Getting Into Sourdough
The beloved trend of making almost anything out of sourdough has made a massive appearance lately.
I have had a few people ask for some tips and tricks to getting started. As a ranch wife who has been making sourdough for over a year now, it is truly a staple in my home. I am definitely still learning the art, but would love to share the base knowledge I have regarding sourdough. My first and most important piece of advice is that you can always try. Sourdough is a little intimidating to some, but why not take the leap and give it your all!?
The first thing that you should know about sourdough, is that not only is it incredibly tasty, but it is a lot healthier for you than regular bread. This is because the majority of people's guts have an easier time digesting the flour. This makes sourdough an optimal option for people with fragile digestive systems. Another really neat thing about sourdough is that the starter is a wild yeast essentially, that you always have at your disposal if you take care of it. This is awesome, because you never run out. Now, as far as some things to keep in mind, in general wheat is an inflammatory. If your struggling to feel well and are looking for ways to help your guts either heal from junk foods or cleanse themselves, it might be a good option to consider removing wheat from your diet completely for a period of time. When you reintroduce it, sourdough is definitely the way to go to make it easier on your body long term. Overall, sourdough is a fascinating topic that is worth spending some time on.
Starter
The sourdough starter, in my opinion is the easiest part of sourdough. Although it can feel very intimidating, once practiced, the starter is simple. Basically, the starter is the wild yeast, that grows and becomes "ripe" which is when most recipes will have you use it. A ripe starter presents itself in a bubbly, airy look with a tangy smell. Now, if your starter is healthy, it will grow significantly in size and then shrink back down. I feed my starter every day usually, because I bake with it so frequently. Feeding it also just makes me happy. I use equal parts water, white flour and a dark rye flour. The reason that I do this is because the starter feeds off the nutrients in the dark rye flour. Typically dark flours are going to have more nutrients than white. A really interesting tip I have heard, is when you use your starter to make a bread loaf, it's best to use one of the flours that you use to feed your starter, because it is accustomed to it. I am not familiar on the science behind that, but do with that what you will. A bad starter is usually pretty easy to spot. Things like a moldy or rotten smell vs. tangy and a non growing starter are both pretty tried and true indicators of bad starter. Some people have a really hard time distinguishing at the beginning, if their starter is bad or not and let me put it to you this way, if you smell your starter and it is like a yeasty, vinegary, light smell that might be unusual to you but not bad necessarily, your fine. If you crack that lid and you wretch until you have to leave the kitchen, I would consider throwing that away. When in doubt you can always get a second opinion if you aren't sure. A quick tip to know about sourdough starter is that some people like to keep it in the fridge. You don't technically have to feed the starter as much if you use this method. Keeping it in the fridge is a great way to start out if you are worried you're going to forget about it. If your going on a trip where you can't take your starter with you, feed that thing and pop it in the fridge, low maintenance.
The bread
The bread process can be a finicky part to learn. This is primarily if you don't have the time to come back and do the next step in the bread process at the allotted time. In my opinion, baking bread does take a little bit of forethought. I wouldn't recommend trying to bake a traditional sourdough loaf on a day where you are going to be very busy. As a ranch wife, I can attest that planning ahead makes it or breaks it. There are so many different bread recipes, that it is sometimes hard to know what to use. My personal recommendation to those wanting to learn and start, is to try multiples! The reason I recommend this is because repetition is the mother of learning. If you allow yourself to experiment and figure out what works and doesn't work for you, you will be much more satisfied with your loaves in the long run. Another reason I recommend this is because elevation does effect your bread, so a recipe you use one place may be a flop in another because of elevation changes. That isn't to discourage you, but rather to encourage you that if something doesn't originally work how you think it might, keep trying! For example, I was experimenting with my starter and wanted to try a sourdough dutch baby. I used a recipe off google because that is my go to for out of the ordinary recipes. It was awful, and I don't mean suffer through and eat it awful, I mean it went to the dogs awful. For obvious reasons, I think my husband was a little gun shy afterwards about sourdough being so versatile. I found a different recipe and tried again. The second time around, it was so so good that we will probably use that recipe a lot. The point is, just keep trying. Success feels the greatest when you have had to work hard to achieve it.
Baking with Grams
I know some people who shy away from sourdough simply because they don't want the hassle of baking with grams. My advice to you, if you are that person, is to go digging a little more. While the die hard sourdough people will probably tell you that you have to bake in grams, there are a lot of recipes that use cups as the measurement. I have used both methods, so as your witness, it can work well with both methods. I was actually taught with using cups as a measurement and more recently started into experimenting with grams. There are some awesome cookbooks and resources for cooking with grams that I will link to below. There are some equally fantastic recipes that use cups. While grams do allow you to be more precisely weighted, cups are a great place to begin if grams intimidate you. While it is true that the weighted volume on ingredients is very different, there are those who have done a lot of the hard work for you and have recipes that work for using cups!
In conclusion, Sourdough may feel a bit overwhelming. It may seem like too much work, too complicated, or too intimidating. If you are a perfectionist, this is going to be a hard skill for you to learn because its not always going to be perfect and you might want to quit. That's why its also a really good skill to practice. You have to be willing to fail in order to progress yourself and your skills. You learn from trying, you learn from failing, and you learn from succeeding. It is worth it for yourself and for your family to learn new skills such as sourdough breadmaking. If this truly sounds like the most boring project you would ever do, maybe try something else. But in the end, I will always recommend trying sourdough at some point. It has been worth it to me and it could be worth it to you. Keep scrolling for some links to valuable resources that I have used in the past that you may find helpful yourself!
The Perfect Loaf
King Arthur Baking
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