Fresh Home Made Leaven (Kovasz keszites)

 If you been using instant dry yeast, this leaven will revolutionize your baking.

This is a natural home made leaven that is used to make sourdough bread. Its not to be eaten by itself. Use it next time when you make your own home made sourdough bread.

You will need to allow about 4-5 days to get this leaven active.

Lets get started. All you need is flour and water, and I have used a tiny bit of honey.

Use a standard size glass jar, mix 2 table spoon of rye flour and 1 table spoon of white flour, add 2 and a half tablespoon of filtered water (use filtered as tap water has chlorine). Stir well and cover with a breath through cloth or paper towel. I have made some holes with a fork on my paper towel to let it breed more. Keep the jar on the kitchen table at room temperature. Stir 1-2 times daily. You need to feed this mixture every day for 5 days. If you keep it outside the fridge after 5 days continue to feed it daily, otherwise you can store it in the fridge, then you need to feed it once a week. So for the feeding, you need to add the same amount of flour and water as at the start. After 3-4 days you will notice some bubbles appearing and string to smell like beer. That's good. You will know that your leaven become active, when you feed it on the 5th day, and it rises double in size within 30-50minutes. Days I mentioned here are subject to your home's temperature, in summer time it sis quick, but in cooler winter times it will take longer to get the leaven active.

You can use this leaven by spooning some amount out and use it in your bread recipe. Don't forget to feed the leaven as it is a living organism (and can die out).