| Jeff Higgins |
10-17-2024 07:12 PM |
Starter can be made from scratch. No need to get it from someone else. One of the things you will find out about sourdough people is how they love to play up where their starter originated. "Mine came over on the Oregon Trail." "Oh yeah? Mine came over on the Mayflower." "Pffft... Jesus's mother Mary started mine." And so on. When you look at how the process works, you start to recognize that there is far more current b.s. than old starter in the process.
My mix for starter is really simple. 20 grams of old starter, 80 grams of the cheapest damn flour I can find, and 80 grams of water. If starting from scratch, leave out the old starter and leave the mix out for a week or so, uncovered. It will attract yeast from the air. After a week or so, use 20 grams of it and follow the aforementioned recipe. It may take a month to get it living and active, but it will.
Once you have ripe and active starter, start storing it in the fridge when you are not going to use it. The morning of the day before you want to make a loaf, "feed" it. We do this by using 20 grams of it, adding the 80 grams each of flour and water, mixing, and leaving it out overnight.
That, of course, leaves you with 160 unused grams of starter. We call this "discard". Don't discard it, though. Put it in the fridge. Keep saving it every time you "feed" your active starter. After awhile, you will have enough "discard" to make pizza dough, focaccia, cinnamon rolls, etc. (lots of recipes out there for sourdough "discard").
Once fed, take your starter and mix it up to make a loaf. I like 150 grams of starter, 300 grams of water, and 15 grams of salt. Mix this up real good, then add 500 grams of cheap ass white general purpose flour. Too many make the mistake of using too good of a flour here - remember, this is "peasant food". Too good of flour ruins it.
Once mixed, let it sit in the mixing bowl for an hour or so. Then, once an hour or so, stretch it in four directions. Stretch it, lay it back down in the mixing bowl, rotate 90 degrees, stretch, repeat four times. Do this four or five times or whenever the hell you feel like it. Remember - "peasant food". You're out tilling your fields, milking cows, slaughtering lambs, beating laundry... you get to your bread when you get to your bread. Don't over think it, or over schedule it. If you are using a timer, throw it away.
At the end of the day, "form" your loaf. We call this "putting tension" into the loaf. Throw out some flour, get some on your hands, and do your best to roll and compact it into the smallest, tightest ball possible. It's amazing how much smaller you can make it when you do this. This is key, don't skip this.
Once ready, put it into a "proofing" basket, cover it, and put it in the fridge overnight to "cold ferment". Take it out the next morning and let it rise most of the day. When it's ready, slice the top with a "lame" as many times as you like, either all parallel or make a cross, or whatever. This keeps the top from splitting wide open when baked.
Put your Dutch Oven in the oven on the second from bottom shelf. Put a baking pan under it on the bottom shelf. Preheat to 425 degrees. Put the loaf in the Dutch Oven and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 25. This may vary with your oven, of course, so take a look at about 20 minutes.
That's it, that's all. Easy peasy. The most important part is learning to "read" your starter. When to feed it, when it's ready to bake, and all of that. It's always going to produce edible bread, it's just a matter of how "fluffy" it turns out. That's the real art of sourdough. I've made some real "curling stones" in my day, but they are still edible. The fluffy, airy loaves are better, or course, and those are the sign of an accomplished sourdough baker who can really "read" his starter.
And, yes, you can become a real slave to your starter. It's a living, breathing organism. But it's not as fragile and demanding as many will say. Remember - "peasant food". Yes, it's better if we bake every day, like for sustenance. That's its real role. "Designer" sourdough, and those who see it as a "treat", doesn't really work. My wife and I eat nothing but, along with various discard forms of "bread". You have to keep the starter "working" - that's what it is meant to do. People who give up on it are approaching it wrong. They want it at their convenience, "sourdough in a box", like other things they bake. It just doesn't work that way. It's at its best when used every day, for sustenance. Peasant food.
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