Category Archives: Sourdough

Sourdough Saga: Episode 2 – keep calm and carry on?

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So sourdough-1 went in the bin, and after a thorough clean out, sourdough-2 began…

Split starterI started initially with rye flour again, but used bottled water this time.  My initial batter was far too thin (I started with equal volumes of flour and water rather than equal weights – not quite sure what I was thinking really!), on day 2 when I got the initial bacterial bubble-up the whole thing split like curdled milk.  Thanks to some more supportive advice from twitter, I didn’t panic.  Keep calm and carry on, so they say.  Too much water, not enough flour, feed and perhaps move somewhere slightly cooler.  Done.

Do all starters get talked to this much?  Never has an inanimate object of mine been so cajoled & pleaded with.  I speak to it softly, encourage its efforts, and wish it goodnight and good morning.  My husband wonders if I’m losing my marbles… if only just a little bit!

I got my hands on some locally stoneground wholemeal flour, so I switched to this for feedings. As the batter was still on the thin side, I didn’t pause for doubling at day 3, but carried on with daily feeding.  Because the material on the sides of the jar was the first to grow mould last time, I made a habit of swilling out the jar to clean the sides at each feeding. The smell was good (quite yeasty and sourdoughy!) but only a few scant bubbles were rising to the surface.

More great advice came flooding in after I published Episode 1 of the Sourdough Saga – including the recommendation not to cover the starter.   Perhaps this was where I was going wrong, even with the lid lightly resting on the top of the jar, was I  suffocating my starter by depriving it of air?  A week after starting and not much was happening, so this seemed a theory worth pursuing.  Discarding the lid from the jar, I strapped a little kitchen-towel bonnet over the starter jar with a rubber band.  Things did start to look a bit more active on the surface of the starter at around that time.  Had I got something right at last?

The next morning dawned to apparent disaster.  Literally overnight, the whole top of my starter had bloomed with creamy-coloured velvety mould!  I was so upset I didn’t even think to photograph it.  More desperate scratching through the deeper sourdough-focused recesses of the internets ensued.  Someone promised that even really neglected starters, all moulded over, could be resuscitated – but since mine had never yet really come to life, could it work for me?  Had I perhaps caused this mouldy horror by leaving my starter uncovered for the surface to dry out?

Out of sheer bloody-mindedness, and muttering something about ‘not giving up now’ under my breath, I scratched the furry stuff from the surface of my starter as well as I could.  What was left, I mixed with more flour and water (gently warmed, this time) and tipped back into the jar.  The starter had developed a ‘winey’ smell I wasn’t at all sure I liked.  I got rid of its bonnet, reverting to the loose glass lid, turned my back on it, and leaving it without even my usual gentle words of encouragement, went out for the day, expecting to find more mould & disaster on my return.

Bubbled up and at least doubled in size

Six hours later, you might have knocked me down with a feather.  The damned thing had bubbled up to very nearly twice the size I’d left it, and was a sponge of small even holes visible through the sides of the jar.  I nearly wept.  Instead, I swore, colourfully.  Not a trace of fuzzy mould was visible.  In fact, a better impression of all the ‘happy, thriving starters’ whose photos I’d been coveting on other, more successful blogs, I couldn’t imagine.

I tried to share with my lovely husband quite what an exciting turn of events this was.  He seemed pleased for me, also somewhat (indulgently) nonplussed.

I left it overnight, and fed it again in the morning.  Coming home from work tonight, I found it doubled again.  I can’t quite believe it.  It looks so good, but I can’t convince myself there isn’t still something wrong with it now?  I’ve fed it again this evening, getting the volume up so there’s enough to harvest for a loaf or two.  Can I just use it, soon?  What, if anything, should I be worrying about now??  It looks great, and smells great, it grows like a weed, does that mean it *is* great?  Is there any way of telling?

This whole process has been the most insane and unexpected emotional roller-coaster ride.  Is this just all sent to make me *really grateful* for my new daily bread??  More importantly, my wise blog friends, can I make a mostly-white loaf from a wholemeal starter, or should I stick to matching flour for now?  So many questions – so much to discover!

What have I learnt, that might help others trying to navigate the gloomy labyrinth of sourdough starter art and science?  Not much, to be honest!  Only that there doesn’t seem to be a one-size-fits all set of instructions.  In the end, what seemed to work for me – despite the odd speed-bump on the road! –  was nice fresh stoneground wholemeal flour, slightly warmed bottled water, and a willingness to just keep discarding and feeding day after day until things eventually came together.  My starter hadn’t read the timetable, and probably neither has anyone else’s!

Finally, I’d like to offer a huge vote of thanks to everyone – both on wordpress and on twitter –  who’s offered me guidance and support on my sourdough journey so far – I would never have guessed there were so many great sourdough bakers out there, so generous with their time, knowledge, and advice!

