Leaven is a sourdough made with white flour. It is made by letting water and flour in a 50:50 ratio ferment for 24 hours, then replace half of that mixture every 24 hours with fresh flour and water. If you do that for a week or so, you’ll have a leaven, hydration 100%.

5gr of fresh yeast would approx. be 1-2g of dry yeast. Slightly less than an eighth of a teaspoon, I believe. If it is very hot where you live, you can reduce the amount of yeast still, because heat will make the dough rise faster. I do this in the summer. Another technique of keeping the dough from over-reacting so to speak, is to mix water, yeast and salt together in order to sterilize the yeast. I learned that only recently.

Also what is leaven?

Thanks

@ tatter: It’s one of my favorites from The Handmade Loaf, generally, I have had great results with the combination of yeast and white sourdough.

I know, Jeremy, but I’m always hungry, a pure sourdough bread will just take too long. By the time this loaf was ready, I couldn’t get it fast enough into my mouth *lol*

Shellyfish, please do, once you have some sourdough, it should work a treat.