Spelt sourdough

Gotta say it sounded pretty scary to make at first, sounded complicated and at first i was gunna flag it. So I keep looking around and tried t find the simplest way to do it, I mean, gee, some versions you needed juice, the tears of a virgin angels, pulling, pushing, folding and prove in the northwest point of an ancient burial ground and only make on the full moon! Thats what put me off...

So anyway this is the way I came up with this to make it as easy and as least complicated as possible, I ended up finding it very easy, you just have to get the timing right. Next bake I will try a 14 hours prove, so I will form the dough at 6pm, leave until 10am and then bake.

You can play around with the amount to accommodate the loaf tin you use. I used 200g starter, 400g flour, 10g salt and about 200ml approx of warm water, mix with your hands until it come together and just knead 1-2 minutes until smooth, its pretty quick. The starter is whole spelt flour and the flour I make the dough with is white spelt flour.

You then put in your loaf tin, slash the top of the loaf. Sprinkle flour on top once its in the tin and cover and leave for 12-18 hours

(until nearly doubled) depending on how warm your place is. This process can be some trial and error, you will probably get a different loaf every time...lol.

Before proving

after 12 hours proving

I have baked at 230c for 20 minutes and then turned down to 180 for another 10-15 minutes. If you are not sure if its cooked you can always slice the end off, i do, then eat the hot crust with plenty of butter, chuck it back in if it still looks a little wet.

Starting the sourdough:

Whisk ¼ cup of flour and ¼ of a cup of water in a small bowl. Pour this into a jar, and let it sit for twelve hours.

Twelve hours later, whisk in ¼ cup of flour with ¼ of a cup water and continue this every 12 hours for 7-14 days until your starter is bubbling. As you feed your starter, take care to whisk in the flour and water thoroughly into the established starter aerating the starter will help to yield the best and most reliable results.

To accommodate for expansion of the sourdough when it’s fed, make sure that your jar is only half full after each feeding. If you’ve made too much sourdough starter for the capacity of your jar, pour some off and use it in sourdough biscuits, sourdough pancakes or sourdough crackers

12 day starter, should have lots of bubbles

Maintaining the sourdough: After 1-2 weeks, your sourdough should be sturdy enough to withstand storage. If you bake infrequently (that is: if you bake less than once a week), you can store your sourdough in the refrigerator, bring it to room temperature and feed it well about twelve hours before you plan to make a loaf.

If you bake more frequently every day or a few times a week you can store your sourdough at room temperature and feed it.

Special considerations: If a brown liquid appears floating on top of your sourdough starter, simply pour it off. Sourdough bakers call this liquid hooch, and it is harmless; however, it often signifies that you’ve fed your starter too much water in relation to flour or have let your 

starter go too long between feedings. Sourdough starters are relatively resilient, and bounce back quickly once you resume proper care of them

.