I congratulate you on embarking on the fascinating sourdough world. Any health-conscious person looking to support themselves and loved ones in their journey should try sourdough (like Neo with the red pill).

This document is the longest instructions I have ever created on sourdough. So take a cuppa and start reading without any distractions. 

I have acquired this culture from my late grandma’s dough-proofing vessel. Her family immigrated from Bulgaria (about 2-3 generations before) to Türkiye and used it daily during her time. Her name is Fatma, and I named the culture Fatma Nene in her memory. (Nene means “granny” in Turkish). I estimated the culture’s age to be around 200+ years.

I gave this culture to friends in Europe, the United States, and Türkiye and distributed it in Australia. Even a bakery in Canberra is using it at the moment.

I am now bringing this culture to your service in dried form. I feed the culture only with organic, home-milled flour and Reverse Osmosis water. I dry it just before it doubles so that the number of LAB and yeasts is at its peak. Fatma Nene culture will get you going quicker than making your starter and let you start baking in no time.

What is in the Fatma Nene

Wherever I go for a holiday, I make some sourdough culture and add to Fatma Nene. So far, Jervis Bay, Narooma (salt water of the ocean used), Canberra, and Sydney cultures have been combined with it. I also added L. Reutoria and koji cultures. Oregon Trail Sourdough culture, an original San Fransisco culture, and a German sourdough cultures are combined. Here in Canberra, I made cultures out of bee larvae, ant’s eggs, chickpeas, unripened grapes, kefir, and kombucha and combined these with Fatma Nene throughout its life.

Recently, I mixed Uluru Sourdough I made on our visit to Uluru using the bore water. This culture raises very late; there must be something else in the water I used to allow this to happen.

I was supporting Hendrik Kleinwachter’s Sourdough Framework book on KickStarter and it came with his Bread Pit starter. After baking couple of times with it, I mixed this with Fatma Nene as well.

All these additions are for the biodiversity within the culture. Of course, a regular feeding regime and certain local conditions will weed out some of these additions.

Reviving – Feeding

1. Get a 1-litre jar, put the 30g Fatma Nene in it with 50ml room temperature water (25 degrees Celsius), and wait about 30 minutes. This will rehydrate the culture and wake up the lactobacilli and yeasts. They will be hungry after waking up from their sleep.
2. Add 100g of your choice of organic wholemeal flour. You can mix rye or other flours at around a 10% ratio. Ensure your flour has bran, or use about 10% wholewheat flour. The culture eats the bran, not the powdery white stuff.
3. Add 80g water (boiled and cooled tap water, bottled or filtered water will do)
4. Wait 24 hours at room temperature.
5. Feed 50g of this mixture with 100g of water and 100g of flour. You can discard the rest in your worm farm or bury it in your veggie garden.
6. Wait another 24 hours at room temperature.
7. Put a rubber band around the jar at the level of the mixture to identify any raise.
8. Is the culture doubled in the jar? Do you see bubbles around the jar? That means you have millions of new pets in your home.
9. If you see a raise of less than double, continue feeding as above.
10. Once stabilised, the culture should double in about 4 hours in the jar. This is an optimum time to use the Fatma Nene in sourdough baking.

Once active, you can feed it and keep it in the fridge. The trick is to get it into the active state (doubled in the jar) before using it.

On my latest readings, I learnt that sourdough cultures that are always kept in the fridge favors the LAB bacteria and this makes the bread sour. If you keep the culture jar always at room temperature and feed regularly, the yeast microorganisms increase in numbers. Feeding regularly wastes a lot of flour if you are not baking everyday. I now keep a small jar with just smudges in it at room temperature. Before making bread, I feed the jar of smudges to an amount I need and wait for activation (it should double) and use that for bread making. Smudges left in the jar will be enough for the next bake in about 2-3 days.

Benefits – Why Sourdough

I am an engineer and a citizen scientist. When I do something for the first time, I do my research, list references, watch videos, read books, and conduct many trials myself. Here are my findings on sourdough.

Naturally fermenting dough is far more digestible than fermented fast with Saccharomyces cerevisiae (dry, commercial yeast).

The symbiotic relationships between the lactobacilli and the yeasts in sourdough culture break down every complex protein that can cause problems in the human body.

