Anyone made a sourdough starter/wild yeast?

[Poshwellies]

After seeing it on the rivercottage programme ,I'm tempted to give it go.

Anyone attempted it and got good bread results from their starter?

Yes. I use the method in the handmade loaf by Dan Lepard. Does work. Get astonishingly good sourdough bread. But I find it a bit of a fuff because you need to plan to bake and bake quite regularly to keep it going. But I'm not sure that I'm getting the idea quite right. It gets you good bread though, crusty, soft inside, can demolish whole loaf with a bit of butter.

yep. just tukcing into freshly made, warm, very sour sourdough as i type (buttery fingers!!)

DH is german and hates our 'fluffy' bread.

we've kept a culture going for about 3 or 4 years now.

there was a post on this before, so you could search for it. a few people gave methods of making/ baking/ keeping etc.

if i remember rightly, our original culture was made using jamie oliver's method. since then we just keep it in the fridge, and use it once or twice a week. it seems to keep even in we go on holiday for a few weeks, so really not too much faff.
(well...i say that, but it's DH, not me, who does tha baking!!! )

Yes, it's really not difficult to keep going, I did the river cottage method (it's in the latest HFW & 'river cottage bread book' - heartily recommend). I'm afraid I did find it a faff in that if you don't bake every day you have to plan when you are going to bake because you have to get it out of the fridge a day in advance at least to perk it up a bit. With 2 dcs under 3 that's a bit beyond me at the mo. But if you have the space to be a bit more organized the bread is absolutely delicious & it's a bit like a primary school science experiment, which appeals to me anyway!

Thanks guys.

Really tempted by the science bit too-think ds will love watching it develop (and me!).

I always love Dan Lepard recipes and the guy who bakes for HFW seems to know his stuff also,so will have a search online for those.

Will look for the previous post on it.

Did you use a fancy artisan flour or just a bog standard brand? I have some organic wholemeal in the pantry,I'm guessing this will be ok?

I used bog standard flour. (Waitrose ones. ) Also have you tried the no-knead bread? That one's a nice in-between bread.

Never heard of the no-knead Bread.

Tell me more.

I am a breadmachine 'baker' but feel the need to try proper baking,my heart isn't into slinging it all in the machine and keeping my fingers crossed.

I want to try proper baking!

Search "no-knead bread". I found this that sounds about right: www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html I don't know if you'd call it proper baking: you get your hands dirty but do really minimal work. I think of it as a half-way house between sourdough and yeasty bread.

But I'm a Dan Lepard Handmade loaf disciple myself.

I have a wild yeast starter - like those above, I make bread about twice a week. I don't keep it in the fridge though, unless there's a heatwave like now. I just keep in in a cool place, covered.

I use the NYT no-knead method since finding it on here a while back. I use that method with my wild yeast starter.