Adventures In Sourdough

We've made it to the half term break and it's felt like September and October have been pretty busy, hence the lack of posts over the last few weeks. Today has been a momentous one in the life of my new sourdough starter though, so I thought I'd take a break while it's quiet (ha!) and share the excitement with you. Yes, over the last week I've been getting a new starter going after my last one died in the heat of the summer, and today I baked my first batch of bread with it. It was very tasty indeed.

Sourdough bread has a long and illustrious history: the Egyptians made it, and it was an essential food during the Alaskan gold rush, when I'm told people would sleep with their starter to keep it from getting too cold. Starters have been passed down through families for generations, although I've never managed to keep mine going for more than a few months before it dies (largely down to busyness or forgetfulness on my part). A sourdough starter is made from flour and water. There's no yeast added to it - the bread is leavened naturally, as the wild yeasts floating around your kitchen settle on the flour and water and begin to do their thing. You'll very likely have seen sourdough bread on sale in artisan bakeries and farmers' markets for what looks like a ludicrous price: if you've never tried it, I can tell you that it's worth the money. Sourdough bread is so pricey because it takes a fair bit of time to make, and it needs more love and care than other types of bread, but it's not difficult (and it's considerably cheaper) to make your own. You just need a bit of patience.

You'll find that there are about as many different methods of getting a sourdough starter going as there are people who make it. As I've dabbled over the last few years, I've discovered that even if you start in strict adherence to someone else's method, you end up tweaking things to suit your own way of doing things anyway. It's a food which comes with an attached community - if you google 'sourdough' you'll find forums dedicated to the art of making it, and they can be very useful if you run into trouble with your bread. Here's how I've been making mine most recently, in case you fancy having a go.

I have a 1 litre kilner jar to keep my starter in. I start by mixing 60g flour and 4 tablespoons of water (at around 20 degrees C). Before now, I've mixed bog standard strong white flour with fancier organic mixed grain stuff, but my current starter is just strong white. People talk a lot about using organic flour because it hasn't been treated with substances that stunt the growth of the yeasts, but I find it works fine with any bread flour. I leave the jar with the lid propped open in a warm place, like a sunny windowsill. I want the wild yeasts in the air to settle on my mixture and for fermentation to start, and for that the mixture needs to be reasonably warm. After a couple of days, there should be a few bubbles. If this is the case, I add the same amounts of flour and water again. I check the mixture each day: it should begin to smell slightly acidic, or even a little alcoholic but not unpleasant. If it starts to smell nasty, it should be thrown away and started again. There should be more bubbles after 4 or 5 days. From now on, each day I tip half of the mixture away (it is compostable), and add 120g of whatever flour I'm using and 120ml of water. At this point it's possible to see that the mixture has a point after feeding where it is noticeably more 'excited' and it's worth putting the jar in a bowl in case it overflows.

Hello, little yeasts...

After a week, the starter should be ready to use, although it takes a little while for it to mature and produce a really good loaf. It's a matter of experimentation from here on in, but I find that half of the mixture added to 500g of strong white flour, a couple of tablespoons of sugar and some salt (to taste) works pretty well. I add enough water to make a slightly sticky dough - I've discovered that if you make the dough with the same quantities of water to flour as conventionally raised bread, you end up with a tough, dense loaf, which is good for weaponry but not much else. I leave it to prove under cling film/a clean tea towel for between 8 and 12 hours and usually find it has expanded enough to make 2 smaller loaves. I like to make it in the evening so that it proves overnight. I don't bother proving a second time - at this point, I divide it into 2, shape it and bake it for about 25 minutes at around 200°C. 

That's more or less it, although I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would make it differently. When your starter is established, you can leave it a day or two without feeding it, and revive it with a feed before you bake with it again. You can slow it down in the fridge too, if you don't want to make any bread for a few days. You can even give some of your starter away to a fortunate recipient so that they can share in the sourdough joy. Happy baking!