Sour Dough Bread from Purchased Starter

I made my first successful batch of sour dough bread quite a while ago and wrote about the experience. Thought I would share it here!

• It was pretty good if I do say so myself. When I first attempted it after activating the sour dough cultures I bought from http://www.fermentedtreasures.com/bsourdough.html The instructions said that it might take a few weeks and even months for the full “sour” flavor to develop. My first couple of batches were pretty much failures.
• Here is the recipe I used and it made two large loaf pan sized loaves

  Basic SourDough Bread
  1 Quart Sourdough Starter
  6+ cups freshly ground spelt, kamut or hard winter wheat (I used hard white wheat)
  1 tbsp coarse sea salt
  1 cup cold filtered water

  Traditional sourdough bread, prepared with a starter rather than with yeast, has a delicious flavor. Spelt gives the most satisfactory loaf.

  The starter should be at room temperature and have gone through the bubbling, frothy stage, like the picture below.
  

  Place starter, salt and 1 cup water in a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until the salt crystals have dissolved. Slowly mix in the flour. Towards the end you will find it easier to mix with your hands. You may add more water if the dough becomes too thick. It should be rather soft and easy to work. Knead by pulling and folding over, right in the bowl, for 10 to 15 minutes; or knead in batches in your food processor.

  Without pressing down the dough, cut or shape loves into the desired shapes or place into 2 large well buttered loaf pans or 4 smaller loaf pans. Cut a few slits in the top of the dough, cover and let rise from 4 to 12 hours, depending on the temperature. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Allow to cool before slicing.

  The bread will keep for a week without refrigeration.

  Here is how mine looked this evening.
  

  I originally ordered both the San Francisco and Yukon strains/flavors of sourdough but was unable to taste the difference and it was a pain keeping both cultures alive separately so I combined them. I am greatly encouraged by how easy this recipe was and how good the results were!