01
02
03
04
05
06
07
Sourdough
pào cài mū shuǐ | 泡菜母水
Kombucha
Nukadoko | 糠床 (ぬかどこ)
bái suān tāng | 白酸汤 (under construction)
hóng suān tāng | 红酸汤 (under construction)
sakadane | 酒種
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
Sourdough
pào cài mū shuǐ | 泡菜母水
Kombucha
Nukadoko | 糠床 (ぬかどこ)
bái suān tāng | 白酸汤 (under construction)
hóng suān tāng | 红酸汤 (under construction)
sakadane | 酒種
In some areas, tap water contains chlorine for disinfection purposes — but this can also kill the microbes we need for fermentation. In that case, you can either boil the water in a pot with a wide opening to let the chlorine evaporate (an electric kettle may not do the job), or you may need to buy bottled water.
Water also differs in terms of mineral content. While hard water contains more minerals — which can serve as fuel for microbes — it sometimes tastes worse than soft water. But we’ll come back to this topic in the kombucha chapter.
I find it much easier to work with organic produce, as it’s free from pesticides. This is especially important when doing any kind of lacto fermentation with vegetables or fruits — you don’t need to scrub the skins too hard when cleaning them, and that’s where the most vibrant microbes usually live.
If organic products aren’t available, try to find fresh produce from your local market, or forage for wild food.
It might be a myth that your starter will die if you don’t do so…
but I still find it cute to give a name to the little creature you’re taking care of!
Natural yeast fed simply with water and flour for bread baking
I got this starter from a friend, whose aunt originally raised it in East Germany in the early 1990s, when their family opened an organic store that also sold freshly baked sourdough bread. So I named this starter after his aunt.
starter : flour : water
I’d rather keep a low quantity of sourdough to avoid having too many discard. So I usually keep 5 gram from previous batch, add 25g of water and 25g of flour.
For my standard bread I usually need 40g of sourdough, and that would be more than enough.
In case you store it in the fridge, you can try to
Brigitte is definitely an omnivore. I’ve tried wheat, rye, spelt, emmer, einkorn, quinoa, buckwheat, rice, corn... and she gets along with all of them!
You can decide the percentage of each flour type in your bread. I like to use 200g whole grain (often a mix of different whole grains), and 200g of German Typ 1050 or Italian Tipo 0.
300g water (75% hydration)
This is not a fixed number. Rye and quinoa absorb more water than other whole grain flours. Flours with higher protein allow for stronger gluten development, which also means they can handle more water.
If you want to make sourdough baking a long-term hobby, it's worth documenting your parameters each time — your intuition will develop over time!
40g sourdough starter (10% of the flour)
6g salt
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1. Mix all the ingredients.
Some people prefer to mix just the flour and water first (autolysis) to improve gluten development. Others prefer to mix the water, starter, and whole grain flour first, so the microbes can start enjoying their whole grain meal early on.
Every method has its reasoning — just do what feels right to you!
2. Knead the dough
Knead until you see the "windowpane effect" — a sign of good gluten structure.
3. Fold the dough every 30–60 minutes.
I personally never leave the dough at room temperature for more than 5 hours, as it can easily over-ferment.
Again, documenting your process each time — including the resting time between steps — really helps in the long run.
4. Shape the dough and place it in a basket. Bulk fermentation begins.
I prefer to keep bulk fermentation at room temperature for no more than 1 hour, then transfer the dough to the fridge overnight.
I once heard in a workshop that fermentation needs to last at least 8 hours for the nutrients in the flour to be fully transformed into a more digestible form. That’s why some people with FODMAP sensitivities can tolerate long-fermented sourdough, but not the 2-hour supermarket bread.
5. Score the bread and bake.
Be quick and bold with your scoring!
Adding steam at the beginning is essential. I find that tossing a few ice cubes into the Dutch oven is much easier than using a spray bottle.
This is a very simplified step-by-step recipe. I assume anyone who got this sourdough starter has at least some experience with bread baking.
If not, don’t worry — you’ll find tons of tutorials in any languages across the internet!
5g dehydrated sourdough
15g water
Let it sit, stir, let it sit again, stir again — over the course of about two hours, the dried starter will gradually dissolve into the water.
2
Add:
Previous starter mixture (from step 1)
15g flour
15g water
Stir vigorously to incorporate as much oxygen as possible into the mixture.
3
Once the starter begins to bubble and develops a pleasantly sour smell, it means the microbes have reawakened.
Continue repeating Step 2 every 12–24 hours.
