My experience is that what you are trying to do when you make a sourdough starter is simply create a little mini-ecology that exactly suits you, your kitchen, your flour, etc. Learn the whole process at room temperature. Don’t worry about throwing away flour until you understand the process–when you understand the process then you can optimize it, and if you bake bread daily, you will not throw away anything. Keep the starter in a transparent or translucent semi-cylyndrical cup that is twice as big as how much starter you have so you can see at a glance the timing of its activity. Make the starter be 80% hydration so it is more like a dough. Always refeed every 24 hours without fail. Your new little mini-ecology will stabilize in only a week or so, and when you see it rise you will be assured of its leavening power.

- Temperature control is everything: I now use an Auber that I normally use for sous-vide, just with different settings and a lightbulb in my baking oven. I use this setup for both the refreshening of the starter (ca. 8 hours or whenever I get to it, no stirring necessary) and the spring of the bread (1-4 hours). I keep the temperature at 29 C.
(Sourdough temp control was actually the selling point for the Auber as opposed to an immersion bath (well, together with the price tag…))

- I started the thing from wheat and water, nothing else. The “older” (more generations), the better it gets. Simple as that, no need for measures like grapes, apricots, or anything else.

Personal opinion from here on: Buying a starter might be good to get you going right away, without the patience necessary to start your own and go trough a couple of generations. But later on, as you are not working in a clean room, wild yeast from the area where you do your work will start to get into your starter. They might be suppressed by the present population or take your starter over or something in between might happen. Basic point is, you will never know anyway…

a) Chorinated (or chloraminated) water isn’t necessarily a problem. I feed my starter on tap water and it triples in eight hours when fed.

b) Yeast *is* an “air-breathing intruder”.

As for methods, I really find all this complication baffling. I’ve twice used a straight water/flour method documented here:

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/13/raising-a-starter/

Both times, I’ve cultured extremely successful starters with this method, the first time in about nine days, and the second time in just five. All this business with fruit, yogurt, and so forth is, at least in my experience, completely unnecessary. Plain whole wheat flour, whole rye flour, and water will yield a perfectly serviceable starter (which you can then feed with the same ingredients). All it takes is patience and a little care.

Travasare il lievito in un barattolo pulito ed aggiungere acqua e farina in pari quantità. In particolare:

Rinfresco per produrre il pane: per 500 g di farina occorrono 150 g di lievito attivo.
Quindi aggiungere al lievito 75 g di acqua e 75 g di farina e mescolare bene. In un paio d’ore il volume del lievito raddoppierà (a temperatura di circa 26 gradi). Prelevare i 150 g necessari per il pane e conservare il resto.

Rinfresco per conservare: aggiungere 20-30 g di farina e la stessa quantità di acqua. Mescolare e conservare.

Regola fondamentale
Quando si decide di intraprendere l’avventura lievito naturale, non bisogna avere fretta!!!
E’ necessaria molta cura e molta pazienza.
Se il lievito non appare abbastanza “vispo” non decretarne subito la “morte”, ma provare a ridargli forza mediante diversi rinfreschi successivi, finché non raddoppia di volume in 2-3 ore.

Flour – I have found unbleached, stone ground [less heat during milling] wheat to be better than bleached. The stone ground whole wheat becomes active somewhat faster than white flour in my experience; I assume the bran preserves the stowaway yeast more effectively.

Yogurt – I now use a method developed about thirty years ago by the Sunset Magazine kitchens using a few tablespoons of plain yogurt [my scientific selection of brand involves reading the ingredients label and choosing the one with the greatest number of different strains of lactobacilli] mixed with your chosen flour and sufficient milk to form a batter [thick or thin as you choose]. Initial temperatures ranging from 70 F to 90 F are ideal [I have found switching on my incandescent oven light will raise the temperature of my electric oven to ~80 - 85 F -- do not turn the oven on --]. Once active, the sourdough starter is thereafter maintained with flour and fresh milk [avoiding any chlorine issues; dry milk will work, but then distilled water is required], and stored in the refrigerator during periods of infrequent use. Sunset Magazine goes into considerably greater detail in at least two magazine articles published over the years [these were also reprinted in at least one of their annual recipe books]. You may also be able to find something on their website [www.sunset.com].

I find this starter to be extremely stable and robust. Whichever strains can live in harsher more acidic environs win out; I just let the little beasties work out their own modus vivendi, and the CO2 layer is proof against any air-breathing intruders.

Cheers,
Dennis

Compared to regular pancakes, the surface is a bit different. Difficult to describe, but I would say a bit more crusty. I have also see recipes where more wheat flour is added.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank you for the work on this site. It is a great resource, I have used your recipes more than once and I point my students to it.