Sourdough made with Fiberflour

There are several nutritional benefits from sourdough techniques as well as the complex sour tangy taste that many like. Sourdough starters develop an ecosystem of yeasts and bacteria that use up starch and sugars in flour to produce organic acids and the residue of the microbes themselves contain countless nutrients, vitamins, and such. Fermentation reduces the carb content of mother dough by around 4-5g/100g which decreases the total carb in your bread from 8-9g to something like 4g/100g, really negligible. Just look at the ingredient list of yeast to understand how these little nutrient factories change plain flour into a superfood through fermentation.

I’ve been using a sourdough starter made with fiberflour over the past year which became quite useful when lockdown created a shortage of yeast and several followers told me they started using sourdough instead of yeast.

I recommend a mother-dough that is 50% water to 50% fiberflour. You can make a 1000g batch by adding 500 ml water to 500 grams of fiberflour and start fermentation with a teaspoon of yeast and three tablespoons of yoghurt. Within an hour the mixture will be active and ready to use the next day, thereafter it should be kept in the fridge to slow down the fermentation process. I use 1000g of starter at a time, so the picture below shows 3000g of motherdough made with original fiberflour.

How much starter to fresh flour should you use?

This is up to you and somewhat arbitrary so to make it easy I have been using 1 part starter to 1 part fresh fiberflour. Add 500g fiberflour to 500g of mother dough, the total amount of flour would be 750g. If the final hydration is 80% water to flour you will need to a total of (750 x 80%) 600ml water but 500g of starter already has 250ml so you need to add an additional 350ml to your 1000 g mix. Just one more ingredient needed up to 2% salt to flour (750 x 2%) 1.5g and for those who want to limit sodium and increase potassium low salt works perfectly.

By measuring all ingredients as a percentage of the amount of flour you want to use allows you to scale for the amount of dough you intend to make. Just remember to replenish your starter with at least what you used; 250g fiberflour and 250g water. Most important to realize that the carb level is extremely low in this mixture so prolonged fermentation times, knocking down and second rises etc will not realize more rise to your loaf. I usually add a teaspoon yeast as an option to ensure a good rise.

The reduction in carb content as well as the increased micronutrients from fermentation in fiberflour sourdough are pretty impressive. Let us know your experience or comments on sourdoughs😋