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And why you should just get an established one.
If you’re wanting to bake your own sourdough bread, you’ve come to the right place. I will forever share the good, the bad and the ugly parts of home baking. Like, how you can skip the making of the starter part. Just pass on it. Here’s why…
If you want the hi-lights of the emotional rollercoaster that was making a sourdough starter, you can see it all on my instagram highlight named “Lloyd”. It’s there. The confusion, the joys, the fist loaf, the hooch, the massive amounts and jars of starter because I literally had ZERO idea what i was doing. Knew nothing about sourdough or bread baking for that matter. I just knew I loved bread, I wanted something gentle for our bellies and I wanted to make it!
As a result of my mind being made up, I quite literally spent the next 48 hours reading countless blogs on making sourdough, watched a bazillion videos, and found some instagram accounts to follow. As soon as I realized that everyone has their own perfect way, and that there really wasn’t ONE perfect way, I followed The Clever Carrots instructions to a TEE! And our sourdough adventures ofically began. (I’ll add some links at the bottom to my favorites).
Getting a starter from someone or snagging some from amazon felt like beginning from the middle. I was already confused enough on what a starter was and what it meant to feed it, hooch, active, discard, bla bla bla… I NEEDED to start it, to understand it. So I did.
Lloyd was amazing. Yes, was. He’s no longer with us. (insert ugly crying emoji and check out that first loaf ever! I mean, he was the best. Every loaf was edible.)
There were big plans of a long relationship with him. He gave me wonderful loaves, knowing as he matured and I learned more, they would only get better and better. He taught me so much, I fed him regularly and watched over him like the new, precious little pet that he was. We were happy. Or so I thought.
All it took was a fridge change and a short move to his new forever home for him to die on me.
What a turd.
To this day I have no idea why he decided to croak. He was a textbook starter and I used an entire bag of flour trying to revive him. Asked all the sourdoughers in my life for tips and advice. Puzzled and saddened by his passing, a girl can only go so long without a fresh loaf. I said an official goodbye and promptly asked a friend if she could spare some discard.
Enter EVE. My sweet, sweet Eve.
Truthfully, I didn’t want her. I wanted my baby, Lloyd. I powered through like the champion I am, and made my first loaf with Eve.
HOLY MOTHER FORKING SHIRT BALLS was it the best thing to ever happen to my sourdough game. (insert all the happy, party, excited emojis). Even though I forgot to turn the oven down with the first loaf and she baked a whole 20 minutes on 500 degrees, she STILL put out an amazing loaf. A mistake I haven’t made since and my sourdough dreams are closer and closer with each loaf. (Pictrured are my first two loaves with the new starter. My Eve, the mother of life).
She was a dream. IS a dream. The loaves were like night and day. The chewy texture of the crumb, the sweet tang of her maturity, the stretch and folding even was different. A ton of the things I read in my 48 hour sourdough black hole made sense. With just one loaf. I thanked Lloyd again for being such a great teacher and have been loving our adventures with Eve ever since.
The point is, do what you got to do to make sense of it all. I will just say, there is something magical about an established starter. Just get some from a friend or this one from Amazon.
Follow these guidelines and recipe. Think of the starter as the packet of yeast. ‘Active’ as the warm water to make the bubbly foam and go on a Sourdough adventure my friend. Skip the 10 days of making a starter, the tragedies of losing a pet. Skip the heart wrench of loyalties divided and dive into that sticky goop.