When the starter can double in volume within a few hours after feeding, it’s fully reactivated — you can now switch to your regular feeding schedule and begin baking with it.
Some dehydrated sourdough starters
泡菜母水
Based on its meaning, it can probably be translated into English as follows:
'Mother Water of Pickles’
I started this batch 08. 2023 in Berlin. This year (2025) when I was back in Changsha, China, my hometown, I got a 20 years old batch from a friend of my grandma and added it to mine batch.
Lao Tan Pao Cai (老坛泡菜) means ‘pickles from an old jar’.
It refers to a jar that usually starts with a batch of vegetables lacto-fermented in around 7% salt brine, and is then constantly fed with fresh vegetables over time.
Pao Cai Mu Shui (泡菜母水) is the brine from such a permanent jar, which contains a lot of active lactic acid bacteria. You can add the brine to your regular lacto fermentation to accelerate the process, or to start your own Lao Tan Pao Cai from scratch.
Once you have a Lao Tan Pao Cai, you can simply toss fresh vegetables into the jar and take them out the next day — this is called Tiao Shui Pao Cai (跳水泡菜), ‘diving pickles’.
Prepare a mix fresh vegetables, including some aromatic roots and spices, such as garlic, celery, chili, ginger, radishes, etc, put them into the jar.
Garlic and ginger can goes to the bottom of the jar, as they can stay in the jar for a way longer time. then chili and celery, then some roots plant.
pull in the water till it reach a 90% full of the jar, take the water out, mix a spoon of salt into it, pull the water back into the jar
at the end, cover the top with a cabbage leaf and some weight over, make sure everything stays under water.
based on your taste, you canalso drop 1-2 spoons of your favorite high-proof alcohol to add more flavour.
seal the jar, make sure no oxygen will penetrate!
observe if any air bubble is occuring along the time. it shoul be ready after about 7 days.
once it’s down, you can start taking out the top veggies and put new one inside. Don’t forget to add equivalent salt every time you add new veggies!
1
Prepare a jar of at least 1liter capacity.
2
Prepare a mix of fresh vegetables
including some aromatic roots and spices such as garlic, celery, chili, ginger, radish, etc.
Place them into the jar.
3
Layering of the veggies in the jar
Put garlic and ginger at the bottom — they can stay in the jar much longer. Then add chili and celery, followed by root vegetables.
4
Pour water into the jar
until it reaches about 90% full.
Then pour the water back out into a bowl, stir in a spoonful of salt, and pour the brine back into the jar.
5
Finish by covering the top with a cabbage leaf
and placing a weight on top to keep everything submerged.
6
Optional
Add 1–2 spoonfuls of your favorite high-proof alcohol to boost the flavor.
7
Seal the jar tightly to keep oxygen out!
8
Observe daily — if bubbles start to appear, fermentation has begun. It should be ready in about 7 days at a room temperature
9
Once it's ready, you can start removing some of the top vegetables and replacing them with fresh ones.
Each time you add new vegetables, don’t forget to add the equivalent amount of salt to maintain the balance!
Veggies prepared for the Jar.
Chilis and read radishes are giving the water a nice color
My jar started tasting so much more delicious after a full year of feeding and care.
Recently, I received a 20-year-old batch from a friend of my grandmother’s and added it to my jar.
The smell of the pickles became far more intense and complex than ever before — now it brings me so much joy just to open the jar each time!
Photo of the 20-year-old jar from my grandma’s friend
— a traditional form used for storing pickles.
A probiotic drink
I got a piece of scoby from a girl in Berlin that I connected with on xiaohongshu in the winter of 2024.
tea leaves(depending on the tea variety) : fermented liquid : sugar : water
+ a piece of SCOBY
For example:
Brew 8g of black tea leaves with around 900g of water. Keep tasting the tea to make sure the flavor doesn’t go off.
Dissolve 100g of sugar into the hot tea.
Once it cools down to room temperature, add 100g of pre-fermented liquid and a piece of SCOBY.
Meanwhile, in China, some people who call themselves kombucha orthodox insist on using only high-quality tea leaves. They see kombucha as an extension of the tasting culture surrounding traditional tea ceremonies.
Personally, I also enjoy making kombucha solely with tea, partly because it’s more accessible to me, but also because I believe the quality of the tea determines everything. If you know how to brew a good cup of tea, you can be sure the resulting kombucha will taste fantastic.
