Ask Allie!

Ask Allie is our advice column, where you can ask all your food-related questions to get digestible answers! No question is off limits!

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I want to make just a straight einkorn flour sourdough. Do you have a recipe?

— Dawn-Marie

Sure do! Here’s the link.

I have just ordered a set of yogurt and sourdough cultures, and am very excited (they arrive tomorrow!) I have 2 questions.

1. For the mesophilic cultures I ordered (Filmjolk and Icelandic Skyr), the directions say that if the first culture is too runny, to just do it again. I'm not clear on what quantity of the first batch to use with the second batch (and how much milk to use with it)

2. Is it best to use white flour with the San Francisco Fisherman's Bay sourdough starter? If I do that, and wanted to make rye bread occasionally, could I use a recipe that makes a sponge/levain and if so, would this be the process: When mixing the starter, water, and flour, use rye flour in making the sponge so it doesn't interfere with the SF starter. The next day, use a mix of white and rye for the remaining flour in the recipe. I thought the sponge method might allow me to be more creative without compromising the original! I have a homemade sourdough starter at home, and I sometimes use white flour and sometimes rye to feed it - but I don't want to abuse/alter the flavor of the San Francisco starter that I ordered!

— Patricia

For #1, our instructions on the website say to use 1 tablespoon of culture (from the prior batch) per 1c of milk, but during activation I personally never do more than 1/2T and 1/2C. It can take up to 3 batches to normalize, so I prefer not to be saddled with a lot of unset yogurt to make mashed potatoes with (or bake with, smoothies, whatever you want). Be aware that the filmjolk is a drinking yogurt, so it is only going to get really thick if you monkey with it. In my experience, skyr likes to be fussy and make you prove you really love it, so I’d expect that to be runny for the first 2 batches.

For #2, you can bake with any flour you want, but I personally would be consistent with the flour you use to feed like you’ve mentioned. You can totally use the method you list for making your loaves, but I admit I never go to that kind of trouble. I just make my flour mixture (yes, often with rye! I really love rye), add starter, etc., but your method is a better way than I usually use since it allows for a lot more time spent proving. You also can convert a portion of your starter over to the rye-wheat mixture you like to bake with, and then you’ll have 2 starters! 1 pure, 1 adapted to how you really like to bake. Sky’s the limit here, Patricia, for sure. Please let me know how your loaves go!

So just wondering: why am I supposed to heat the milk to 180 slowly? If I get it to the right temperature, what does it matter?

— Mary

Rapid temperature changes can result in grainy yogurt. If that isn’t going to bother you, doesn’t matter at all! Hope that helps.