Making sourdough bread

Starter

First, you need to grow some starter. This is a culture of yeast and lactobacillus (a bacterium) that live on flour and water in symbiosis. They make the bread tasty and fluffy.

Get equal amount (in weight) of all purpose flour and water. I use 70 grams of each. Mix them together and let it ferment at room temperature for 24 hours. Only fill the container to about half, because the starter will expand. Always cover it, but not airtight. I use a plate on the container.

After the first day, discard half of it, and add 70 grams of flour and 70 grams of water to the other half, mixing it well. Wait another 24 hours. You can do the feedings every 12 hours, and maybe you will have a starter sooner, but you will waste more flour. After a few days, first you start to see some bubbles. After a few more days, the whole thing comes alive. It will be very bubbly, and it will have a pleasant, sour smell. Your starter is ready.

You can store your starter in the fridge under tight cover for about a week with no problem, or for about two weeks, but it will suffer after a week. If you want to store it for over a week, it is best to feed it every week. The feeding is the same as the initial growing: discard half, and add 70-70 grams of water and flour; let it grow overnight.

You can grow the starter on bread flour or on rye flour, but it won't be better, and those are more expensive flours.

Making bread

In the evening, divide up the starter into equal halves. Feed both halves. By the morning, both should be bubbly. Put one of them into the fridge for storage; we'll use the other half to make the bread.

You can use bread flour (which is basically high gluten flour), but the Kroger unbleached all purpose flour also makes good bread, and it is very inexpensive.

Mix about 3 cups of flour, and 1-1/2 teaspoon of salt together. Then add 1 cup of water and the starter, and start to knead it. Most likely you will need more flour, but this can't be measured exactly, because the quality of the bread dough depends on so many factors, that the amounts would likely need adjustment anyway. If the dough is sticky, add flour, until it will be tacky, but doesn't stick to your hands. Use a container that has plenty of room in it, because the dough will expand 2-3 fold. Cover it, and let it rise during the day.

By the afternoon, it should have at least doubled in size. You can probably also see bubbles growing under the surface. If leave it for two long, it will collapse down, and the bread will be quite sour and not so fluffy. I still bake it, because I won't throw out nutritious food, but it's not the best bread. The leavening time depends also on the temperature, humidity, how active your starter is, even on the strain of yeast you are cultivating, which also changes with time. So you have to experiment a bit with it, and adjust as time goes by. My bread usually takes 8 hours in the summer, more like 12 in the winter to rise.

Once it has risen, put it on well floured board, use plenty of flour on your hand and on the dough itself, and knead it down to its original size. Add more flour, if it is sticky. Don't knead it for long, just until its size is down. Form a loaf on the board or in a proofing basket, cover it, and let is rise again for about two hours. It should rise quickly this time.

When the loaf has risen, you can start to heat the oven. Heat it to 450 degrees. The simplest way to bake the bread is in a dutch oven or a cast iron skillet (I use parchment paper in a cast iron skillet, so the bread won't get rusty). You can also bake it on a baking sheet. If you like crust, you can put a shallow pan with water into the oven for the first half of the baking process.

After 30 minutes, remove the cover from the skillet, or remove the water from the oven, if you use some, and bake the bread for another 5-10 minutes, depending of how dark you like it. Cool it on a rack.

Your total cost is the price of about a pound of all purpose flour (35 cents), salt, water (negligible), and electricity for baking (30 cents or less). Your bread is about 2 pounds.