Are you a fan of sourdough bread? That crusty outside, chewy inside, and distinctive tanginess? It tastes different from the typical loaf of bread today because it IS different. We have been baking bread for thousands of years, but modern technologies and techniques have dramatically changed the speed and nutritional content of the typical loaf. Quick-rise yeast breads must have seemed like magic when they were first introduced, but today we know that the real magic lies in a slow rise and long fermentation. True sourdough is a return to bread as it was meant to be.
In its simplest form, sourdough is just flour, water, and salt, fermented with lactic acid bacteria and wild yeast. And not only is it delicious, it also has myriad health benefits (it’s more easily digestible and its nutrients are more bioavailable than quick-rise yeast bread) since it is a fermented product.
People have been fermenting foods for ages. Before refrigeration, it was a way to preserve meat, dairy, and vegetables. The fermentation process spurs the growth of “good” bacteria and creates an acidic environment that discourages the growth of harmful bacteria. That still comes in handy today, but we’ve also discovered that fermented foods benefit our gut health. The probiotics—good bacteria and other microorganisms—in foods like yogurt and sauerkraut are great for the gut microbiome.
For a while now, I’ve wanted to explore the world of sourdough, because:
- It featured prominently in a fun novel I read recently
- It’s a San Francisco specialty . . . and I traveled to SF this summer
- Well, I’m a fan of all things fermented
The Novel
I’ll start with the novel. It’s called Sourdough, by Robin Sloan.
The story goes like this: A young woman fresh out of college is successfully wooed by a San Francisco tech company. Lois thinks this is the start of a wonderful thing, but in fact she quickly is glumped by the stress and expectations and monotony. The one bright spot in her existence is the daily takeout of spicy soup and sourdough bread she has delivered each evening. She happened across the menu by chance, two brothers who make food in their apartment and deliver it by motorcycle. They belong to an obscure ethnic group called the “Mazg,” and the food is a revelation to her. They call Lois their “number one eater!” But then, because of issues with their visas, the brothers have to leave the country unexpectedly. Lois is devastated, but as a parting gift the brothers make a final delivery to her: a small crock containing their “culture.” Or as it’s more commonly known, the starter for their sourdough bread.
Lois is skeptical. She programs robots, she does not bake bread. (Or attend to ANY domestic matters, really.) But she follows their instructions for keeping the starter alive, feeding it, playing their special Mazg music for it, and even making bread with it. And the bread unlocks something in her. It sets her life on a whole new trajectory. There is something special, perhaps even magical, about that starter.
So What Is a Starter?
Some fermented foods require the addition of a “starter” culture of yeast and bacteria to kick off and facilitate the fermentation process. When you make sourdough, yogurt, or kombucha, for example, you must include some starter along with your other raw ingredients—you might think of the starter as a concentrated dose of the necessary yeast and bacteria. Without the starter, the crock of milk (for yogurt), sweetened black tea (for kombucha), or slurry of flour and water (for bread) will just spoil or turn moldy. Other foods, like sauerkraut and kimchi, will ferment just fine by allowing the naturally-occuring, wild bacteria that are present everywhere to proliferate in the jar.
Getting Started
With my interest in probiotics and fermentation, how could I not be inspired to experiment with sourdough too? Having a little crock of bubbling culture that needs tended, cultivated, kept alive? I loved the idea of having a special generations-old brew entrusted to me, but—unlike Lois—I didn’t know anyone who makes sourdough.
Until: About a week after returning from a trip to San Francisco this summer (where yes, I ate sourdough at Boudin’s bakery on Fisherman’s Wharf), my sister-in-law texted me: “Hey, do you want some sourdough starter? My friend gave me some. I can share it with you.”
Clearly, this was a sign from the universe.
I got busy reading up on sourdough starter care. It felt a bit like adopting a new pet. It IS a living thing, after all, and requires regular feeding. This sourdough tutorial from Emilie Raffa was a helpful source, as was her book Artisan Sourdough Made Simple.
I was excited but also a little nervous to take possession of the starter—would I be able to keep it alive?