When brewing tea for kombucha, I always check the TDS level of the water—either filtering tap water or using bottled water with low mineral content. I’ve tried brewing large batches in a big pot, but I always end up going back to the traditional gaiwan method. It gives me better control over the brewing time for each infusion, and thus the flavor. Plus, it helps me avoid that slight metallic taste that sometimes comes from stainless steel pots.
Brewing with Gaiwan
The color change before and after the fermentation
coffee bean : fermented liquid : sugar : water
For example:
Grind 100g of coffee beans and let them sit in 900g of cold water in the fridge for 24–48 hours.
Dissolve 100g of sugar in 100g of boiling water.
Once the coffee is ready, strain out the grounds and mix in the sugar water.
When everything has cooled to room temperature, add your starter liquid and a SCOBY.
That said, this method uses a relatively large amount of coffee beans, so I’m always a bit hesitant about whether I should keep making it.
I’m not a coffee expert (just a regular cappuccino drinker), so maybe this is something better explored by someone more deeply into coffee — especially with different types of beans.
Someone I met in Changsha once recommended trying to brew kombucha using whole coffee beans, without grinding them. A friend from Colombia, who’s building his own coffee brand, told me that in some of the farms he visited, people even make kombucha with the flesh of the coffee fruit. These are flavors I can only try to imagine!
A traditianal Japanese way to make pickels with rice bran
Zuke (漬け | つけ) means pickle.
Nukazuke (糠漬け) Traditional Japanese pickles made using rice bran.
Nukadoko (糠床 | ぬかどこ) literally means “bran bed.” It refers to the seasoned rice bran base in which vegetables (or other ingredients) are buried and fermented.
Another easier way to start a nukadoko is by using a pre-mixed pack from a Japanese market.
Alternatively, you can introduce active lactic acid bacteria using other fermented foods—such as sake, laozao, or the brine from pao cai—as a starter.
That said, this only works if you’re okay with those ingredients leaving some of their own flavor in the nukadoko.
My nukadoko is mainly seasoned with plenty of black pepper and the peels of lemon and lime. This was inspired by recipes where people use Sichuan pepper and Yuzu peel—ingredients that, unfortunately, aren’t easily accessible where I live.
I also mix in the discard from my sakadane starter. I imagine the microbes from both should get along just fine.
Radish and carrots are very typical, though I’m not a big fan of them. Aubergine is also quite common, but I’ve heard that European varieties can be too firm for this kind of fermentation.
There are also recipes for fermenting tofu, eggs, tomatoes, even avocado.
But so far, I’m definitely the biggest fan of nuka apple!
I came across a blog post by the Nordic Food Lab documenting their nukadoko recipe using oat bran and beer
If you’re based in Europe and really miss the classic rice bran flavor, you might try reaching out to some organic farms in Italy—there’s a better chance of finding it there.
A liquid starter fed with koji and rice, can be used to ferment dough.
Common in China and Japan for Bao cooking and bread baking.
born on 10.07.2025 in Berlin
Previous starter : cooked rice : koji : water
My regular feeding amount:
5g previous starter
25g rice
15g koji
15g water
After the feeding, let it sit at room temperature for 12 hours. Then aerate, seal, and refrigerate overnight for the use at the next day.
As I am very new with this type of starter, so far I have been only making toast with it. But the plan is to try it with more sweet and fluffy pastry, such as Baozi, Juanzi, Germknödel etc.
Toast
PS:
I'm using a Japanese L160 toast form (about 160 × 80 × 80 mm).
Pre-dough
37g sakadane
37g milk
37g flour
Let rest at room temperature for 1.5–2 hours until it doubles in volume.
Main dough
Predough
150g flour
I enjoy eating soft, white (admittedly unhealthy) toast, so for this type of bread, I prefer using flour with high gluten and low ash content. In Germany, where I live, that means looking for flour with a type number below 450, but with more than 12g of protein per 100g—which is nearly impossible to find. So I usually go for Italian tipo 00 flour or pizza flour instead.85g milk
20g yoghurt
10g sugar
3g salt
10g butter
Mix all the ingredients until well combined, and let the dough proof at room temperature for 1–2 hours. Then cover and place it in the fridge to ferment overnight.
On the second day, take the dough out of the fridge and let it come back to room temperature for about 30 minutes.
Shape the dough and place it into the toast form. Let it continue fermenting at room temperature until it rises to 80–90% of the height of the form. This can take anywhere between 2 to 6 hours, depending on the environment and dough activity.
Bake at around 200°C for about 30 minutes. Adjust based on your oven and preferred crust color.