What I Learned About Sourdough Starter
I got sucked into the world of sourdough when I saw a video of someone on Instagram shaping a ball of dough. She looked so relaxed and it looked so soothing, I was captivated! I have always enjoyed my attempts at making bread (for the most part!) but never took it too seriously. Half of my dough would get stuck to my hands or the countertop, I’d be left with a big blobby mess, but watever I baked came out tasting delicious, if it was cooked all the way through the middle!
Enter: sourdough. a process that takes 10x as long with that much more flavor too! Not to mention the health benefits of a long fermented loaf and making your own bread without all of the extra preservatives added in from a store bought loaf. I have a hard time thinking of another food that is more satisfying to make than a loaf of bread!
Lots of people are willing to share their sourdough knowledge but I would venture to say, there are thousands of different ways to make a loaf of sourdough bread! Also, my kitchen may produce a loaf and starter that behaves slightly different than your kitchen. For this reason, it was a long process to find resources that answered all of my questions in one spot.
A little over a year ago, I built a starter from scratch as a small science experiment. I made all the mistakes with volume amounts and feeding frequency and ratio I am sure. I put that baby in my fridge and left it all summer long. Sometime in the fall I pulled it out of the fridge, revived it, and had a more lively starter than ever!
By November 2021 I was baking with my starter more regularly, determined to solve the puzzle that is sourdough bread. After a few lucky loaves and some more research, I now understand more about why I am doing what I’m doing and sometimes even how to fix what is going wrong. I am far from a sourdough expert but I would like to share here what I have learned in the process and some of my favorite resources in the hopes of helping you too!
Starter at its peak!
Size of Feeding: When I began with my starter experiment, I followed King Arthur’s starter guide. This helped me keep my starter alive and active but I felt like I was wasting a LOT of flour. Even if I baked with my discard every day, I was feeding my starter twice a day with 113 g of flour and 113 g of water. I read at some point about maintaining a smaller starter and when I made this switch, the amount of discard became much more manageable!
Feeding Ratio: A few recent bakes were lacking the oven spring I was looking for and I believe my starter was not strong enough at that point. I had been feeding it at a 1:1:1 ratio (equal parts starter, flour, and water) but I read about different feeding ratios which really made sense in my mind. If my starter was supposed to rise a loaf of bread that had 5 times more flour than it originally contained, it needed to be strong. So I began keeping 10g of starter and feeding it 50 g of flour and 50 g of water. This gives me 100 g to use in a recipe or 100 g of discard. If I need more starter for a recipe, I simply do a larger feed that morning. Since changing my feeding ratio, my loaves have had more consistent rises in the oven.
Feeding Frequency: This problem resolved itself when I adjusted my feeding ratio. When I fed at a 1:1:1 ratio, the starter ate through its food very quickly. It would double in size in just a few hours and I needed to feed it twice a day to avoid it getting depleted. When I switched to a ratio of 1:5:5 I found I can feed once a day. If I feed in the morning, my starter is ready to use for a loaf of bread by the afternoon. It also has enough to feed on for a full 24 hours between feedings.
Types of Flour: I began my starter using whole wheat flour and water, after reading that whole wheat provided more for the natural yeasts to feed on. This did not produce a particularly strong starter for me however. When I added in all purpose flour, I found my starter got much more active so I slowly switched it over completely. My take away: what works for somebody else may not work best in my own kitchen!
Water Temperature: I used to ONLY feed my starter with warm water. I actually see some benefit to using cold water to slowing down the starter on occasion. Temperature is one of many variables that will affect how your starter behaves and I have learned how to use that to my advantage.
Storage Container: There are as many different ways to store your starter as there are ways to feed it! As much as I would love to buy all the cute jars to store my starter and discard in, a super basic mason jar does the job perfectly. I have some plastic reusable lids from Walmart, which I use for counter top and fridge storage. My take away: be content with using what you’ve got!