I am a total bread baking noob but I love to eat it. Sourdough is my absolute favorite, so I need to give this a try.
I know I will need starter (I was planning on buying some online as I don’t know anyone irl), and I have a Dutch oven. Yes, there are tons of recipes online, but I want your tried-and-true ones, especially if they are suited for altitude.
Or maybe I need to read a book? If so, which one?
Basically, how do I stuff my face with homemade sourdough in the easiest way possible?
Thank you all!
I made my own starter with the tartine method and used that for a few years. Then I ordered some “200 year old” starter on Etsy. I’m not 100% sold on it’s age, but it’s way funkier and more flavorful than my starter ever was. I might suggest buying some like that if you’re just trying to dip your toes in. Good luck!
I was looking on etsy too. Now my inner scientist wants to buy one and make one and compare.
Don’t. Starters contain the yeast that’s in the flour and the air where they are made. So whatever yeasts are in your bought starter – they will quickly be replaced by the ones you add.
You will end up with what you’ve gotten with your own flour anyway, so don’t bother.
The taste of the starter depends on the flour, a whole rye flour starter will be very different from an italian tipo 00 flour madre lievito.
And since nobody mentioned this: watch the quality of your water. Tap water is very good where I live, but it might be chlorinated at your place.
That’s really not correct. Yes the flour you use to feed the starter will impact the flavor but not change it. The starter is a colony of bacteria of a certain type, from a certain region. The flour is their food, not another bacterial colony that will replace the one that gives a unique flavor.
Maybe if you’re leaving your starter out in the open for days on end, or uncovered in a dark cabinet the local bacteria will take over. But if you leave your starter sealed in the fridge and only take it out to use and feed, then it will keep the flavor of what you bought.
Source: the starter I bought on Etsy still smells and tastes the same as it did when I bought it a year ago even though I’ve been feeding it my flour. Also, science.
Aha. Well, you’re right about one thing: sourdough is a symbiotic colony of not just yeast but also LAB. Everything else…
Where do you think the yeast and LAB in your starter come from? Why do you have regional differences in microbial composition? Why do rye and wheat starter have completely different proportions of LAB and yeast? What happens if you change the temperature of your starter during the growth phase?
Go ahead, split your starter, feed one part each with rye, wheat, spelt flour. Now go and take the same flour but grow one at a different temperature from the other. Come back again in three weeks, tell me they’re still the same starter.
Your starter is a product of it’s surroundings, that is your house microbiota, flour, also water and temperature. And maybe the defining variable is your local microbiota, not the flour, IDK. Doesn’t matter.
I highly doubt that a) you have a proper recollection of smell and taste of something you assessed a year ago and b) your senses are a proper indicator of microbial composition.
Source: I studied sensory evaluation methods and conducted studies with several hundred participants.
Lol
Glad you got some laughs. You’re still incorrect. I remember exactly what it smells like. And I still have my original starter, both fed the same flour, both completely different. Again, I keep my starter sealed in the fridge, any trace amounts of small bacteria are overcome by the massive colony of bacteria already there.
Can you please explain how the puratos lab (https://sourdoughlibrary.puratos.com/en/) maintains their collection of starters if they all become the same thing when you feed them the same flour?
What does that have to do with bread? lol.
Then you say: And maybe the defining variable is your local microbiota, not the flour, IDK
Which is it? Does the flour matter or not? lol that was the point I was disagreeing with then you flip flop or something.
Aye caramba man just bake some bread.
Yeah, I can explain that:
“… refreshed every two months with the original flour with which it was made, thereby replicating conditions in the original bakery.”
https://www.questforsourdough.com/puratos-library
Funny, mh?
Nothing, it means you don’t have any idea how “that starter from etsy” smelled.
🙄 You really have issues reading, don’t you.
My point was that a bought starter will change at your home, but since your own source shows that it is in fact the flour, you probably should go bake some bread. aY cArAmBa.
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That makes so much sense! Ok, I shall start my own and experiment with flour. I think my tap water sucks (but I don’t think it’s chlorinated), so I would definitely use filtered.
Any water that will sustain a human can be used for making a starter. Good luck my friend!
That’s nonsense. Chlorinated water is harmless for any human but will make short work of your starter.
There’s chlorine in drinking water. There’s also chlorine in swimming pools. Go drink a bunch of pool water and see how you feel. Then bake with some drinking water. Then bake bread with pool water, and then try some bleach and see how it goes.
Thank you!