Next – Sourdough Saga: Episode 3 – good things come to those who wait!

Read all the posts in the Sourdough Saga >>

Read more from the Country Skills blog >>

Sourdough Saga: Episode 1 – failure to launch

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I’ve wanted a sourdough starter for ever so long – for as long as I’ve known and understood the sourdough process, I think.  Traditionally baked sourdough is *the* great bread, by definition, in my opinion.  With its wonderful texture and complex richness of flavour, it leaves the industrial ‘Chorleywood Process’ sliced white loaf so far behind that they’re hardly recognisable as the same animal.

So when I saw that one of my favourite food bloggers, The Rowdy Chowgirl, had brewed herself up a starter recently, it made my mind up.  I was going to do it, and I was going to do it NOW.  Well, just as soon as I tracked down a bag of rye flour, anyway.  And a couple of weekends ago, after following several different lines of reading and research, I got down to business.  ‘What’s that?’ asked Hubby, as he wandered into the kitchen to see me stirring a bowl of what could only be described as goo.  ‘A sourdough starter,’ I replied.  He thought about it for a moment.  ‘You realise you’re going to have to take that thing on holiday with you, don’t you?’  I tried to reassure him that I’d read about stashing it in the refrigerator for a period of time if necessary.  He seemed unconvinced.

Initial mix with rye flour

I broadly used the directions from The Fresh Loaf, except that I don’t have US-type measuring cups, and there’s nothing called AP flour on the shelves in the UK.  So I guessed a bit at quantities and used stoneground bread flour for the day 2 and subsequent additions.  I also used my tap water rather than the mineral or filtered water suggested – mostly on the basis that it’s nice tasting water without an obvious chlorine hit, and I brew with it regularly without adulterating it in any way, so I went ahead and assumed there wasn’t anything in it greatly damaging to yeasty beasties.

My starter was a thick batter-like consistency.  Thicker the first day when it was rye flour, and then it thinned down a bit with subsequent additions.  I used a 1l kilner jar I had lying around, with the gasket removed so that it wasn’t a sealed container, which I thought was a reasonable match for ‘cover loosely’.  I put it to rest the first day in the boiler cupboard, which is a coupe of degrees warmer than the rest of the kitchen.

After 24 hours, nothing much had happened, much as I expected.  I made the first additions with plain flour, and stashed it back in the cupboard.   It smelt… well, not exactly unpleasant, but definitely an ‘off’ smell, if you know what I mean.  But, forewarned by lots of other sourdough devotees, I plugged gamely on.

After 48 hours     Gordon's Alive!

24 hours after that, it had gone mental, doubled in size, and all bubbly and awesome.  I was convinced I’d cracked it.  I even named it, Gordon.  Because, you know, ‘Gordon’s Alive!?’  Anyway, as we all know, pride comes before a fall.

Feeding timeI discarded half the mix and added more flour and water as instructed (well, kinda).  Made my mark on the side of the container as instructed, and left it a few degrees colder in the kitchen this time.

Growing, but only a littleAfter another day had passed, the mix had risen a little in the jar, but only about 1/3rd and nothing like the doubling that the instructions called on me to wait for.  So, I was patient.  Another 24 hours on and no further progress, I mixed in a few teaspoons of rye flour to help things along.  Still nothing more than a few scanty bubbles breaking surface.

Very scanty bubbles48 hours after adding the rye flour ‘booster’, I opened the jar and got a distinctly ‘musty’ damp sort of smell.  On closer inspection the batter on the sides of the jar had started growing what was unmistakably black mould.  Downhearted, I chucked the whole lot in the bin, disassembled the kilner jar and stuck that in the dishwasher.  What I’d hoped was going to be a weekend of experimental baking lost, sadly, though given the hot spell of weather that was probably no bad thing!

Some really kind feedback from @mannafromdevon, a baker on twitter, suggested that it might have been worth  trying to rescue the ‘good stuff’ from underneath, and carrying on with feeding, but it was too late for sourdough-1, condemned to the rubbish.  But their other advice, ‘Don’t Give Up’, stuck, and I’ve already started sourdough-2, which seems, so far, to be continuing in the tradition of acting as if it’s also read the sourdough primers, and wants no truck with them.

The thing that struck me most reading around the subject is that there seemed to be as many specific processes for getting a sourdough starter going as there are people who have written on the subject.  There were even (remarkably concise!) directions on the back of my bag of rye flour!  In my day job, when there are as many different ‘expert’ opinions on a subject as you can find ‘experts’ to ask, it’s usually a sign that there’s no one really good answer, just a lot of different approaches, many of which work most of the time…   Wish me luck, I’m not giving up until I get there!  This may take some time…

Next – Sourdough Saga: Episode 2 – keep calm and carry on?

Read all the posts in the Sourdough Saga >>

Read more from the Country Skills blog >>