Busting Sourdough Myths
I have long loved eating sourdough bread. A grilled cheese with sharp cheddar on sourdough is one of the best simple meals you can make. Who doesn’t like a nice loaf of fresh baked, crusty bread? I’ve made many loaves of yeast bread, but had always been too scared to make the jump to making my own sourdough, even though I’ve never been 100% happy with any of the crusty yeast breads I’ve made at home. But many of the things I thought about making sourdough bread just aren’t true.
Myth #1 Maintaining a Sourdough Starter is Hard
Yes, a sourdough starter is a living thing. Yes, it needs to be fed. But no, this thing is not a child or even a pet that requires hours of your time every week. First, the only equipment you need to keep a starter going is a scale that measures in grams, two mason jars with lids, flour, and water.
I keep my starter in the fridge. You can keep it there for weeks, without touching it and it will be fine. I’ve gone about three weeks without feeding, and at refrigerator temperatures, it had barely grown. If I know I’m going to bake the next day, I’ll pull the starter out of the fridge at night and let it sit on the counter, possibly feeding it before going to bed. It only needs an hour or two before it’s ready to be fed. You could also feed it in the morning, but then you’ll need to wait a few hours (depending on temperature) before baking. It’s ready when it’s nice and bubbly and doubled in size, roughly 4 hours at room temperature. After you pull the active starter you need for baking, you use more of the active starter to feed it again, put the rest in your discard container, and put the fed container back on the counter. An hour or two later, it goes back in the fridge until you’re ready to repeat.
Myth #2: Feeding A Starter is Hard
To actually feed the starter, start with a clean mason jar on your kitchen scale. Assuming you’re targeting having 90g or less of ripe starter for your next recipe, I use 50g the number for each of the ingredients (remember you’ll want about 1/3 of it to feed the next batch, if you are targeting the same starter size). So put your 50g of starter into the clean jar, followed by 25g of whole wheat flour, then 25g of white flour, and 50g of water. Mix it up, and you should have something resembling pancake batter. Put the lid on loosely, and I like to put a rubber band around the jar so I can easily tell when it’s doubled in size. One other tip: it’s easy to overdo the water, so I recommend measuring it in another container and then adding it to the starter.
You can use all white flour, but whole wheat has more nutrients and enzymes to help keep your starter healthy. I wouldn’t recommend doing all whole wheat though.
All your extra starter can be kept indefinitely in the fridge. I put it all together in a jar so I can use it for things like sourdough discard waffles (my new favorite waffle recipe). I use a mason jar with a solid lid so I can easily tell it apart.
Myth #3: Baking Sourdough Bread is Hard
I always assumed baking sourdough bread would be like making baguettes. It’s not. On a clock, it takes more time than a yeast bread, but most of the time is inactive. Most of the recipes take minutes to put together and then require only quick interventions over the next hours. Many of my better yeast bread recipes take an hour or more of work. Stay tuned for my favorite recipe to date.