This is the essence of every Ferm loaf. New Mexican sourdough starter made from freshly milled, locally sourced,  whole wheat and whole rye flour.
 
This jar contains a portion of our all New Mexican sourdough starter. It was made and maintained using reverse osmosis water from La Montanita Coop, freshly milled hard red wheat berries from Mountain Mama Milling and rye berries from Central Milling.
 
This starter has been fed twice daily using a 1:2:2 ratio of starter to water to flour, if you plan to bake regularly we suggest maintaining this feeding schedule. If you will be baking intermittently you can store the starter in the refrigerator, take it out and start the normal feeding schedule at least 3 days before planning to bake.
 
To maintain your new starter please discard all but 1 tablespoon of starter. Weigh that amount and add twice that amount in water and the same for flour. We like to dissolve my tablespoon of starter in my water before adding the flour. This ensures a well mixed starter. We like to keep my starter fairly warm, generally between 70F-80F. The easiest way to do this is to warm the water before mixing it with the starter and flour then keep it in a warm place.
 
A note on water: We’ve used every water source we can find and have found that spring water is best, filtered water is good and reverse osmosis water is pretty good. We do not recommend using tap water or filtered water from the tap due to the high chlorine content and hardness of local municipal water and in fact have noticed a sluggish response from my starter when using it.