On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:29:38 -0700, jmm1951 > wrote:

>Being a kind of perpetual advanced beginner when it comes to cooking,
>I am always playing around with different ideas and ways of
>economizing. SInce yeast is kind of expensive (relative to flour and
>salt) when you get it in individual packets, (though cheaper when
>bought at Sam's Club), I thought I would look at ways of using natural
>yeasts, etc.

snip starter recipes...

If your hesitation in using yeast is cost only, do go ahead and buy a
1lb container from any club store around. The stuff lasts forever and
a day in the freezer and only forever in the fridge. I used 2.5 yr old
yeast to make bread over the weekend. No problemo.

Ok...on to starters....

You can easily make a starter of only flour and water. Nothing else is
needed. There is a link below to read up on it. You can make a starter
easily with rye flour, too and use that, if you wish for making rye
bread. Many people create a starter with rye to get it going and
switch it over to white flour once it is established. You can
certainly maintain a rye starter, though.

http://www.nyx.net/~dgreenw/sourdoughfaqs.html

You can easily and inexpensively (cost of a stamp and self addressed
envelope) obtain a tried and true dried starter from the link below.
Recipes are there, too.

http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/

>So far this smells wonderful, and I am sure it will work fine and make
>an even better bread, but it still has yeast in it. Anyone have any
>ideas on making a good sourdough starter for a rye loaf without using
>any yeast?

Here is one of Darrell Greenwood's pages that talks about converting
yeast recipes to sourdough starter ones.

http://www.nyx.net/~dgreenw/howdoico...tbreadrec.html

Another thing you can do to deepen the flavor of your regular yeast or
sourdough breads is to use a sponge, biga, poolish or pre-ferment when
making them....basically, you combine starter, flour and water, or a
small amount of yeast, flour and water and let it ferment overnight.
Continue with your recipe the next day. It truly helps in bread
flavor.

A link for reading up on some great recipes that use these
pre-ferments is he

http://www.theartisan.net/bredfrm.htm

Another all around good site for bread baking in general is he

http://www.barryharmon.com/

Now, for more fun, come on over to alt.bread.recipes.

Boron