Mastering Sourdough Starters and Leavens

None. Full instructions on preparing a starter are given. All you need is organic flour and water.

Are you suffering from bubble trouble? Help is at hand!

• Have you ever made a starter of your own?
• Are you a bit scared of what’s going on in that pot?
• Frustrated by its inconsistent / unpredictable behaviour?
• Do you know what a healthy starter looks like?
• Do you know how much starter to seed your leaven with?
• Can you judge peak fitness for a leaven?
• Do you know how young, mature and old starters affect different leavens?
• Can you handle the time and temperature ‘levers’?
• Do hordes of bacteria and wild yeast freak you out?
• Do you know how to choose the best flour for feeding your happy colonies?

This course answers all those questions.

It is a highly-focused, practical guide to the do’s, don’ts and desirables of making, managing and baking with sourdough cultures.

In Part One, we start at the heart of what sourdough is and why it is important, for personal and environmental health as well as cultural concerns. We explain the principles of “leavenology”, or fermentation.

Part Two covers how to build different starters from scratch, plus how to feed and maintain them.

Part Three shows you how to use a starter to seed a leaven, and how to control the character of the leaven through the ratio of starter to leaven, the ambient temperature and the length of fermentation. The Great Leaven Race shows exactly what a difference time makes!

And in Part Four we give you our masterclasses, using formulas that demonstrate the range of effects you can achieve by varying the maturity, quantity, nature and vigour of your leaven.

• White sourdough with mature leaven
• 100% rye sourdough
• Brown sourdough
• Sourdough lavash
• Sourdough pancakes

How we teach:

Our approach is always friendly, practical and hands-on and, wherever possible, more showing than telling. This is not the place to overwhelm you with the (considerable) science, but to give you the benefit of all the know-how we’ve acquired after 12 years teaching and decades more of baking. We spare you the fails, and share the secrets of all our successes.

We also provide useful practice exercises and quizzes to test your knowledge.

At The Artisan Bakery School, we believe that baking your own sourdough bread is fundamental to improving your personal health and happiness. Making great starters and leavens is the base of all that.

This courses empowers you to:

• understand your starter
• leverage your leaven
• bake with true confidence
• troubleshoot problems
• measure your progress from average to amazing