Wild Yeast Starter Recipe
Bubbly, fizzy, and just a bit murky, making a wild yeast starter can seem a little daunting, but it's one of the easiest kitchen projects you can undertake. There's only a single step: sealing fruit into a jar filled with water. And then you wait. In less than a week, you have a yeasty starter you can use to bake bread.Fruits, vegetables, and even wild herbs are all sources for wild yeast, but dried fruit is one of the easiest for newcomers to use. Figs, apricots, and raisins work well.
Servings: 3 cups
Equipment
- Quart-sized Jar
- Fine-mesh Sieve
Ingredients
- 1 cup tightly packed dried fruit (unsulfured)
- warm water
Instructions
Capturing wild yeast.
- Drop the dried fruit into a quart-sized mason jar, and then fill the jar with water allowing 1 inch of headspace. Seal the jar tightly, and then let it rest away from direct light and heat until bubbles appear when you tip the jar and the lid begins to bulge.
Using the yeast.
- When ready, strain the liquid through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean jar or pitcher. Use in place of the liquid portion of your recipe, omitting the bakers yeast.
