To make your first leaven take:

• 30 g of water
• 30 g of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of honey

Mix the ingredients.

After 2 days mix some more 30 g of water and 30 g of flour. The fourth day add some more 30 g of water and 30 g of flour. It should be evident that the leaven is making bubbles. The sixth day the leaven is ready if makes bubbles. At this point you can use your leaven.

The short story is this:

• take some flour
• take the same amount of warm water (in mass)
• one tea-spoonful of sugar/honey

Mix the ingredients together. Wait 2 days, mixing once in a while. After 2 days, add more flour and water (same mass). After some more 2 days add again flour and water. During this procedure, you should notice that this mixture gets reactive: it makes small bubbles, grows especially when adding flour.

When your leaven is ready its life cycle is this (as I observe on mine):

• add flour+water
• makes lots of small bubbles
• extremely reactive doubles in volume
• looses the CO₂ and seems more liquid and less reactive

When the leaven is more liquid this is the time to use it. It has lots of hungry bacteria that will make your bread to grow a lot. Generally it takes at least 24 hour from the feeding to reach the optimal condition. If you use the leaven before it will only take a little bit longer to grow, I guess.

The procedure is this:

1. prepare the dough for the bread on the evening
2. 1 part of leaven, 1 part of water, 2 parts of flour, some salt
3. add the water to the leaven
4. add the flour as much as it takes, until you get a medium soft dough
5. leave the ball to grow for the night
6. the morning work again the ball to take out the CO₂ and to put in some oxigen
7. go to work and in the afternoon/evening bake
8. You have to find your way in your oven: my recipe is 220-230 degrees, 30 minutes; sprinkle the bread with some flour. with a small pot of water to keep the oven humid

That’s it!

I generally prepare bread every 2 days, since it is very good to have fresh bread around... For the regular consumption of our family I use:

• 150 g of leaven
• 150 g of water
• 300 g of flour + the one needed to make a good dough. It can be at least 50 g.

Ingredienti per la pasta madre:

• 30 g di acqua
• 30 g di farina
• 1/2 cucchiaino di miele

Mescolare gli ingredienti.

Dopo 2 giorni aggiungere all’impasto altra farina e acqua in uguali proporzioni (30 g ciascuno). Il quarto giorno riaggiungere farina e acqua in uguali proporzioni (30 g ciascuno).

Al sesto giorno il lievito dovrebbe fare le bolle ed essere pronto per essere utilizzato.

Ecco le semplici regole:

1. nutrimento lievito: 50% acqua, 50% farina. Il lievito mangia, si riproduce e muore di carestia. I sintomi sono rispettivamente: fa molte bolle, cresce in volume, diventa piu’ liquido e puzza d’alcol e si forma una sorta di liquido (alcol) on top. Questo e’ il momento di nutrirlo. In generale io che faccio il pane ogni 2 giorni non raggiungo mai la fase alcolica e lo nutro ogni volta che lo uso.
2. preparazione impasto per pane: 1 parte lievito, 1 parte di acqua, 2 parti di farina, sale olio semi e quello che ci vuoi mettere. La farina va aggiunta q.b. per raggiungere un impasto non appiccicoso a forma di palla.
3. lievitazione: occorrono 2 lievitazioni da almeno 4 o 5 ore. Il mio metodo e’ preparare l’impasto la sera, la mattina lo reimpasto e lo adagio sulla teglia e quando torno da lavoro cuocio. La seconda lievitazione e’ la piu’ importante. Quando reimpasti fallo energicamente cosi’ che tutto il gas della prima lievitazione esca dall’impasto.
4. cottura: 30 minuti, da forno freddo a forno caldo a 220 gradi. Spruzzare sul pane un po’ di farina, che evitera’ che la crosta carbonizzi.
5. ora non resta che mangiarlo. e qui non spiego nulla...