Fermenting foods is becoming a slight obsession around here! I’ve been wanting to try a gluten free sourdough, but have been procrastinating because I thought the getting started process would be complicated. One morning, while seeing what information the blogosphere already has on gluten free sourdough, I had a flash of inspiration: “Maybe I could use my kombucha to start my sourdough!”
Instructions
A quick Google search revealed that others had already tried this with wheat sourdough, so I pulled out a clean glass jar, my flour and kombucha and headed outside to make my first sourdough starter.
On the left is 8 oz. of home-brewed kombucha. Kombucha is fermented tea and it’s full of a lovely colony of good yeasts and bacteria. On the right is 5 oz. of Bob’s Red Mill AP GF flour mix.
I added the flour to the kombucha….
stirred it up….
covered the top with cheesecloth, and waited….
After just a couple of days of twice daily feedings, my starter began producing bubbles of gasses! Â So, kombucha + flour does make a super-easy gluten free sourdough starter, assuming you have easy access to kombucha =)
I’ve continued to feed my GF starter and ended up giving it a few flour only feedings to get it to a  a 50:50 ratio of flour and water. I’ve baked rolls, bread, and waffles that all turned out quite tangy!  Now that I’ve figured out how to make the starter in a way that’s easy for me, I need to do learn more about feeding my starter so that I can get into a good schedule of feeding it and using it.  I’ve liked the few recipes that I’ve adjust so that I can use a sourdough starter in them, but my family found them a bit too tangy, so that needs some more work too.
I use kefir water to start gf sourdough, and have made edible loaves, but not anything we are wild about. You’ve given me some ideas. I usually start with brown rice flour and add another flour or two (quinoa, buckwheat, etc.) to change the flavor. Just brown rice flour doesn’t work very well 🙂
Can you use commercial kombucha? i miss sourdough bread!! I used to love the sourdough rolls at panera bread, how did these compare? I know you’re still working on the recipe but can you post an idea of ratios of flour to kombucha and how much flour/kombucha you used to feed it? {{rookie sourdough’r here}}
It’s because I’m still a rookie sourdough’r that I’m not posting any amounts. I’ve gotta practice some more before I start giving anyone anything that they can follow =)
When you say 2 daily feedings, what and how much are you feeding it?
It actually varied a good bit because I was playing around. I did a few flour only feedings when the starter seemed too liquid, and finally settled into a 50:50 ratio. Not sure that’s optimal, but it’s what I was doing. I mostly fed it with Bob’s Red Mill AP GF mix, but used other single flours a few times, rather than run to the store for more flour mix.