Wheat proteins may cause health problems, especially if your ancestors did not use wheat as their primary source of carbohydrates.

I am from Anatolia, where wheat was cultivated for the first time. Although wheat products are widely used in Anatolia, because of the area’s gene diversity, many people have gluten intolerance or celiac diseases. Plus, conventional farming methods and chemicals in these large farming practices have caused many other @Danihealth problems.

Sourdough may alleviate many of these problems when done right. Plus, if you opt for organically grown flours from trusted sources, you will bake the healthiest loaves of bread at home.

—– Geeky content warning —–

Here are some benefits of Sourdough Baking supported by research papers.

Throughout my readings on the sourdough cultures, I realized that Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis (a Lactic Acid Bacteria – LAB) and Kasachstania humilis (yeast) are found in every SD culture worldwide. They are in symbiosis and do not compete for energy sources. I thought F. sanfranciscensis was endemic to San Francisco, but not really. It is just found there for the first time.

What is more fascinating is energy sources needed for yeasts need to be created by the Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) like Bacillus subtilis or B. stearothermophilus or by moulds like Aspergillus oryzae or Aspergillus niger.

The dry, commercial yeast sachet with S. cerevisiae is not a bread-making organism. This yeast is more commonly used in the brewing industry. Many strains can work with different alcohol levels.

The symbiotic relationships in sourdough culture also create antibiotic-like compounds, which will slightly raise the bread’s acidity. These compounds stay after the baking, allowing the bread to last longer without going off.

Let’s have a look at the wheat proteins. According to Dr Davis, there are 3 “problematic” wheat proteins from a digestibility point, these are:

• Gliadin
• Amylopectin
• Agglutinin

Apart from using the best flour, we can find non-GMO, organic, biodynamic, heirloom varieties, etc.; the longer fermentation process with sourdough culture breaks down these proteins.

For Gliadin, research says:

“In those with celiac disease, gliadin-derived peptides found in gluten-containing foods stimulate an immune reaction. Over time, this can damage the villi in the small intestine leading to malabsorption and deficiencies. In this study, sourdough bread that was leavened with starters containing Lactobacillus alimentarius 15M, Lactobacillus brevis 14G, Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis 7A, and Lactobacillus hilgardii 51B were shown to degrade Gliadin derived peptides. These activities could be easily improved under more suitable technological conditions and/or addressed to the production of special sourdough-type bread with low contents of gliadin toxic peptides.” In other words, techniques like longer fermentation, cold proofing or retardation are perfect for the digestive system.

Amylopectin is broken down rapidly and has a higher glycemic index, meaning it can increase blood sugar rapidly after eating. Eating a diet high in this carbohydrate can also increase insulin, cholesterol and triglyceride levels; lead to insulin resistance; and cause fat accumulation. It is not digested fully in the small intestine but provides food to bacteria in the colon. Depending on the person’s gut flora, you would be okay with this. Sourdough cultures are still working on this protein and breaking it down for easy digestibility.

For Agglutinin research says:

“Commercial whole wheat flour contained 6.6 ± 0.7 μg Agglutinin/g. After fermentation with L. sakei TMW1.22 and F. sanfranciscensis DSM20451, the WGA content was reduced (p < 0.05) to 2.7 ± 0.4 and 4.3 ± 0.3 μg Agglutinin/g, respectively.” In other words, there is a significant reduction in Agglutinin. This means if you have Non-Celiac Wheat Sensitivity (NCWS) this is due to Agglutinin, and sourdough breaks down this protein to an acceptable level.

Knowing I am baking the best bread for my health is truly rewarding.

Links to resources

• Degradation of Wheatgerm &. Agglutinin during Sourdough Fermentation
• Proteolysis by sourdough lactic acid bacteria PDF Version
• Reducing alergenity using sourdough cultures
• Potential of Sourdough-Related Lactic Acid Bacteria to Degrade Proteins in Wheat
• What’s in your Sourdough

————- end of geeky content ————-

Benefits of Home Milling

When we purchase flour from stores, it often contains additives to prolong its shelf life. However, by taking the reins and milling your own wheat grains at home, you can ensure the purity and freshness of your bread, enhancing its nutritional value.

