Posts » The dry way of sourdough starter
I promised you more stories about my bread baking. Here’s one of them.
Since I mostly bake sourdough bread, I find myself in a constant need of taking care of a sourdough starter. Since I bake roughly every 5 days, thus maintaing an always-ready starter would be an overkill in terms of amount of flour wasted. The starter needs to be frequently (daily) fed with flour and water so yeast inside it stay alive.
To avoid such situation I was for years refrigerating the starter after baking, then pulling it out of the fridge day or two before baking, only to bring it back to full condition, and refrigerate it again.
I found that cumbersome in the long run.
Here’s a superior way, at least in my opinion.
Day 1 (evening)
It all starts (well, it’s an endless loop, so you pick your starting point) on an evening of the day I mix the dough for bread I will bake the next day. There’s some starter left as I didn’t use all of it. I spread it thinly in the plastic container I’ve been using to hold it. I leave it as is at room temperature.
Day 2
The starter dries and turns into thin flakes. This process will take different amount of time based on humidity and temperature of your kitchen. Mine usually dries in 24-36 hours.
Day X (evening)
Here X can mean anything for up to two weeks. I haven’t really tested leaving it for longer, but I guess you can.
I discard some of the dried starter (it can be perfect way to increase soil acidity if applied to blueberries’s bed). I add around 20g of flour and 50g of water. There’s more water as the starter is dry. I mix everything and leave it at room temperature.
Day X + 1
I feed it again in the morning and evening of that day adding 15g of flour and 15g of water each time.
Day X + 2 (morning)
I feed it again, this time discarding a bigger part of it, and adding 30g of flour and 30g of water.
Day X + 2 (evening) == Day 1
The starter is bubbly and ready for mixing into the dough. I leave some of it in the container and I spread it thinly to let it dry.
Repeat ad infinitum.
That’s it. No refrigerating, little wasting, no more “should I pull the starter from the fridge as I didn’t fed it for some time”.
Breads turn out amazing. See for yourself.
