Thread by @alexbayleaf

if you've been thinking of #baking your own bread at home during These Difficult Times, and are interested in #sourdough, here's a thread on how to get started, and some tips and tricks i've learned over the last ~decade of wrangling sourdough.

first things first: all you need for sourdough bread is flour and water. almost any flour will do, with varying quality of results. plain bread flour (the kind in big sacks) is fine. whole wheat is fine. rye is fine. spelt is fine. whatevs. you'll get some kind of bread.

Almost any sourdough bread you make yourself will be better than storebought, cheaper than storebought, last longer at room temperature than store bought, and will give you a frisson of apocalypse-surviving domestic badassery. Even if you suck at it.

first up, a tiny bit of biology. bread rises through the action of yeast, which eats carbohydrates and farts carbon dioxide. this CO2 makes the bubbles in bread. a sourdough starter is a stable community of yeast and various bacteria (mostly lactobacillus) living in harmony...

the lactobacillus are the guys who make your bread "sour" - they are the same ones that make milk sour, hence "lacto". the souring is part of a process that pre-digests some of the flour's nutrients, making them more available to your gut. lacto-bacillus also fart CO2 (bubbles)

so a sourdough starter is a mix of these lil guys (yeast and lactobacillus) and what they need to live on (flour and water) - a stable community of bacteria and yeast, aka a SCOBY. you might have heard of SCOBYs in the context of kombucha or other ferments. same deal.

yeast and lactobacillus are all over the place, in the air, on our hands, and on naturally grown/minimally processed food. all we need to do to create a sourdough scoby is catch some and feed them. you will need:
- nonreactive bowl
- non-airtight cover
- spoon
- flour
- water

for your non-airtight cover, i recommend just putting a plate over the bowl.

for your water, it's best if it's non-chlorinated, bc chlorine kills our friendly yeast/bacteria. you can leave tap water standing in an uncovered jug for 30+ minutes and the chlorine will evaporate.

boiled water is also free of chlorine, but it let cool first. the dregs sitting cold in your tea-kettle are fine 😁

anyway. to make your starter: mix 1 part flour and 1 part water BY WEIGHT, or 2 parts flour and 1 part water BY VOLUME.

this is thicker than many people make their starter (many do 1:1 by volume) and that won't hurt, but I like 2:1 and think it works better.

you don't need much to start with - just a couple of tablespoons of flour, and a little slosh of water.

stir your flour/water well, incorporating lots of air, then cover it and leave it 12 hours. if you use a nonreactive spoon (eg stainless steel) you can leave the spoon in the bowl, and save yourself some sticky washing up.

now, here comes the waiting-and-tending part. you're going to feed your starter every 12 hours, incorporating air each time. you can also give it a brisk stir in between, if you happen to think of it.

for each feeding you need approx 1:1:1 starter, flour, water by weight.

don't sweat this too much. just add flour:water in the usual proportions to approximately double what's in the bowl.

now, obviously, this is going to get big fast, growing exponentially like COVID-19 (lolsob), so what you want to do is flatten the curve (i'm so sorry...)

basically, from time to time, throw out all but about a tablespoon of the mix and start again from a small amount. keep adding and stirring every 12 hours, for about a week. soon it will start to bubble! things are happening!

now, at this point it hasn't fully stabilised, and may act a bit weird for another week or so, but if it's bubbly (and doesn't smell bad) you can start doing things with it!

if it does smell bad, don't worry, just keep feeding and stirring it. it'll settle.

what you want is for it to have a "bready", "yeasty" sort of smell. if you don't know what that is, it kinda smells like a bakery does. you'll know it when you smell it. it might also smell slightly sour, like off milk, which is fine - this is the lactobacillus.

i'm going to take a brief diversion here. if you don't want to go through all this, you can get a starter from a friend. they'll probably give you about a half cup of it. feed it and stir it for a day or so to let it settle in, and you're ready to bake with it.

note that if you get a starter from a friend, you should ask them what they've been feeding it (eg. whole rye meal vs white flour vs spelt or whatever) and try to feed it the same. if you start feeding it something else it might take a week or so to settle and be productive.

here's how you bake a loaf of bread with your sourdough starter:

1 part starter
2 parts water
3 parts flour
BY WEIGHT

a little salt.

mix them together thoroughly. wait 12 hours (it will double in size). knead or fold it over several times and put it in a bread tin...

let it rise a bit more (might take anything from 2-12 hours depending on ambient temperature) then bake at the-hottest-your-oven-goes for about half an hour. if it doesn't look toasty brown on top give it another 5 mins. that's it.

a few tips for this basic loaf:

* oil and flour the bread tin before putting the dough in it, otherwise you may regret everything
* you can add seeds and stuff on top if you want
* you can mix in seeds, dried fruit, herbs, nuts, etc.
* don't try to slice it when it's hot

my actual quantities by weight:

480g unbleached bread flour
360g (i.e. 360mL) filtered water
160g starter made with whole rye meal
1 tsp salt

this makes a standard sized 1kg loaf. you'll note i use a little more water than 1:2:3 - I like my dough a bit wetter.

more tips/variations:

* you can added grated or pureed fruit (eg apple) or veg (eg zucchini, pumpkin, potato) - just reduce the water keep the firmness of the dough about the same
* you can add rolled oats, honey, molasses, cocoa powder, spices, all kinds of other things!

once you've mixed your bread, you'll have only a little starter left. feed it again, and when it's big enough, make another loaf.

but uh oh, what if you don't need a loaf every day or two??? what then???

