Making Sourdougn Bread is Easy?

My daughter Emily and I began a couple of sourdough starters yesterday. I have used sourdough in the past, and Elizabeth, our eldest daughter, has kept her own starter alive for almost two years now. I'm already dreaming about all the wonderful things we can try baking in the next tew weeks.

I looked up Sourdough on Wikipedia, just in case you are not sure what makes it special.

Sourdough bread is made by the fermentation of dough using naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeasts. Sourdough Bread has a more sour taste and better inherent keeping qualities than bread made with baker's yeast, due to the lactic acid produced by lactobacilli.

Sourdough seems like the COVID 19 project of the month according to social media, so we decided to join in too. Emily wanted to try the "Wild Method" to make a starter. That means you use flour of some sort and add water and wait to see if wild yeast that is naturally occurring on the flour or maybe even in the air can start to grow. That is how you develop a local sourdough kind of like San Francisco sourdough because of the specific wild yeasts and lactobacilli in that environment. I wanted to go with the lazy method of adding a package of yeast, so I knew how much was in there and can expect faster results.  We are trying both ways.

My first sourdough ever began with a starter gifted to me around 1981 when I was a new mommy and all into healthy foods for baby and family. My starter came with the name Herman. There have been a few more Hermans since then who met unfortunate ends, but I am more than ready to try again with "Herman the 5th". I asked my daughters what they wanted to name their starters, but they seem to think that naming them is unnecessary and perhaps a touch odd.  Oh well.

There are tons of different Pinterest links on how to do sourdough starters, so you can easily find directions that will work for you, but the following is what we did for Day 1.

We carefully cleaned our glass containers.  It needs to be a container that is made of glass, ceramic or plastic. A lid is a good idea, but if not, you will need something like plastic wrap or waxed fabric to cover it over with.

Emily placed about a cup of warm water and a cup of regular flour in her jar and then put it in a warm spot covered loosely.

My jar was bigger than Emily's, so I doubled it up and used 2 cups of lukewarm water and added one packet of quick rise yeast that I had stored in my freezer. I let that sit and soften for about 10 minutes then gradually added ½ cup whole wheat flour and 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour. I stirred this around until it was kind of thick like a pancake batter. Cover the jar tightly and put my "Herman" starter on the counter next to the "Wild One."

Tomorrow, Day 2, calls for us to remove half of our starter mix and dispose of it. We will then add half of the original amount of flour and water. I will then add a cup of flour and a cup of lukewarm water, mix thoroughly and cover and put it back on the counter until Day 3!

I will keep you updated on our progress.


Have you ever had a sourdough starter?

How about Bread Baking? Is baking bread a skill you have mastered or maybe you have fond memories of your grandma baking a loaf for dinner?