How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Process

So you may be asking yourself, "Why did she give her sourdough starter a name?" Basically, I think about my sourdough culture like a pet. It's definitely alive!! It's not insistent about being fed, like a cat, but messier than fish. When I keep it in the fridge, it hibernates, and I only have to feed it once a week or so. But if I keep it out where it's warm and active, I have to feed it all the time. The more I feed it, the more it grows. If I allow it to, it will multiply. Most of all, it gets into everything. 

Sourdough is really pretty simple. The "sponge" or starter is just a mix of flour and water, with a whole bunch of yeast and bacteria living in it. Only not gross like what lives in a kitchen sponge. As long as you put some water in there for them to move around in, and keep them fed with flour, the bacteria and yeast will live, and they will help you make delicious, healthy food. 

If you experiment with it for a while, you'll find a combination of hydration level, temperature, and feeding frequency that will give you the flavor and rising qualities that you prefer. That's like training your pet. :)

Here's an article which discusses the effects of manipulating the hydration and timing of sourdough:

http://www.culturesforhealth.com/how-to-make-truly-sour-sourdough-bread

Reading that article was the turning point from worrying to playing. I realized all that flour and water was just a medium for my yeast and bacteria to grow. Maybe I'm a little too casual about it now, but the more fun I have, the better the results I get. I've only been doing this for a month, but I've learned SO MUCH!! I read a lot, and I've been baking up a storm. Hence, the name of my blog.

It helps that my job is doing customer service for cultured products: sourdough, kombucha, kefir, yogurt, cheese, soy products.... It's actually my job to help people figure out how to, among other things, work with sourdough. There is a lot of confusion about care and feeding of starters, and what to do with them.

If you have a kitchen scale, you can more accurately assess the hydration level of your starter. 100% hydration refers to starter that's fed with equal parts by weight of starter, water, and flour. You can only approximate that when you use measuring cups. The ratio by volume is 1 part starter, 1 part water, and a scant 2 parts flour.  It can be difficult to judge how compact your flour and starter are, though. Depending on how bubbly and sticky your starter is, how compacted your flour is, and how full your measuring cups are, that ratio will give a result closer or further away from 100% hydration. 

At 100% hydration, the starter begins to pull away from the sides of what you're mixing it in. I'd say it's on the dough side of batter. If I was planning on making muffins with it, I might add more liquid to my recipe. If I wanted to make biscuits, I'd add more flour.

Personally, I find it easier to work with a more hydrated starter. It's a little more like thick batter than dough. It's easier to handle, not quite as sticky, easier to pour out of a jar. I can add a little less liquid or more flour than the recipe calls for to compensate. Some recipes, like this awesome recipe for sourdough tortillas, actually call for your starter to be at a higher hydration level. Fresh sourdough tortillas are awesome, by the way!

Also, lower gluten flours work best with a starter that's kept over 100% hydration. Here's more about that:

http://www.culturesforhealth.com/art-of-gluten-free-sourdough-baking
http://www.artofglutenfreebaking.com/

Last night was supposed to be pizza night. I found this recipe for sourdough pizza crust. Pizza night was a bust, but the crust parbaked nicely. Like crackers, it's a good idea to poke your crust all over with a fork before you bake it, or else you'll get big bubbles in your crust, where all the cheese will slide off. 

Note to self, if you want to take pictures of something for your blog, don't stick your finger through the middle of it. And clean your stove.

Next post: Bread is hard. Let's go chopping!