It is a yeast culture. It will likely not be sour but you could make it sour by adding ascorbic acid to it.
Using wild yeast results in a longer rise to baking and that adds the sourdough texture to the bread.
making GF bread might work better this way for you. Try both ways!
Thank you!
After I posted about not doing it, I went and did it anyway.
Continuing my research has turned up methods that make much smaller starters. Since GF flours are usually $3 to $6 a pound, not a sack at the store, but per pound...I've always been hesitant to try something with a higher failure rate like a SD starter. I simply cannot afford to toss $20 on an experiment.
90% of the recipes I have seen call for using 8 to 12 cups of GF flours just to make a 1 or 2 cup starter. Constant feeding and dumping because no using discard before day 5.
But, now that I'm beginning to understand the process, and how to scale it way down, I can afford a $2 failure in my attempts and experimentation. So... I did start a cheater yesterday afternoon, and oh boy did it go poof! I only used a 1/4 tsp of dry yeast, but made sure to use whole grain flours like Quinoa, Millet, Amaranth, and Buckwheat.
(FYI all...despite the name, Buckwheat does not have gluten)
I *think* it's just for that reason. Since there is no stretchy elastic gluten, straight GF sourdough doesn't rise much. At least mine didn't, anyway. The next time I make GF sourdough, I might add a 1/2 teaspoon of yeast, to see if it gets a bit poofier.
Ah, the more I'm learning the better I am understanding and now this is making sense. You are right. I'll bet it is just for some extra rise since the lack of gluten means they don't hold the bigger bubbles.
I will say, though, I've done it the other way around, and added 1/2 cup sourdough starter to my machine GF yeast bread. I think it's an improvement! A bit more flavor, and a bit more rise. More holes in it, anyway, so not quite so dense.
I usually get really good rise in my regular yeast breads and they are not dense. So much so that sometimes I need to back off the yeasts. However my breads don't normally get that nice domed top like gluten containing breads do, but that's very typical GF.
Brown rice flours do tend to be heavier and produce a more dense overall item when compared to most of the other grains. I like brown rice flour though, so I'm not downing it at all. It just behaves a little differently.
And like your SDS, my start with just brown rice flours does settle in tiers...the dryest at the bottom, decent mixture in the middle, and extra liquids to the top. It has no activity, bubbles, or a smell yet, so it's the properties of the brown rice doing that.
At any rate, if any of my starters are successful I think I'd like to try putting smaller amounts into stuff for flavor.
When you add 1/2 a cup of SDS, do you remove 1/2 a cup of flours and 1/2 a cup of liquids from the base recipe? How do you work out the compensation?
The usual recipies with sourdough often call for extra yeast, the thing is, when your sourdough is new, it isn’t as active, so you need to add extra yeast , the older it gets, the better, I have “year” old sourdough which doesn’t need extra yeast! And if you are not satisfied with it, you can refresh ist every day for a few days, that will really get it going
I also use freshly milled rye, which also gives it more action, the flour you buy at the store is usually a few months old. No active enzymes in there any more
Thank you! The comment about needing yeast for a younger starter makes sense to me now.
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