As it turns out, feeding it is actually quite simple. People who bake a lot keep the starter at room temperature and feed it once or twice a day. Less-frequent bakers like me can store the jar of starter in the refrigerator and feed it once a week. When you feed it, you scoop out and discard about half of the current starter (otherwise it will outgrow its container!), then stir in equal weights of flour and water. (A big thing in sourdough, as well as in baking in general, is the WEIGHT of ingredients. Weight and volume are two different things. My feedings comprise about 1/2 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of filtered water, or 75 grams of each. Different volumes, same weight.) And if you find it painful to just “throw away” half of your starter at every feeding, don’t despair. There are actually lots of recipes that use up the discard!
Down the sourdough rabbit hole I went. Around the corner of a particularly alluring tunnel, I learned that you can create your OWN starter.
There are wild yeasts everywhere—in us, on us, around us—and you can get them to colonize a crock of flour and water if you provide the right conditions.
The process of creating a starter sounded a little fussy, but also . . . too easy. I really just mix together some flour and water, and the magic will happen? I mean, you do have to mix the correct proportion of flour and water, and you do have to house the crock at an advantageous temperature, and you DO have to feed the concoction every day for about five days. . . . But if you follow those steps, you can grow your very own starter culture.
I was curious: Does that mean that sourdough from starters grown in different parts of the country, or world, tastes different?
Supposedly. The natural variety in local yeasts and bacteria is believed by some to yield differences in the breads produced. San Francisco attributes its sourdough stardom to a special bacteria (Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis) that thrives in that particular climate. On the Cultures for Health website, they even sell a special “San Francisco Style” sourdough starter! (However, that same bacteria has been found all over the world in places with similar climates, so as with most things sourdough-related . . . it’s not a simple answer.)
Growing My Starter
It was July in Ohio when I attempted my homegrown starter. Nice and warm, good conditions for fermentation. Temperature plays a big role in fermentation rates, which is part of what makes baking sourdough both an art and a science. You have to develop an understanding of how the starter and dough should look, smell, feel. The process is not exactly the same all year long, which can be unsettling if you just want a formula to follow!
To give my starter the best chance of success, I did everything by the book. Stone-ground whole-wheat flour. Non-chlorinated filtered water. Kitchen scale and digital thermometer. I measured the weights of the ingredients; I checked and adjusted the temperature of the water (82 degrees). Ambient temperature of the home set at 75-80 degrees.
And what do you know. It worked!
After the first 24 hours, I saw a few tiny bubbles in the mixture. I discarded half of the starter, fed it the prescribed amounts of flour and water, and waited another 24 hours. The mixture bubbled and doubled in size. It did this for the next several feedings as well. After five days, the starter was doubling in size in just a couple of hours, and it also passed the “float test.” (Not a foolproof method, but one way to check if your starter is ready. You put a little dollop in some water and see if it floats. If it does, it’s ready.) Time to make some bread!
If I launch into a whole tutorial on making sourdough bread, this blog will be really long. It is a . . . lengthy process. Frankly it’s a bit daunting at first, when you see all the steps and the time involved. It is not all hands-on time, but from start to finish it’s like a 24-hour process to bake a loaf of sourdough. And it takes a lot of practice, to learn how different types of dough behave, and how the ambient temperature impacts the results. However, when you succeed in producing a beautiful, crusty, bubbly loaf of sourdough for the first time? All worth it!
Here’s the first ever loaf made with my homegrown starter. I forgot to score the top of the dough before baking the bread, but it turned out dang good!
Reading List
You may find, as I did, that the more I learned about making sourdough, the more questions I had! It’s fascinating: the history, the science, the artistry. Here are a few resources that you might find useful on your own sourdough adventures.
Sourdough Bread: A Beginner’s Guide by Emilie Raffa
In this blog post, Emilie walks you through the entire sourdough-making process. She explains everything very clearly and provides many helpful tips. I especially liked her sample baking schedule, because it can be tricky to figure out the timing of such a lengthy process.
The Sourdough School by Vanessa Kimbell
If you want to get really deep into the science of sourdough, Vanessa’s your lady. This book is incredibly detailed. I mean, she runs a school in England dedicated entirely to the baking of sourdough! Depending how serious you get about your bread, a field trip might just be in order.
This blogger provides a list of recipes for using the discard from your starter. She also provides a tutorial for creating a starter from scratch.
If you’re interested in creating some other fermented foods, I have written about making yogurt and sauerkraut in previous posts.
Don't Fleece the Bees 
Looks delicious.
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