March 4, 2021 - 11:42am
Sour Dough Starter using Almond Flour
I am trying to eliminate as much Wheat as I can from my diet.
Before I joined this group I had ordered San Francisco Sour Dough Starter Culture.
Can I use it to make a starter using almond flour?
Thanks
Don Parent
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A sourdough starter's organisms thrive on the starches in flours. Almond flour, compared to most grain flours, has fairly low starch content.
What is your objective? If to have gluten-free starter, then other flours/starches that are gluten-free will serve better. Think oat, sorghum, amaranth, quinoa, etc. If you are aiming for a "keto" starter, I'm not sure that you can get there from here. But, I've never tried that, so don't take my opinion as gospel.
Having disposed with the negative view, feel free to experiment. Feed a portion of the starter with almond flour for a couple of weeks and see how it behaves. Maybe you, and I, will be pleasantly surprised.
Paul
could flourish in almond flour there is no gluten so all the gas they produce would be of no benefit.
Hi Don,
Nobody knows. Presumably those microbes in the starter that you purchased are adjusted to life in white wheat flour and may not adjust to almond. If you don't want to waste your starter culture, you can restore it by using white wheat flour and then attempt to switch it to almond flour and see if they survive there.
I read online that people on keto diet had no success with almond sourdough starter, but have success with creating and maintaining coconut sourdough starters. The issue is fat. Almond flour is 50% fat and it makes it difficult for the microorganisms to survive and multiply in oil, almond oil supresses them. Coconut flour is less than 20% oil, so it works better.
Also, all kinds of non wheat starters are possible with grains other than wheat and with bean flours and non-gluten starters without areany wheat in them are sold in many stores online.
What kind of non wheat bread would you like to bake? Pure almond flour bread? Is that even possible? Use the same flour or combination of flours for your starter as you would use for bread
Best wishes
m.
potato flour or starch. or rye flour.
.
Almonds are a tree nut, you probably know this. Bread is made using grains, generally wheat, rye, spelt and some others. Bread made with almonds might be more like fluffy marzipan or frangipane. Like cake, cookies or biscuits. Depends on the other ingredients you intend to use.
What recipe do you have in mind?