A wheat berry has three distinct parts. These are bran, germ and endosperm. If you buy white flour, you won’t get bran and germ; they are sifted out as they go rancid faster than the endosperm. About 40 different nutrient compounds were also removed, along with bran and germ. When the flour industry realised people were not getting many nutrients, they added iron, zinc, and vitamins A and B to the flour, but as you would see, this is far from enough.

A home milling machine will serve you for years. You can also mill other grains to make soups.

Once you start milling at home, the recipes will change slightly. I would recommend mixing good quality organic or biodynamic wholemeal flour with your home-milled flour and increasing the ratio of home-milled in time.

Feeding your sourdough culture with home-milled flour is also crucial to provide necessary energy sources for the bacteria and yeast that do not exist in the white flour.

Recipes

Keeping my sourdough culture alive and baking with it is like a superpower. (also, growing food and fixing your stuff around the house)

Let’s see what you can do with this new superpower.

I am assuming you have an oven that can heat up to 260 degrees Celsius, a vessel that can hold the dough during the proofing, a banneton for final proofing, dough scrapers, a Dutch oven (cast iron pan with a lid) or steamer in your oven (a spray bottle will do), a pizza stone or steel to bake on, a scale and an infrared thermometer.

Guys, we are not joking here. Get this equipment for a pleasant sourdough experience. Many of these items can be sourced second-hand.

You must have a notebook and record the first 10-15 bakes. Also, start recording when you change the flour. The reason is to understand the moisture content in the flour as it varies from country to country or even from mill to mill. You will end up with a slightly different recipe than the ones I am giving you below. You may record 50ml less/more water or 40g less/more flour to compensate for the moisture content of the flour. Sometimes, little differences are the borders between the apprentice and the master. Trust your sensory observations as well; check how the dough looks, how easy it is to handle, how it tastes, and how it responds to your actions in the oven.

Here are three recipes I tried and tested using Australian flours of rye, wheat, einkorn, and Khorasan. As we consume a lot of bread at home, I always aim to get organic flour to reduce pesticides and chemicals in our diet.

TIP: If your main carbohydrate is rice, get the best rice you can buy; if it is potatoes, grow them in your garden; if it is wheat, pasta, or flour, get something organic, at least. This way, you can significantly reduce the harmful chemicals in your diet.

Please feel free to use the detailed steps written below at your leisure. You may skip some of them or add more to them, depending on your experience. You are embarking on a journey to bake excellent bread at home. Although the steps below are too detailed, you will get the hang of it once you start baking and integrate it into your busy life.

The recipes I am giving you below are slowly fermented. At least 2 or 3 days are required for a fully fermented dough to cook with. This way, we ensure the proteins I discussed above are mostly broken down, and you will enjoy the final result.

Take a deep breath and slow down.

Making sourdough is not a matter of following recipes; it is about mastering the handling of the parameters.

The Importance of Poolish or Levain

TIP: If you prepare poolish today, you can have pizza tomorrow.

Poolish is a pre-fermented dough. The advantages of preparing poolish are:

• ensuring your culture is active,
• increasing aromatic compounds in the final dough,
• improving the bread’s shelf life due to antibiotic compounds produced,
• and having a better texture and skin overall.

Prepare poolish in advance; you will always have a successful sourdough bread.

TIP: The other pre-ferments are Biga, Sponge, and Pate Fermentee. You can find instructional videos about these preferments on YouTube.

I am providing 3 basic recipes here. These are not the bible of bread making but merely a structure to follow. You will change these steps according to your location, elevation, temperature, flour type, oven type, skills, etc. So, taking notes is crucial to tweak the recipes.

Foccacia

Poolish first: (in the sourdough world, it is called LEAVEN)

• 300 g water
• 300 g bread flour
• 60-70g sourdough starter
• 5g honey
• Dissolve the sourdough starter and honey in water.
• Add flour and mix well.
• Keep it at room temperature for 2-3 hours.
• Cover and rest in the fridge for 16-24 hours.

Tangzhong umami

Thanzhong adds texture and flavour to the dough. It is a simple step, and similar to autolyse, it greatly improves the aroma and texture of the bread. It also prolongs its shelf life.

