Jesse's blog

Sourdough series, ep. 1: the starter of conspiracy

How to keep a sourdough starter: the easy way

There is a conspiracy in the world of bread. It's a conspiracy with a real cost. Neglected sourdough starters are abandoned, and doughy dreams of sourdough bliss discarded in trashcans and compost. Dreamers forlorn when they can't keep up with the relentless maintenance. Or if they doggedly do, they may find themselves oppressed, a slave to daily—or twice daily—feedings, and the discard they may try to save, piles up or with guilt is thrown out, never to find its way into a loaf of bread.

The world of bread wants you to believe that maintaining your starter is hard. That this is how it is, always has been, and will always be. This is the myth I aim to dispel. Maintaining you starter can be easy and infrequent. Read on if you wish to learn how.

I have a theory that, when there are many right ways to do something, we will find the most dogma. I believe this is human nature. We find a path that worked for us and proclaim it the One True Path. This is true in the biggest questions our species faces: religion, purpose, morality, politics, child-rearing, dieting, and of course bread.

My approach is unorthodox, but I do not claim the one and only truth. I just want to show you what's possible, and how you can develop a relationship with your starter that feeds you both, and leaves you with the time, freedom, and peace of mind. Before we get into my approach, we must first address the status quo.

Most resources you can find will say that your starter must be 50% flour 50% water. Ideally half whole wheat, half bread flour (god help you if you use all-purpose). You must feed it once daily, and perhaps twice daily for a day or two before your bake to get it "awake" and productive. Every time you feed it you must pour out half of your starter (the discard), and replace the lost flour and water. This ends up creating a lot of waste. Depending on how much starter you keep, it will extinguish your flour supply quickly, with little bread to show for it.

I don't refute this advice, but I do claim that none of it is necessary. We'll make a few simple adjustments and soon we'll be on our way to waste free starter. It won't make the most beautiful loaves, but they will still impress and more importantly it will be easy and cheap to maintain.

First, remember what bread is: neglected, wet flour that wills itself into existence. Someone decided to heat it up, and bam. Bread. The parameters are broad. You can do just about anything and you'll get bread. It may not be the best bread or the prettiest, but as long as you didn't forget the salt it's gonna taste pretty darn good. So forget the dogma, and let's find what works for us.

Enough prelude. Here's the recipe. Explanation to follow.

The recipe

  1. Add a spoonful of starter to your vessel. Jars work, but I prefer a wider, glass tupperware, which makes access and cleaning easier. You'll want a loosely fitting lid or plastic wrap.
  2. Place on your scale and add ~70-80 grams of water. Stir to dissolve the starter in the vessel.
  3. Add flour until you're at ~200 grams. Plus or minus 20 grams is fine.
  4. Stir (I just use a spoon for this) and when this is difficult, kneed with your hands until all the flour is wet and you have a cohesive dough.
  5. Mush it down into the bottom of your vessel.
  6. Leave it out, out of the sun, for at least a day. Then it's ready to make bread with. It won't stop being ready. If it's been out for a two or three days, and you realize you're not about to make bread, put it in the fridge. This should buy you a couple weeks at least, but maybe more.
  7. When it's time to bake (bread recipe to follow in another post), you'll use 90+% of your starter (200 grams). The ~20 grams of scrapings and leftovers on the spoon you used to scoop are all you need to repeat the process at step 2.

Explanation

We're using a drier starter than most recipes call for. That's OK and it will still work great. I don't like the word starter because everything is a starter. A hunk of dough can be your starter. Weeks old discard in your mothers fridge is starter (and I've used it to bake wonderful loafs with out any round of feeding before hand). This drier starter will develop more slowly than a wetter one. This is great for us (you and me) because we don't bake every day and because we won't have to worry as much about mold, etc.

You'll notice the measurements I used are all vague. I've made great bread from 100 grams of starter and from 250 grams. The point is, you don't have to worry so much. Bread wants to exist, and a little tweak of the ratios isn't going to stop it. Just use what you have and don't worry so much if a little extra water or a little extra flour falls in.

I suppose the last "innovation" here is that we don't feed it. Done. You don't need to. You'll still get great bread. And you don't need much from the old starter to restart the new one. Just a little bit of dough will do it. Even better, the scrapings stuck to the side of your starter bowl after you've dumped most of it into the loaf should be sufficient.

I'll update this post with pictures, stay tuned. Bread recipe to follow. Questions? Feedback? Want to tell me how wrong I am? Email bread at the domain of this blog.