Down a Sourdough Rabbit Hole (Sourdough Rabbit Hole Prologue)

When I first began my sourdough starter in March, I did not know quarantine sourdoughing was a thing. But I found myself home more like a lot of others and I had been wanting to try doing it and now I was home more to give it a try. Luckily, I had stocked up on flour as it got a little difficult to always count on being able to get it a few weeks in when everyone started stockpiling everything. I was not exempt from  the food hoarding phenomena and while I did not go completely crazy, I did keep on hand many more things that I normally would. It certainly was disconcerting to find yourself at a grocery store with shelves completely cleared out of many items and rationing in place. It makes you realize just how spoiled you are being able to get what you want on a whim.    

So I started the process and now have been keeping it going for several months.  While sometimes it does seem like a chore to feed it, I mostly find it very interesting to see it grow and use it in many different recipes. I am always amazed at what flour and water can do.  I also don't like to throw things away so I have used pretty much all of my discarded starter in different recipes. There are some recipes I make over an over and some that were a complete miss. 

Here are few tips I have after creating my starter and reading lots of other posts.

* It is not that hard 

*Be patient and adjust and do not give up. (Also good rules for life these days) My starter grew right away and then stopped for a few days, I kept feeding it and and adjusted the feedings and it is now a robust starter that I keep in the fridge to feed and bake with weekly

*You have to get to know your starter.  It does not always following the same timing pattern, so you have to watch it and know when it is ready

* I used a 100% hydration starter with a 50-50 split of whole wheat and regular AP flour.  I think this can be a choice but it worked well for me. It is also easy to feed as you are always using equal starter, water and flour so no matter how much starter you use, just measure out the same amounts of water and flour.

*Use a scale to measure the starter, flour and water!  Measuring in cups will not yield consistent results.

Below are some pics of the established starter right after feeding and then 4 hours later.  Amazing how this works.  This a rise in the summer with warm weather and very consistent feeding.  The rise is not as quick when the temps are cooler. But we all have our days when we wake up quicker and the days when we wake up slower and the sourdough starter is no different. 

             

In the next posts, I will show you some recipes that worked and some that didn't.