• 150 g boiling hot water
• 100 g of bread flour
  Mix them together and make sure there are no lumps left.
• Keep it in the fridge overnight with poolish

Next day:

• Dissolve Tangzhong in 350 g of water
• Add Poolish and mix well
• Make sure no lumps are left
• Add 45 g olive oil
• Add 25 g of salt
• Combine it well
• Sift 600 g of bread flour on top; sifting is important as it aerates the flour
• Mix for 4-5 minutes with gentle folding
• Round the dough into a ball
• Add olive oil on the surface and the sides of the bowl
• Leave it for 30 minutes
• Do 4 stretch-and-folds every 30 minutes
• Bulk fermentation till it doubles in size (6 hours or so)

Next Day:

• Line your cooking tray with baking paper
• Use a generous amount of EVOO and a bit of butter on the paper
• Transfer the dough to the cooking tray. Make sure not to deflate the bubbles.
• Use a generous amount of EVOO on the dough and make dimples with your fingers.
• Cover and wait at room temperature until fermentation bubbles appear.
• Decorate the focaccia with tomatoes, rosemary, thyme, oregano, garlic etc.
• You should see that the dough is now filling up the tray.
• Bake in 230C oven for 25-30 minutes.

Pizza

Poolish first:

• 300g water
• 300g 00 pizza flour
• 60-70g sourdough starter
• 5-10g honey
• Dissolve the sourdough starter and honey in water.
• Add flour and mix well.
• Keep it at room temperature for 2-3 hours.
• Cover and rest in the fridge for 16-24 hours.

Next Day:

• 400g water
• Poolish
• Dissolve the poolish in water
• Add 25g salt and mix well
• 20g olive oil
• Add 400g OO flour
• Add 300g bread flour
• Mix well and rest for 30 minutes.
• Start stretch-and-folds 3 times every 15 minutes.
• Stretch and fold another 3 times every 30 minutes.
• Coil fold another 3 times every 30 minutes, creating a smooth surface.
• If the dough surface is breaking during these coil folds, stop folding.
• Cover and leave it at room temperature for 4-5 hours or until you see large bubbles forming on the surface.
• Prepare a tray and dust it with flour
• Take 250g dough, roll it into a tight ball and place it on the tray
• There will be about 7-8 balls
• Cover the tray with a wet cloth
• Rest them there until using

Prepare the ingredients, and turn on the pizza oven.

Prepare some pizza toppings depending on your family’s or guests’ liking. Here are my family’s pizza toppings:

• San Marzano tomato canned and fresh basil for the base
• Fresh mozzarella, boconcini, parmesan – 3 types of cheese for my daughter
• Cheese, red onion, and minced meat for my elder son
• Cheese and pitted green and black olives for my 4yo
• Seafood and roasted vegetables for my wife
• Poached ox tongue, Turkish sucuk, and marinated baby octopus for myself

Roll your dough to move bubbles from the middle to the edges.

Add San Marzano tomato and basil.

Add other ingredients.

Bake in the oven until golden brown.

You can have a dessert pizza with Nutella or pistachio spread with pears, peaches and small crumbles of roqueforti cheese.

I advise you to watch Vito Iacopelli videos to learn about rolling your dough correctly to get those giant bubbles on the edge of the crust.

I also highly recommend OONI pizza ovens. Since I bought mine, I have truly baked better pizzas fast.

Sourdough Bread

Poolish/Levain first

• 300g water
• 300g Baker’s flour
• 60-70g active sourdough starter
• 5-10g honey
• Dissolve the sourdough starter and honey in water.
• Add flour and mix well.
• Keep it at room temperature for 2-3 hours.
• Cover and rest in the fridge for 16-24 hours.

Next Day

• 400g water
• Poolish
• Dissolve the poolish in water
• Add 25g salt and mix well
• Add 600g bread flour
• Add 100g rye flour
• Mix well and rest for 30 minutes.
• Start stretch-and-folds 3 times every 15 minutes.
• Stretch and fold another 3 times every 30 minutes.
• Coil fold another 3 times every 30 minutes, creating a smooth surface.
• If the dough surface is breaking during these coil folds, stop folding.
• Cover and leave it at room temperature for 4-5 hours or until you see large bubbles forming on the surface.
• You have about 1.8 kg of dough. Divide the dough into two pieces.
• That smooth top surface should stay at the top.
• Make a ball by turning it a couple of times on the counter.
• Cover and rest them on the counter for another 30 minutes.

