Hello Ching! Please read our answer to the other comments like from ‘Sonya Kanelstrand’ and ‘Onewithnot’. It comes down to ‘keep on feeding’, different brand of flour, warmer or colder place. Happy baking!

Hello Jasper. This is no problem, you make the starter from whole wheat, spelt, bread flour etc. Why we use rye you can read in ‘Why a rye starter culture?’. There will be a change in the final taste of the bread. Perhaps more sour, perhaps more sweet, all depends on the organisms growing in your starter as every starter is different depending on flour and location. Just give it a try!

I want to make a starter from wheat flour (not whole-wheat). Is this possible? What difference will it make on the bake result?

Cheers, Jasper.

Thank you very much! Good news for sure. First bake this weekend, very excited!

Hi Andrea,
No worries, this is perfectly normal and happens with our culture too. It rises up to a certain point and then shrinks a bit because some of the build up air escapes again. Sounds like your culture is doing just fine and you should continue as planned.

Good luck with it!

You can use 20 g of your sourdough culture with 90 water and 90 flour the night before, leave to ferment and use that the next day in your recipe.
We can also point you in the direction of another rye bread that might be worth a look and a try (cracked rye) and which we love very much: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…rye-bread/

Good luck with it!

Hello.

Thanks for the prompt reply, this is very informative.

Given the rather unique nature of Rugbrod in comparison to your loaves, I am none the wiser as to how much sourdough starter I should be using given the quite significant volume of non-flour ingredients – cracked rye and linseed. Even using the percentages provided I struggle to work out how this would be applied to breads that have significant non-flour ingredients.

Can you make any suggestions?

Regards,

Roger T

Hi Roger
Why do we maintain such a small amount of starter?
We work with a two step system. When using a preferment (like a poolish or a biga) we use about 15-20 grams of sourdough for a sourdough loaf like our whole wheat levain and pain naturel. With this small amount of sourdough you create a fully active sourdough preferment overnight which you then use to build the final dough. This way you can keep a small starter and still have the full sourdough flavor. Big advantage for home and hobby bakers is you are wasting far less precious flour when refreshing your culture than you would maintaining a big one!

You can read more on this subject here: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ough-tips/

Good luck with the starter and happy baking!

Hi again Roger,

We can understand perfectly! In Dutch it would be ‘dankjewel voor je vriendelijke antwoord’ so you can see how similar it is in this case. I understand quite a bit of Afrikaans and also have read some Afrikaans in the past and it is a joy to me to see how both language share so much and we would actually ne able to understand each other (partly anyway).

We have to confess we never use the method you describe, but the ratio sounds OK to us.
You can do all the things you say, but you have to keep in mind that the result will be different every time. We never advice to just take a recipe, never bake it like it is and immediately at first bake change the type of flour or method, unless you really know what you are doing and why.
When using rye flour the result will be totally different, because rye has way less gluten than wheat. That is probably also the reason the gluten flour is added to the recipe you mention.
Stretching and folding is a very good method for developing dough. It can be added to the process when you want to cut down on initial mixing or you can even leave out mixing altogether like you would do with the no knead method. Then there are methods that also omit the S&F, resulting in a different crumb and many times a more cake like consistency.

Good luck with it and happy baking!

I am following this recipe as I am looking to make Rugbrød; mydanishkitchen.com/2013/…rye-bread/

I was not overly keen on using added yeast as I wanted to make my own sourdough and following a failure with my first attempt I decided to use your recipe. The dilemma I have is that the above recipe requires 198g of sourdough and I fear using your recipe I will be well short of this mark. I had success up to day 3 but did not throw out any of the mixture, added 40 and 40 in an attempt to have more sourdough and it failed to rise at all thereafter.

I have gone back to day 2 and hope that tomorrow it will continue to rise but could you please suggest how I can create the necessary quantity of sourdough; is it a matter of adding in more rye flour and water the day before I bake or do I need to do something else?

Many thanks in advance.
Roger T

Hallo Ed and Marieke,
I considered writing thus: ‘Dankie vor jou vriendelike antwoord. . .’ but I remembered that it is so long since I have used the Suid Afikaanse Boeretaal ( Afrikaans) that I would likely make a fool of myself and worse still, you might not understand it ( because many Dutch folk I have met do not). Anyway, thank you for a response that eased my concerns.
My interest is in bread-making generally but I must here confess that as a consequence of an incurable muscle disease kneading dough is no longer an option. I therefore use (dare I confess?) a bread making machine. Another interest is the No-Knead method and baking via a Dutch Oven. I have no doubt you are acquainted with various mixture ratios. I am interested in the 1:2:3 ratio where one uses 150g sourdough starter, 300g tepid water and 450g of flour. Will this work OK with Rye Flour instead of White Bread Flour? Also, could one use the fold and stretch method to develop the dough instead of having it sit inert in a bowl for many hours? I think I could handle the method having watched your video on the subject.
Finally,
I have recipe for a Light Rye bread which uses 300g Bread Flour and 180g Rye flour and the also a tablespoon of Gluten Flour. Any idea why Gluten flour would be required when so much bread flour is involved? Perhaps the recipe’s author used Gluten flour because he/she had it in the cupboard.
Many thanks,
Kindest thoughts and good wishes,
Roger C.

Hi Roger,

Your analyses is very good. The description you give of the rye culture is exactly like it should be so no worries there. A rye culture is not something you can or must pour out of a jar, it is something you scoop out. The way we bake and use it in our recipes you only need about 15 g per loaf (see our pain naturel for example: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…n-naturel/) and you add this to the preferment by dissolving it in the water of that preferment and then adding the flour and give it a quick stir. The next day you use the preferment with the other ingredients to make the final dough.
Also check out our tips for sourdough baking and maintaining a healthy culture: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ough-tips/

Happy baking!

Ed & Marieke

Yes we do,
This is easily ‘fixed’, first by feeding / refreshing sooner, secondly by storing it in a cooler place if possible. But most importantly, just continue the process and go on to complete the 5 or 6 days needed to develop your culture and get it ready to use for baking. It may already look very active and ready, but it needs to fully develop and ripen.

Good luck with it!

Marieke & Ed

Ileana