Sourdough Starters, Recipes, and Baker's Handbook
sourdo.com
sourdo.com
You use less starter and let it rise longer. Then bake it in the Dutch oven the next day without kneading it.
I want a reasonably even surface to spread butter on, with no gaping holes.
We started our own sourdough on whole grain rye, and have been adapting it for wheat bread as well, as needed. It is rather fun keeping our little buddy alive and happy.
The book has some amazing recipes and very solid chapters on theory and practice in regards to yeast, sourdough, oven steam, baking methods and a while host of other things. Highly recommended. I don't know if there's an English version, but I'm finding it very helpful to improve my German skills as well. He also has a blog at ploetzblog.de, which has even more recipes.
http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/rye-sourdough-starter-in-...
I keep it in the fridge and feed it once a week or so with a 50/50 mix of rye and white bread flour.
Have also had excellent results with their Pain Rustique recipe:
http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/our-version-of-a-pain-rus...
My understanding is that it really doesn't matter where you get the culture from. It takes a couple of weeks to get a starter started so if you want to get into sourdough baking I'd recommend just buying one if you can get one from anywhere else.
(I created my own mostly out of curiosity, it's fun, but it takes a couple of weeks)
I often hear about how for example the sourdough bread in San Francisco is special and that this has something to do with the culture. I don't think this is the case. My understanding is that you tweak the taste using temperature and proofing time (and flour mix, obviously). Personally I don't want my bread to be sour, so I generally feed the culture frequently and proof the dough at around 27C. If you lower the temperature and proof for longer you get a more sour tasting bread.
If you just want to make a tastier bread then simply using very small amounts of baker's yeast and a long proofing time (at low temperature) will get you very far. It takes time to develop the flavours and the main reason the store bought bread is so bad is simply that it's produced so quickly.
Oh and I can also recommend the dutch oven trick, with sourdough or not, it really is a very simple way to make great bread at home.
if I do want to grow a friend you suggest I turn my culture over often to stop it getting too funky, and use proofing chamber to get rapid yeast development when actually baking?
Definitely recommend both. The book is overly technically with various temperatures but was a soft read otherwise. I've been baking now for the past few months.
Still trying to get a very sour starter or loaf.
For those who don't know, kefir is made by fermenting milk with kefir grains, a combination of yeast and lactic acid bacteria which forms a symbiotic colony.