I finally succeeded to make sourdough starter for a Japanese sandwich loaf, which has no sour flavors. I proof the dough longer or retard it to have pleasant sour flavors when I make hard bread .
I discard the dough once at the process of making a sourdough starter, but I no longer discard any of them, which means I use my sourdough starter as levain/prefermented dough.
The key is very simple, which I stir the dough during the process with a electric mixer or food processor to get more oxygen inside of the dough to active yeasts like making my way of raisin yeast water. The process of mixing makes the crumb soften, more volume, and enhances flavor as well.
Attention! Please don’t use the Cuisinart hand mixer to mix the dough. It broke in a month.
( I used it on this process. but it is a bad idea! )
How to make a sourdough starter ( without sour flavors / with sour flavors)
Prepare: Sterilized a jar / a fork or knife.
Day 1
- Organic rye flour ( I used Arrowhead mills Rye Flour.) 44g 100%
- Filtered water ( No chlorine water ) 38g 70%
Mix the ingredients well, cover with plastic or a loosen lid, and let stand at 82F / 28℃ for 24 hours, or the dough rises doubled.
* Stirred the dough 2 times during the process.
- * loosen the lid
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Stirred at 1st. 
Stirred at 2nd time. 
Day2
- Initial mix 60g 100%
- Rye flour ( I used Organic Arrowhead Rye flour.) 30g 50%
- All purpose flour ( I used King Arthur all purpose flour ) 30g 50%
- Filtered water ( No chlorine water) 42g 70%
Mix the ingredients with an electric mixer for 40 seconds , cover with plastic or a lid , and let stand at 82F / 28℃ until the dough rises doubled.
- 20 hours later – Doubled.
- Mix all the ingredients with an electric mixer. ( Stir it with a fork or knife until incorporated before using an electric mixer, otherwise the dry ingredients fly all over into the air! )
* Loosen the lid.
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3 hours later: 
The dough rose doubled, so I fed it again.
- Initial mix 160g 100%
- All purpose flour ( I used King Arthur allpurpose flour ) 160g 100%
- Filtered water ( No chlorine water ) 112g 70%
Mix the ingredients with an electric mixer for 40 seconds , cover with a lid or plastic, and let stand at 82F / 28℃ until the dough rises doubled.
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6 hours later: 
The dough rose doubled, so I fed it again.
- Initial mix 300g 100%
- All-purpose flour ( I used King Arthur all- purpose flour) 300g 100%
- Filtered water ( No Chlorine water) 210g 70%
Mix the ingredients with an electric mixer for 40 seconds , cover with a lid or plastic, and let stand at 82F / 28℃ until the dough rises doubled.
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5 hours later :
The dough stopped rising rapidly. It happened the same thing when I made it before, too. It took 2 days until the dough rose tripled. It is just because I changed to feed white flour ( the different kind of flour ) instead of rye flour.
So, I mixed the dough with the electric mixer to activate the yeast.
You may be able to understand why the dough is getting very sticky and starchy when you check here.
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Day 3
12 hours later: 
The dough didn’t rise at all. But I know it will rise again. So I just keep mix the dough sometimes during the day.
Mixed it with the electric mixer.
3 hours later: No rise 
Mixed it with the electirc mixer.
7 hours later : No rise 
Mixed it with the electric mixer. Some bubbles appeared…
Day 4
15 hours later : No rise but bubbles. The taste of the dough– Sweet.
Mixed it with the electric mixer.
5 hours later: No rise but bubbles.. So, Mixed it with the electric mixer again.
3 hours later: The dough started to rise 10 %. 
7 hours later: The dough rose more than double the amount.
- Initial mix 200g 100% Discard the rest of them.
- All-purpose flour ( I used King Arthur all-purpose flour) 200g 100%
- Filtered water ( No chlorine water ) 140g 70%
Mix the ingredients well, cover with plastic or a loosen lid, and let stand at 82F / 28℃ the dough rises 20% more than the original. 
Then, Keep it in the refrigerator until the dough rises doubled.
Left: The previous one that I made at first time. Right – The new one that I made to post on my blog.
*I prefer using the previous one’s container that I can seal off in the refrigerator. ( I open the lid once a day)
I don’t know which container is better to use clearly, I will keep testing about the difference the two of them.
Note: I don’t refrigerate the dough more than 3 days. I use and refresh the dough every 1-2 days, otherwise, the dough will be weaker unless I refresh the dough 2 or 3 times at room temperature, or it has sour flavors.
↑ From my experiments, I noticed that the dough was weaker and sourer. But I never tried it with this new starter!
I will test if I can keep this dough in the refrigerator for a week, which will be easier for me to take care of.
When I use the dough to make bread:
1 . Take out the dough from the refrigerator, put the dough in a food processor to mix, to activate it. Or, You can knead the dough for 5-10 minutes until the dough is silky.
Use this plastic blade when you mix the dough. I cut my finger using the metal blade by my mistake.
2. Put the dough back in the container,cover it with plastic, let it stand at 82F / 28℃ until the dough rises tripled.
Now, it is ready to use.
How to maintain the sourdough starter:
The sourdough starter: All purpose flour with a bit of rye flour : water = 100% : 100% : 70%
Example : 200g sourdough starter: 198g all purpose flour 2g rye flour : 140g
- Mix all the ingredients with a stand mixer for a minute or so.
- Put the dough in the container and let it stand at 82 F / 28c until the dough rise 20 % more than the original.
Put the container in the refrigerator until you use. ( I never left the dough more than 3 days.)
* Using a bit of rye flour is very important to keep the dough healthy and strong in the refrigerator. The sourdough is not sour when I feed rye flour to my sourdough starter. I had a trouble with my sourdough by feeding only all purpose flour because it was not active.
Q & A:
Q: When I see my sourdough starter in the refrigerator on the second day,the dough was deflated. Is it okay to use?
A: Yes. It will rise well after mixing.
When I took the dough out from the container. I was little worried because the dough was wetter than usual.
After kneading about 7 minutes by hand instead of using a food processor.
6 hours later: It rose as usual.
I made cinnamon raisin English muffins with the sourdough.
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I made a Japanese sandwich loaf using my recipe that I used with raisin yeast water.
I used a 256g sourdough starter from the container instead of 149g all purpose flour / 107g raisin yeast water levain.
I also made 5 grain bread using Jefferey Hamelman’s ” BREAD”, which is my one of favorite breads. I tasted pleasant sours with softer crumb, which my family likes.
I forgot to take pictures of the bread. I can’t post the pictures until my oven is fixed… My oven broke again! 😦
By the way, I will make a sourdough loaf following the recipe from Jeffery Hamelman’s 5 grain bread exactly using 20% sourdough starter when my oven is fixed. I will post the result how it goes ( the time of the fermentation/crumb/ texture/flavor etc) compare to the other one with the big portion sourdough starter that I use as levain/. prefermented dough.
Koubo by Akiko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Koubo 