On sourdough
When I started with sourdough, my starter felt like this mysterious, fragile thing I constantly worried about keeping alive.
Here are some things I learnt over the years…
Resiliency
Turns out, starter is pretty hard to kill. I keep mine in a fridge and feed it every time I use it. If I don’t use it, it will survive over a month without feeding, easily. Over time, a layer of liquid builds up on top, indicating the starter ran out of food. When that happens, simply scraping away that layer and keeping just a bit of the healthy starter at the bottom is all that’s needed. I also keep the jar I keep it in fairly clean, it’s good for my OCD and I like to think it’s good for the starter as well. In the past I’d remove the starter, wash the glass, and put the starter back. Now I just use a wet finger to wipe all the dried up starter from the walls, with the healthy starter still in the jar.
Ratios
Starter is a mix of previous generation of Starter, some Flour and Water, in a ratio I’ll call S:F:W.
The dynamic is that Flour and Water act as food for the prev-gen Starter, once all food is consumed, starter stops being happy and needs another feeding.
I’ve learnt over the years that:
- keeping F > W makes the starter digest the food slower, but there’s a limit to this, you can’t keep this ratio too low
- keeping S << F and W results in more food for less starter
Both of these things result in the starter lasting longer between feedings.
So when leaving for a holiday, I’d do a feeding with say 50g of Flour, 40g of Water and 5g of Starter.
Flours
There are “bread flours” on the market, but I have yet to figure out what exactly does that mean (other than slightly higher protein content). So I prefer to mix my own flours where possible. Starters seem to like whole wheat and specifically rye, so when I have excess of those I will use them for feeding. All-purpose flour is fine, but if I ever end up with some brea flour by accident, I use it to feed the starter. It’s a good way to not let it go to waste.
Anyway, to anyone out there just starting out and feeling anxious about their starter, relax - it’s tougher than it looks and more forgiving than you think.