC]

Yes I use a pizza stone when cooking bread in either the oven or on the kettle. Like I've said I've not yet tried making sourdough but I don't think the actual baking part is any different from making a standard loaf. The other major difference I find on the BBQ as opposed to the oven is that I don't tend to use boiling water to generate steam. This is largely because I've found on the kettle that by the time I've added the boiling water and got the stone in the right place with the dough on it I've lost too much heat.

[KamadoSimon]

So after quite a few loafs in an oven, I decide to try a couple on the Kamado. Worked a treat....