How to make Organic Rye Starter Leaven

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1. This starter takes about 5 minutes over 6 days to make. In a non-metallic bowl, using a plastic or wooden spoon, mix 50g rye flour with 50ml boiled and cooled water, to make a stiff paste. Cover and leave in a warm place for 24 hours.
2. The next day stir in another 50g rye flour and 50ml boiled and cooled water, making 200g of stiff paste. Cover and stand in a warm place for 24 hours.
3. The next day stir in another 50g rye flour and 50ml boiled and cooled water, making 300g of psate. The paste should be starting to smell slighty alcoholic and yeasty, as the natural yeasts and lacto-bacteria start to ferment the mixture, using the starches and sugars in the flour. Cover and stand in a warm place for another 24 hours
4. The fourth day stir in another 50g rye flour and 50ml water to the mix, which should now have a thick creamy consistency, be smelling of alcohol and yeast and be starting to bubble. Cover and stand in a warm place for another 24 hours.
5. By the fifth day there should be about 400g of bubbling yeasty, alcoholic, creamy ferment in the bowl. Add another 50g of rye flour and 50ml of boiled, cooled water, mix thoroughly, cover and stand for 24 hours in a warm place.
6. By day six there should be 500g of fermenting creamy fluid, with the consistency of thick double cream, bubbling up in the bowl. Add the final 50g of rye flour and 50ml of boiled, cooled water, mix thoroughly, cover and stand in a warm place for 24 hours.
7. Your bowl now should contain 600g of fully developed organic rye starter leaven. Stir it thoroughly and transfer it to a sealable coontainer (washed out 1kg spread tubs are excellent) for storage in a refrigerator until needed for baking.
8. When using for baking, take it out of the refrigerator a few hours before needed to allow it to return to room temperature. Measure the amount needed for the recipe out of the tub, and replace with the same weight of half and half rye flour and boiled cooled water, mix thoroughy, still in its tub and let it stand in a warm place to ferment before storing in the refrigerator until needed again. Using this method you will always have leaven resdy for use. The culture will go on developing and stay alive for years if used and refreshed regularly. It can be frozen if not required for use for more than two weeks and thawed out back to room temperature when needed, but don't use a microwave as you will kill the micro-organisms.

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