Rye Sourdough Starter
- Rachel
- May 8, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 24, 2020
Ready to make some delicious bread?! Well, you will have to wait a week for your sourdough starter to develop, strengthen, and shine. The process for building a rye starter is slightly different than building a wheat starter. For example, there is much less gluten in rye flour than wheat, which leads to a different textured mixture. In addition, more water is needed to activate a rye starter as opposed to a wheat starter.
If you would like to see my in-depth building of a wheat sourdough starter, click here.
29 Recipes you can make with sourdough:
Beginner:
Advanced:
Ingredients & Materials:
Fine grained rye flour (type 1150) you see in the first two pictures above, but it also works with whole grain rye flour (picture 3 before feeding (left) and 12 hours after feeding (right))
Room temperature water
A glass jar with a lid
A scale
Spoon
A bowl to mix the starter in
Directions:
Day 1:
Mix 50 g rye flour and 50 g water very well and add to a 1 liter glass jar. Cover loosely with a lid. Place in a warm environment (around 80°F/26°C) for 24 hours.
Day 2:
Add 50 g rye flour and 50 g water to the sourdough starter and mix very well. Return to the 1 liter jar. Cover loosely and place in a warm environment (around 80°F/26°C) for 24 hours.
Tip: Each time you fed the starter, I recommend removing the starter from the jar and into the bowl because it's much easier to thoroughly mix in everything before returning to the jar.
Day 3:
Remove all but 50 g starter. What you remove can be discarded. Then mix in 50 g rye flour and 50 g water (this is called a 1:1:1 ratio for the starter:flour:water). Cover loosely and place in a warm environment (around 80°F/26°C) for 24 hours.
Day 4:
Remove all but 50 g starter. Then mix in 50 g rye flour and 75 g water (so a 1:1:1.5 ratio). Cover loosely and place in a warm environment (around 80°F/26°C) for 24 hours.
Note: you may not need a 1:1:1.5 ratio, and can stick with 1:1:1, but I found mine rose much better when I added more water.
Days 5-7:
Remove all but 50 g starter. Then mix in 50 g rye flour and 75 g water. Cover loosely and place in a warm environment (around 80°F/26°C) for 24 hours.
The starter is ready when after you feed it it doubles in size in 2-3 hours (see top image where it has actually tripled in size). This means it is very active and ready to use for baking. If by day 5 it is not at this point, continue feeding it in the same ration (1:1:1.5). If by day 7 it has shown little to no activity and is not rising, you may need to add a little more water or try a different flour. Worst case scenario you can start over.
When the starter is ready you can continue to feed it daily with the 1:1:1.5 ratio if keeping it at room temperature. Alternatively you can refrigerate the starter up to 2 weeks. When you take it out of the refrigerator feed it 2-3 times over the course of 2 days to activate it again.
Note on terminology: a starter is considered "mature" or "ripe" when it has risen to it's peak before falling down again. A "liquid starter" is a starter with at least 75% hydration. 100% hydration can be misleading, but it means that the starter consists of 50% water and 50% flour. Therefore, a 1:1:1 and 1:1:1.5 ratio are considered 100% and 133% hydration. You will often hear % hydration applied to doughs as well. A "stiff starter" generally has lower than 65% hydration and will be firmer.
Good luck and enjoy!
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