Vegan Sourdough Starter
1 | starter
Intermediate |
A vegan sourdough starter so you can indulge your inner baker! With zero-waste thinking at our heart, we love some creative ways people use their ‘discarded’ starter; have a look online for crumpet, muffin and pizza dough recipes! Happy baking!
Ingredients
🌱 = Get It From The Source
1kg bakers or plain white flour 🌱
125g wholemeal flour 🌱
300ml pineapple juice (can be bottled or from tinned pineapple – just make sure it was canned in juice, not syrup!)
Filtered water (if possible)
Method
- Day One:
- Mix the wholemeal flour with 180ml room temperature pineapple juice. Once the juice is well mixed through, place the mixture into a wide-necked jar at least 1 litre in size. Cover with muslin cloth or a clean tea towel and secure with twine or elastic band to prevent any little friends joining the party. Leave for 24 hours at room temperature.
- Day Two:
- Mix in another 115ml room temperature pineapple juice before adding 125g white flour.
- Cover again as per day one.
- Leave for another 24 hours at room temperature.
- Day Three:
- You may now notice some bubbles or that the starter has increased in size (if not – don’t worry, that’s also fine!).
- You’ll now need to discard half of the starter. (However, we prefer the idea of putting half in an extra jar to give to a neighbour when it’s ready!)
- Mix your half with 125g white flour and 120ml room temperature filtered water. Leave for 24 hours again at room temperature.
- Day Four:
- You should definitely notice some changes in your starter at this point; it should be around double the size of yesterday and you should be able to see some bubbles in it. If this is the case, repeat the steps from yesterday.
- If you don’t notice any changes yet, leave the starter for another 12-24 hours and consider moving it to a warmer part of the house.
- Day Five:
- Morning: Repeat Day Three instructions.
- 12 Hours Later: Repeat again
- Day Six:
- If your starter still isn’t quite doubling in size, continue with the twice daily feedings from Day Five and keep it in a warmer place if possible. If it has been regularly doubling in size between each ‘feed’, and looks nice and bubbly, you’re ready to get baking!
- You can use the part that you would otherwise have discarded to bake with when you feed it again. If you intend to bake with it a few times per week, you can keep it on the worktop and refresh it every day or so.
- If you are likely to only bake once or twice a week, you can save on flour by keeping it in the fridge in a sealed jar as this slows down the fermentation process.
- The best description we’ve found on when the starter is ready to use is that it has the texture of the inside of a cooked marshmallow! So a little spongy and holey!
- Once your starter is up and running, you may wish to play around with the ratio of water to flour to better achieve this consistency.
- Don’t worry if in between feeds you notice the top of the starter looks a little grey in colour or has a little brownish/grey liquid on top, just pour this away and feed it a little more frequently!
- It is actually quite difficult for a starter to go mouldy due to the acidic environment unless your jar isn’t completely clean to begin with.
