For thousands of years, an inseparable part of the human diet was bread and in the past it was only made with sourdough starter. In 1859 Louis Pasteur found how the yeast works. 10 years later Fleischmann's yeast (baker's yeast) was found and the modern bakery started. During 1940 again Fleischmann found a yeast that did not have to be refrigerated and called it active dry yeast and marketed it. In 1960s again after various lab research they found instant yeast which rises 50% faster than active dry yeast. As a result speed and cost gained importance, and industrial production of bread started where the taste and the texture became less important.
If you want to use dry yeast then their replacement ratios are as such:
100% bakers' yeast = 40-50% active dry yeast = 33% instant dry yeast.
When yeast starts feeding on flour, changes its natural grain sugar and starch into carbon dioxide, which raises the dough with bubbles. Other than that sourdough starter by using lactobacilli bacteria changes proteins like gluten into lactic acid, facilitates digestion and creates a taste of its own. Commercial, specifically dry yeast, feeds on sugar rather than the flour itself, shortens the fermentation process, it does not affect the proteins in the grain and complicates digestion. Authorities claim that the increase in the number of gluten intolerant people is mainly due to industrial breads and the use of dry yeast. If you really want to read a long and detailed article on this subject click on this and get to NewYorker's October 2014 issue.
Fermantasyon süresinin uzunluğuna, yabani bir maya ile çalışıyor olmanın belirsizliğine ve mayanın bakım ihtiyacına alışmak gerekiyorsa da faydaları saymakla bitmez. Ben Peter Reinhart’ın tarifi ile hazırladığım ekşi mayamı 3 senedir yaşatıyorum, darısı başınıza. 🙂
preparation
- phase
30 g whole wheat or rye flour60 g water or fresh pineapple juice or fresh orange juiceMix flour and water in a sterilized jar, cover with plastic wrap. Keep at room temp stirring every eight hours (a couple of times a day) with a wet spoon to aerate for 48 hours. Bubbles may begin to appear.
- phase
15 g whole wheat or rye flour30 g water or fresh pineapple juice or fresh orange juiceAdd flour and water to phase 1 sponge (90 g) and mix well, cover with plastic wrap. Keep at room temp stirring every eight hours (a couple of times a day) with a wet spoon to aerate for 48 hours. Bubbling and growth, signs of fermentation will start to appear. When the dough becomes very bubbly, move on to phase 3.
- phase
45 g whole wheat or rye flour45 g waterAdd flour and water to phase 2 sponge (135 g) and mix well, cover with plastic wrap. Dough will still be very wet and very sticky. Keep at room temp stirring at least twice a day with a wet spoon to aerate for 24-48 hours. When the dough becomes very bubbly and expanded, move on to phase 4.
- phase
60 g whole wheat or rye flour45 g waterAdd flour and water to HALF of phase 3 sponge (112.5 g), mix well. You can throw away, share with a willing neighbor or feed as second batch the other half of the sponge. The sponge will be thicker but still sticky. Cover with plastic wrap, keep at room temp for 4-24 hours til almost double in size. It'll smell like apple cider vinegar.You can cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days before making the mother starter.
- mother starter
300 g whole wheat or rye flour225 g water100 g of phase 4 spongeMix all the ingredients, knead for 1.5-2 min till the dough comes together.Let rest for 5 min.Knead 1-2 minutes til smooth and well blend.Put 100 g of the mix into a glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Feed with flour and water as above and repeat the process for refreshing the starter. Can keep 3 days at most without feeding.Put the rest into an oiled bowl, keep at room temp for 4-12 hours til 1.5-2 times in size. Degas, cover, refrigerate. When cold, open the lid to release carbon dioxide, cover again. Keep in the fridge at least overnight. Use this dough as starter.
- Sourdough strengthens through regular feeding. Gradually decrease flour and water used within a month or two to 50 g sourdough starter, 50 g flour and 45 g water, put 50 g in the fridge as mother and use the rest to ferment 500 g flour. If you're NOT making bread after each feeding, you won't be that sorry to use this much flour to feed.
- If you're making bread every 2-3 days, then keep on feeding as I explained in stage 5 and use 250-300 grams flour & proportionate water to prep the dough.
EN 
TR