Final fold

The final fold gives the dough elasticity and helps it hold its shape. Without correct folding, you can’t expect to see a nice crumb. Folding layers the gluten structure and allows it to hold the CO2 produced. Once heated, these will grow and hold their shape.

• Flip the dough upside down using a scraper.
• Fold the dough like an envelope, turn it over and round it to make it tighter.
• Be gentle, and do not deflate too much.
• Put the folded pieces in bannetons, seam side up.
• Put the bannetons in plastic bags large enough and seal the bag

Cold Retardation

Cold retardation develops flavour and sourness. Instead of cold retardation, you can keep the dough at room temperature and wait for it to double (or close to double) and bake it. If consumers of your bread do not like sourness, try room temperature final proof instead of cold retardation.

• Put the bannetons in the fridge.
• Rest in the fridge for 16-24 hours.

Baking

Heat your oven with the Dutch oven inside to 250C.

• Remove the Dutch oven and carefully transfer the dough into it.
• Score the dough with a serrated knife or lame and close the dutch oven lid.
• Transfer the Dutch oven to the oven and bake it for 30 minutes.
• Remove the lid and bake for another 30 minutes.
• Remove the bread and let it cool for at least 2 hours, wrapping it in cotton kitchen towels and resting it on a wire rack.

You can then slice and enjoy the bread.

What About a Mixer

While watching Vito Iacopelli’s videos on YouTube, I came across a recipe for pinsa in which he used a mixer to achieve a nice gluten structure with a high-hydration dough. I thought about getting his dough mixer, but it was impossible, considering the freight costs.

Countless hours of trawling the second-hand market returned some commercial mixers, but these were too big and bulky, and I wanted to keep my marriage intact.

I found Ankarsrum mixers really good at kneading, so I bought one. Since then, I can quickly achieve the gluten window, bulk ferment during the day, and bake my bread around 9 p.m. without getting too sour.

While adapting my Sourdough recipe to Ankarsrum, I discovered that many people struggle to incorporate this mixer into their sourdough baking routine. Also, no one uses the dough hook, which, I think, is a better attachment than the roller for bread-making with high-hydration recipes.

Inspired by some of the tips and tricks of Hendrik Kleinwachter’s Sourdough Framework, here is my mixer adaptation:

• 400 gram bread flour
• 320 gram water
• 80g sourdough starter
• 8 gram salt

All the ingredients go in the mixer’s bowl with the dough hook and the scraper knife. Hendrik does the fermentolyse, so we will do the same.

• Knead for 5 minutes
• Wait 10 minutes
• Knead for 5 minutes
• Wait for 10 minutes
• Knead for 5 minutes
• Wait for 10 minutes.

Knead one last time if the gluten window test does not pass. Depending on your flour’s gluten content, you should have a nice gluten structure formed, and the dough should wrap around the hook, looking like chewing gum.

Remove the bowl and clean the hook and the knife before it is too late.

Separate a piece of dough into a little cylinder container like a specimen bottle, which you can get from pharmacies and mark the dough level. This will be your indicator. Once the indicator doubles, you are ready for shaping and banneton proofing for another hour before bake.

Indicator bottle removes the variables like starter strength and amount, dough temperature, ambient temperature, gluten amount, elevation and water amount from the bread making. Indicator bottle kept at the same place as the main dough.

Cover the bowl with the plastic lid that came with it and wait for another 10 minutes.

Do three sets of stretch and folds or coil folds, whichever you prefer.

Once the indicator dough doubles, you can do the final fold and shape and put the dough in a banneton.

Put the banneton in a plastic bag so the dough does not dry.

Do a poke test every half an hour. If the poke indent is still visible after a minute, you are ready to bake.

Put the dough in the freezer and turn on the oven to 240C degree with your chosen dutch oven.

Once the oven reaches to desired temperature, remove the dough from the freezer, transfer onto a baking paper, score as you wish, and put it in the dutch oven.

It needs to bake with the lid on for 30 minutes and without the lid for another 30 mins (or maybe 25 min) at a reduced temperature like 220C.