Levain liquide (Liquid Sourdough Starter)

This is a “liquid” levain, which is to say that you’re aiming for a roughly 1:1 ratio of water to flour on each refresh of the culture.

If you’re not planning to bake every day — I certainly don’t — it’s easy enough to stash this in the refrigerator and give a quick warm up to room temperature before using. Though even in the refrigerator, you’ll want to refresh the starter weekly.

Recipes that use this levain:

• Baguettes

On flour

Any flour will work here. I like to use King Arthur white whole wheat flour, which adds extra flavor without being too heavy. It’s not clear from their product information what the ash content of the flour is (to put it on the French-style scale), but I’d guess it’s something like a T85, versus an all-purpose flour at T45 and whole wheat closer to T150.

Ingredients

• Flour
• Water

Method

In a clean container, combine 10 g of flour and 10 g of water. Mix the two together until a smooth slurry is formed. Cover the container, and let it sit at room temperature for approximately 24 hours.

Discard half the proto-starter (10 g), and add a further 20 g of flour and 20 g of water. Let that sit to ferment at room temperature for 24 hours.

Discard half the proto-starter again (25 g), and then add 40 g of flour and 40 g of water. Let the mixture sit once again at room temperature for 24 hours.

Repeat this process daily until the starter is well-developed. When it’s ready, the levain should expand in volume between doses of flour, be slightly bubbly, and have a slight acidic-alcoholic scent.

Once the starter is active, replace the starter used with a corresponding quantity of flour and water. E.g., 100 g of starter to make a loaf of bread should be replaced by 50 g each of water and flour.