Wild Grape Starter

Most of the starter recipes you're likely to find either _cheat_, by using commercial yeast to kick start the process, or are- quite honestly- too fragile in their early stages. In the former case, you create a colony of whatever strain of commercial yeast that you used. Which sort of negates the point of _making_ your own starter; using home grown yeast. In the latter case, you all too frequently end up with a smelly paste that is _definately_ not starter. I know this to be fact, as I've tried, made and discarded many substandard batches of starter in my career. _This_ recipe, on the other hand, works perfectly, rapidly and dependably. It creates a batch of wild yeast- soon enough enfluenced by whatever yeast are floating around in your area- and creates a powerful starter. Powerful enough that no additional yeast is needed to leaven any recipe. (My advice to substitute this starter for packaged yeast in any bread recipe- leave out a cup of flour, add a cup of the starter. Add more flour, if needed, to get proper texture.) Readers might be interested to know that this starter also well replicates the artisinal starters used in high end commercial recipes. Meaning that- quite often- I have seen professional bakers scrape together all manner of thin skinned fruit, let it sit for a few days and use the fermented juice as a starter basis. I really like this starter. In fact, I've just pulled a batch of it from stasis in the fridge- make certain to pour o

I used wine grapes from a local vineyard. This makes a very fast "sourdough" starter, with a less sour flavor than my regular sourdough. It has worked in all my favorite sourdough recipes that I have tried it in. If you live in a dry climate, as I do, start it in a large jar, instead of a bowl, to reduce the surface area for evaporation of juice.

This recipe produced a vital and active sourdough starter without any added commercial yeast. I use it at least once a week to keep it fresh and ready to go. It will raise a beautful loaf all by itself. (Be sure to give it extra time.) I always replenish it with whole wheat flour and water and let it sit out of the refrigerator until it is good and bubbly. Then I refrigerate it until I'm ready to use it again. It makes absolutely heavenly waffles and biscuits. The waffles alone are worth making this starter. The instructions say to discard the dough during the initial fermentation process. I didn't, but used it in breads and quick breads with good results. The fermentation process was faster than I expected. Maybe the temperature was warm here. Also I started with grapes a bit on the old side. I think they had alreay started to ferment.

I used store-bought red grapes with good luck. The flavor is truly San Francisco sourdough.

I am on day seven and getting worried that it wont turn out! It seems such a weird way to make sourdough starter! But, I have my fingers crossed and a tasty sourdough biscuit recipe all ready to be used on day nine! UPDATE: Well, my fears were unfounded. It is now about three weeks later and I have used the starter to make pitas, rolls and bread. I wasn't sure about the amounts to feed the starter, so I just guesstimated and added equal amounts of flour and water each time. The consistency is viscous and the smell is very sour. I use a cup of starter, mixed with milk and flour and put it in the oven overnight and the next morning I mix up pitas, rolls, whatever and it works every time.

I was glad to find this recipe, as I had only read references to this starter. It resulted in a nice tangy starter and was interesting to make

This worked great. I did it in late fall, and the temperatures in my kitchen were pretty cold, so I let it sit an extra day. It is bubbly and active now, about a month after I started it. Two cups of starter will raise two loaves of 100% whole wheat bread right over the tops of the pans! It has taken this long to develop the sour flavor--it was only mildly sour at first. A long, slow, cool-temp rise will make your bread more sour. Also, the bread becomes more sour as time goes by--on the second or third day it's pretty sour!

I don't know what I did wrong, but my grape juice mush started growing mold by the third day at room temperaturen and I had to throw it out. If you know how to avoid this, the reviews sound great, but watch out.

Talk about quick! I am only at step 2 and have already watched the flour mixture rise rapidly in the first couple of hours. I did forget the grape mush til day 4 however. Can already smell the pleasant sour smell.

I gave this 4 stars because you do not have to go to as much trouble as this recipe leads one to believe. I just by happenstance had some wild grapes already frozen in my freezer. I just took a few of the wild grape skins, maybe 3 of them and put them into the four and water mix. I then put the mix into a warm and dark place and the yeast from the grape skins was obvious and had innoculated the flour mix. No need to do all that crushing of grapes and fermenting in a bowl. At least for me. Just some grape skins in the flour and water and put in a warm place and the yeast will proliferate.

I looove how sour this starter is. Someone else said it's comparable to San Fran sourdough and I agree. Super duper sour! When it comes to starter/other wet ingredients ratio in a recipe I think you probably want to go 1:1 or even 1/2 to 1. I made a loaf of bread a couple days ago using only starter (no yeast) and it was so sour I could barely eat it! I should've made a bigger batch and added additional water or milk...

I think this is great! My grape mash started molding at day 3. I decided to just scrape the top moldy stuff off and let it set another day. I then strained it and mix in the flour. It worked great. Now it is time to start making the bread. Thanks for the recipe.