your choices:
1. slow it down
2. use your starter for other things

slowing your #sourdough starter down... ok so fermentation happens faster in warm weather, slower in cool weather. you'll notice this throughout the year anyway. to slow it right down, you can put the starter in a jar in the fridge. you can even freeze it.

if you keep your starter in the fridge, you should take it out and give it 1-2 feeds before using it to bake, just to pep it up again. feed it weekly (or so) in any case - it might get moldy if you don't. mold is no problem tho. just scrape it off and feed it some more.

the moldier and grosser your starter gets, the more you'll have to scrape off, and the longer it'll take to revive (up to a week) so ideally don't let it get more than a little bit moldy 😂 liquid on top is no problem either - it's colloquially called "hooch", just pour it off.

it's definitely worth freezing a couple of little ziplocks of healthy starter for when you will undoubtedly kill your first one. it's quicker to get going from a frozen stash than from scratch. you can also freeze the whole starter if you're going on vacation or something...

... not that any of us are going on vacation right now, but you know what I mean.

so that's how to slow down your starter so you don't have to bake every day. now for option 2, using your starter for other things.

i'll note here that you'll still be generating some kind of bready-thing every couple of days, so this is maybe not ideal for people who live alone. but if you have 2+ people in the household this will probably work for keeping the starter going on the countertop.

the short version here is, you can use sourdough starter in just about any place you'd use flour+liquid. so some examples include pancakes, fritters, muffins, cakes, crackers, flatbreads, etc. i'll give some basic recipes below.

#sourdough pancake recipe:

1 cup bubbly sourdough starter
1 cup milk (soy etc ok)
1 cup flour (whatever kind)
1 egg
1 tblsp sugar
1 pinch salt

mix and use immediately, or allow to ferment overnight for a different flavour/texture.

note this recipe is all 1 of whatever!

note of course you can add blueberries, choc chips, or any kind of fruit to your pancakes. i like adding grated apple and a little cinnamon/pie spices. you can make them full sized or bite-sized ("pikelets" as we call them) to eat as a snack. they keep well in the fridge.

#sourdough savoury vegetable fritter #recipe:

1 cup bubbly sourdough starter
1 egg
1-2 cups grated/chopped/pureed vegetables
grated cheese (optional)
spices (optional)
extra flour for texture (optional)

examples: chopped blanched greens/herbs/feta, grated carrot/zucchini/cheese

you can even add beans or precooked grains, using the sourdough starter as a binder to make something more like a veggie burger. eg. lightly mashed chickpeas/squash/curry powder at burger consistency.

#sourdough crackers recipe.

400g flour (i like mixed, including some polenta)
100g bubbly sourdough starter
50g olive oil
enough water to pull it together into a stiffish dough
2 tblsp honey
2 tblsp white miso paste AND/OR 1 tsp salt
flavourings - spices, herbs, seeds, etc

mix it all together to form a stiffish dough and knead/combine well. allow to double in size, then re-knead and break into 6 pieces. roll them out super thin and cut into shapes with a knife or cookie cutters (i just make parallelograms with a knife). prick with fork, bake.

bake for how long, at what temp? doesn't much matter. until they're brown. experiment a bit. they're so thin that it doesn't really matter. i usually do ~180C for 20 mins, though.

pro tip: if you want sprinkles on top, roll them in with a rolling pin to make them stick.

sourdough cakes/muffins/quickbreads - this works best for "healthy" ones rather than light or decadent ones. replace some of the flour and liquid with sourdough starter, maintaining similar sloppiness in the batter. obviously works best for recipes you've made before.

i'm thinking things like carrot cake, banana bread, oatmeal muffins. you can't go too far wrong experimenting with sourdough additions to these.

#sourdough flatbread (like pita bread, naan, etc): make a stiffer-than-usual dough, allow to rise, split into small portions and roll out, dry-fry in a heavy pan or bake in a hot oven. i like using yoghurt as the liquid to make a richer flatbread & add nigella/kalonji seed.

#sourdough pasties or calzones #recipe: make a stiffish bread dough, allow to rise, split into 8 portions, roll out to 20cm, fill with filling of your choice and pinch closed. bake at 180C for 30 mins. these freeze really well and can be microwaved to reheat!

some recent fillings at my house: ricotta/fetta/spinach/herbs/pine nut; lentil/squash/curry; meatloaf-ish mixture of minced meat/grated veg/ketchup/etc. you can use any leftover stew/curry/etc. you can do sweet fruit ones too (sprinkle with sugar on top???)

there is a WHOLE NOTHER world of "artisanal" sourdough which i'm not going into here. you can spend a lifetime perfecting your crumb and having the perfect crackly crust and whatever. more power to you. mostly i just want tasty cheap food, without going to the supermarket.

anyway, i am happy to answer any questions about sourdough baking, with the caveats that i don't know much about artisanal/fancy stuff, and i'm equally clueless about gluten free sourdough (though i hear it's possible)

and I guess that'll do for now. I have a loaf I have to go bake! </thread>

i've just been reminded that some of my friends are in the leadup to passover and want to be cleaning leaven out of their house rather than bringing it in, so i'll re-up this thread post-pesach!

https://twitter.com/alexbayleaf/status/1240771871911464960

also, since people are talking about #homeschooling and cooking-as-math (cf.

https://twitter.com/amazon_syren/status/1240808865832329218

), sourdough baking is a great lesson in both math and biology!

https://twitter.com/alexbayleaf/status/1240771871911464960