Food Security – Two More Sourdoughs For The Pantry

I mainly bake gluten-free bread, and I have three gluten-free sourdoughs. One based on chufa and teff, one based on oats and one based on a roasted oat flour called Skräd. Last year I purchased two interesting sourdough starters on Etsy. One was a variety called Black Death and it was said that it could be traced back to 17th century Europe. The other was a 100+ year old sourdough from a bakery in San Francisco.

I started them last year, but I left the jars unattended for too long in a room that was a bit too warm for them, so I lost them both. However, when you start a sourdough you are asked to discard or use up half of it after a few days of activating it. Rather than disposing on half of each sourdough, I froze half of each. That is why I was now able to thaw out these two sourdoughs and activate them. This time everything worked smoothly and they are both very healthy. I will keep feeding them daily until they’re much more active than they are now, and after that I will feed them once every or every other week.

The sourdoughs themselves were raised on wheat flour, but the instructions said that they’ll do fine with whichever flour you decide to use. So I decided to turn them into low gluten sourdoughs. I feed them with three quarters teff flour and one quarter of a flour that contains gluten. In the sourdough from San Francisco, I use teff and rye and in Black Death, I use teff and graham.

Baking With Sourdough

Today I tried to bake with the San Francisco starter for the first time. I used two decilitres of rye flour, three decilitres of gluten-free flour and three decilitres of sourdough. It had to bake for a long time, but it turned out great. It has a fantastic aftertaste and the outside is very crispy. I baked it in a cast-iron pot, hence the shape. As the sourdough progress, I imagine the bread will get fluffier and rise more each time.

Free Tastes Better

I still prefer eating gluten-free, but a few times a year I do crave the taste of freshly baked wheat bread from nearby bakeries. And it is nice to know that during those times, I can bake my own instead. And since this is only low gluten-bread, it won’t be as bad for my gut health as whole wheat would be. And I won’t be in as much pain afterwards. I also won’t have to spend any money to make this bread, and that is always nice.

Teff

If you’re wondering about the dark colour of the loaf, then that is because I mainly use dark teff flour. The flour itself – and my sourdoughs – are both brown and they only turn darker after an hour in the oven. Teff is a gluten-free grain that is very rich in protein and other nutrients, and it is the flour I prefer the most. It is incredibly filling, which makes it excellent for my frugal lifestyle. A little goes a long way indeed.

Do you have a sourdough?

If you liked this post, please remember to like or comment. If you want to see more posts like this, click the follow button.