The wild grape starter was much more active for me than store-boughten yeast starter. I dumped my store-boughten yeast starter and use this one exclusively.

I have tried this method twice and both times my grape mash has grown mold before the fermentation process. I don't know what to do, I really want this to work, I'm so disapointed.

So far I'm on day 4 of the 9 day process. I used grapes from my front yard. for the record the white stuff on the grapes is indeed yeast not wax (another reviewer said it wax) They don't put wax on grapes I googled it. Grapes are shipped in wax coated containers to keep moisture out. Anyhoo the grapes in my front yard were covered in yeast. They were fermented on day 2. The day after I added the first cup of flour my mixture was incredibly bubbly and had a wonderful sour smell. I bet I could make bread with it now but I will continue with the 9 day process. I will update in a few days.

Well ... I wasn't able to find organic grapes (probably out of season and we live in a very small town) so I was stuck for using what came from the market. They were quite sour to begin with but the real problem was that the skins were just too hard to mash with my hands. So, given no one wanted to eat the grapes, I used my kitchen scissors to cut them up and then mashed really well with my potato masher. Having read the reviews, I noted the issues about mold and so stirred the mash 2-3 times each day with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula and put the mash in a glass bowl. The result was an AMAZING starter even though I probably did everything wrong! I made my first bread without any additional yeast and the only thing worth noting was that it took a very long time to rise (I didn't time it, so the best I can guess is 3-5 hours). Based on another recipe I'm want to try, I'm going to let it rise overnight (I think it was Sourdough I).

I added 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar & 2 teaspoons sugar to 1 & half cup of the starter to tart it up a bit. Now I have 2 variations of this starter. Both have their own flavor.

This recipe worked great! Took a bit longer in my cold kitchen & I used non-organic grapes since organic were not available, but the result works perfectly. Thanks very much!

Attempted this with horrible results. The day I added the wheat flour, my starter spilled all over the table. May try again some day.

This starter was not good after the first week, but now that I have kept it for 6 weeks, it works and tastes great! I live 30 miles from San Francisco, so that may have alot to do with the wonderful sour flavor. Thanks!

You can make your own yeast out of any fruit. They stated that the white stuff on the grape is yeast. That is really just wax to protect the grape. The yeast is air born. That is why wine makers need to kill any wild strain and then add one that is correct for the grape type and condition.

Thanks very much for your excellent recipe and instruction... I followed your guidance to the letter and 9 days later, I had an amazingly active and resilient Starter. I've used it three times to date in making the Cracked Wheat Sourdough (by Jaclyn) and the results are fantastic... just look at the picture on my page as proof! So thanks again Sharon and keep up the good work!

It works, OMG! Would have never guessed it would be so easy to create your own starter. I have no domestic grapes in yard, so I went in woods and picked some wild fox grapes that the critters hadn't gotten to yet. Only could pick 1/2lb, as the individual grapes are the size of peas and there weren't that many. So I Cut all ingredients in half until I built it up. It hasn't reached and intense level of activity yet, but I will babysit it for a while and see. In the meantime, I'll just add extra yeast to recipes. Bread tastes great though!

This worked really well for me. I didn't notice any bubbles in the grape juice, and I had to scrape off a few mold spots a couple of days in the middle. (Occasional stirring would probably have prevented the mold). After that the yeast was strong enough to prevent mold growth and now (about 1 week) it bubbles at the rate I would expect from a mature starter. I'm starting my first bread from this starter today.

This is great!!!! I just started baking bread and this starter was just what I was looking for to make my bread unique. Has a great tangy flavor and friends always want to know where I bought the bread. It is my little secret.

For some reason this molded on the second day. I had such high hopes for it and I think I will try again. I would love to know why this did not work for me, so that i can try it and be successful next time.

This has worked awesome so far for me. It may be because I live in a warm climate, but my grape mush was ready after 24 hours and then only 1 day after adding the whole wheat flour was I able to make bread from it! I used one cup of the stuff in my bread--does anybody know if it will eventually get more concentrated (so that I do not have to use so much of it)? If so, when and how much will I need to use? Right now I am trying to dehydrate some of it (won't stop overflowing) in the toaster oven at just under 200 degrees.

My starter was VERY active from the beginning. Fed it the first time, placed it in a quart jar for the second 24 hours, within 4 hours it had risen to the top of the jar! Separated it into two jars. Going to keep slightly different schedules for feeding just to see what happens!

My grapes molded. I tried it twice with no luck. Maybe I should have put the bowl in a cooler place? I really want to try this but am at a loss as to what i'm doing wrong. Any ideas from anyone out there?

My grapes started to mold on day three. I don't know why, but I would appreciated suggestions:)