This is the most important ingredient. Without it you will not get the sour bite that levain brings to the bread.
You can't buy levain, so either make it yourself or ask a friend who bakes bread. If you can get your hands on some, it will save you about a week of prep time. The good news is once you make your levain, you will keep some after every time you bake and re-use it over and over.
Making Levain:
Levain is 'created' by leaving water and flour in a warm location and refreshing it daily with some new flour.
You are basically going to keep a pot of fermenting flour at room temp for a week as it collects bacteria from the air....sounds gross?....that's because it is, and it will smell like an awful cheese at first.....but you will end up with fresh levain and you'll see that it smells wonderful.
The trick is to be patient because the process takes just over a week.
If you plan on making your own, then just follow the recipe at the bottom of the page.
Keeping it active:
Once you have an active levain, you will use it as a starter for future bread by keeping a little in a jar and placing it in your fridge where it will sleep.
But you will have to re-awaken when you want to use. The process is similar to when you make a new levain, but it only takes about 2 days.
To give you an idea, my starter is about 4 years old. I just store it and re-awaken as needed.
Making sure you have an active Levain:
If you use your levain once a week, then it will only take about 1 day to wake it up, 2 weeks old will take a couple of days, and a month or more between 3 and 4 days.
Take 100g from the jar you kept in the fridge and add it to the flour and water.
Repeat daily 'feeding' until your yeast is very active.
This should take between 1 to 3 days.
Every day you refresh the levain by keeping only 100g and add fresh flour and water to it.
The rest you throw away (that part of the levain is now used and will not produce good bread until it is very active.
When should you feed the levain?
I do the above process in the mornings around 8am
The daily Levain Recipe:
You will use this recipe to make a new levain, or to keep the one you make awake, and even to re-awaken a dormant one that has been in the fridge for a while.
400 g All Purpose flour 100 g Wheat flour 400 g water at 90 to 94 degrees F 100 g of Levain *
*Note: no need to add 100g of levain on day one if you are starting a new levain
Storing Levain:
If you refresh daily, you can bake daily.....but if you don't then you are just wasting flour....so I would store the levain in a jar with a loose lid in the fridge.
HINT: When storing in the fridge, don't fill the jar completely as the yeast will continue to rise.....if the jar is full, it's just going to make a mess. I typically keep it half full.
Disturbing Fact: If you leave your levain in the fridge long enough you will notice a darkish liquid that floats about the levain in the jar.....that is Hooch....or otherwise known as prison moonshine. Prisoners make it by putting bread in water and waiting for it to ferment.....I've even heard they do this in their toilet! ..... You never know when that info might come in handy ;)
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