Professor Calvel's Starter

After the Second World War, American GI's returning from France raved about the bread they had enjoyed there. However, after that time, the quality of French bread began to decline. There are as many explanations for this as there are people doing the explaining. By the 60's, French bread had become largely tasteless, bland, uninspiring and uninspired.

There is probably no one who had more influence on the revival of French baking than Professor Raymond Calvel. Professor Calvel not only acted as a cheerleader for the renaissance of bread in France, but also shared the techniques that allowed French bakers to again move up to the levels that had been taken for granted a few decades earlier.

One of the best baking books I have ever read is his "The Taste of Bread". It inspires bakers to seek greatness. It offers the tools to help the baker get there. The only drawback to this book is that it is so expensive. If you can find a copy for less than $75.00, grab it, it's a bargain.

In the book, Professor Calvel outlines how he makes a sourdough starter. It is worth mentioning that this is my preferred way to start a starter. It is quick and reliable. It takes him about 2 1/2 days. You'll need rye flour, all-purpose wheat flour, dried malt extract (available from a brewing supply house or health food store), salt and water. Professor Calvel's starter is quite dense. The common technique when starting a starter is to use 1 part of water to 1 part of flour by weight. Professor Calvel's starter uses 10 parts of flour to 6 parts of water. As a result, mixing this starter usually involves energetic kneading.

The starter should be kept around 81 Fahrenheit or 27 Celsius, though this is not as critical as some might think.

A recurring question with regards to sourdough starter is what sort of water may be used with it. Many people insist that sourdough starter can be killed by chlorinated water. Others say that it cannot be started with chlorinated water. In my experience, chlorinated water has not been a problem. I have started, fed and used starters with chlorinated water with no problems. However, I have heard that the more persistent forms of chlorine used by some cities, such as chloramine, can cause problems.

In general, if your tap water smells and tastes good it will probably work well with sourdough. If you have problems with your starters, you may want to try using dechlorinated water. Since few home filters will remove chlorine from water, and from what I am told neither boiling nor standing will remove chloramine, I suggest that you try bottled water if you are experiencing what you think might be water related problems with your sourdough.

Two flours are used to start and build this starter. One is a dark rye flour. It should be fresh, organic and stone ground. The other is a fresh, unbleached, unbromated. organic, stone-ground all-purpose wheat flour (or as many of those qualifiers as you can find). In most recipes we just assume the flour we are using will be a wheat flour. Since this recipe contains rye flour, I feel it important to mention the all-purpose flour is a wheat flour.

Some people may want to use whole wheat flour rather than a refined white flour. I find that refined flours work better here because they do a better job of nurturing the starter without adding as many competing organisms as we'd get from a whole grain flour. Once the starter is stable, you may use it with whole wheat. Some people may prefer to use a bread flour rather than an all-purpose flour. In general, I find all-purpose flour gives a better flavor at the cost of some rise. You should try different flours and compare the tastes. Ask friends who don't know what flours you are using to taste also. You may be surprised at the results. You may want to look at our flour tests. Due to spacing issues in the chart, I'll just call the fresh, unbleached, unbromated, organic, stone-ground all-purpose wheat flour "all-purpose flour".

A quick reminder - the organisms we are cultivating are already on the flour, so there is no need to expose the starter to the air. In fact, if you leave the starter uncovered, it will dry out between feedings. So, please use some clingwrap, a QuickCover or a beautician's processing cap to cover the starter between feedings.

At this point, the starter should be doubling its size between feedings, and should be sufficiently mature to use. It is one of the fastest ways I know of to start a good starter. I have tried scaling this process down, and it does not work well when cut back to 1/10th the size given here. If anyone scales this process with success, please drop me a note.

Note: Since this was first published, I have received a number of emails from experimentally minded readers. It seems to work quite reliably at 1/2 the listed size. One person scaled it down to 1/10th the listed size and it worked, however others have had trouble at that size. 1/4 of the listed size has also worked for a number of people. The next time I need to start a fresh starter, I'll try 1/4 the listed size.

In each step after the first, 300 grams of starter are brought forward from the previous step. For the first few steps the rest of the starter should be discarded as it isn't yet stable and may not be entirely healthful. Once the starter is rising reliably, you may want to set the extra starter aside, saving it to make pizza shells, sourdough cupcakes, pancakes or other goodies.

This starter is considerably thicker than the starter the recipes in this web site use. In the interest of simplicity, I'll suggest you maintain this starter the way I suggest starters be maintained throughout this site (feed them no less than twice a day while the starter is at room temperature, feed equal amounts of flour and water by weight, and each feeding should be enough to double the size of the starter.) If I ever add advanced sourdough pages to this site, I'll talk about other options.

If you are curious about why malt extract and salt are used in this process, I suggest you buy the book to read Professor Calvel's explanation.