Like everyone else in the world, I've been self isolated for the last couple of months and am starting to go out of my tree. A quick scan of the news reveals two different coping strategies - I can storm my local congress with a small cache of assault weapons and demand my right to a haircut, or I can learn to make sourdough bread.
Since I don't have a cache of assault weapons (and I'm taking advantage of the lockdown to let my hair go wild anyways) I decided to try home baking.
There are a lot of conflicting sourdough starter instructions online - and if you decide to go the potato yeast option it gets eve worse - so I'm going to trial-and-error it and provide some science-based information in a set of up-coming blog posts.
Stay tuned!!!
To start I'll cover one OVERLOOKED SECRET OF SOURDOUGH STARTERS that is never mentioned in any of the instructions I've read.
What are you going to NAME your starter?
I mean strictly speaking you don't need to give it a name, but eventually you'll get tired of calling it "my starter". Just like I eventually got tired of calling my cats "the black one" and "the tabby one", and I got tired of calling my kids "the son" and "the daughter" ... and everyone else was naming theirs so I started to feel a bit awkward. And then what do you do if you have two?
I don't actually have any tricks or recommendations on how to name your starter, I expect eventually there will be books and webs sites available just like for kids, but you should find a name that works for you.
It's like how when you learn to ride a motorbike they never explain the "wave" protocol, and then when you start riding all the other bikers drive by waving at you and it catches you off-guard. In the same way you may panic if you're not prepared, when you tell your friends about your new starter and they say, "Oh what's it called?" and all you can come back with is "My starter".
Lame.
Winner of the sourdough starter naming contest, "the daughter" named hers "Sour Doug" after her iPhone kept auto-correcting "sourdough". Of course mine then became "Doug Jr". And then when I started a potato yeast I naturally named it "potato head", but more about that in a later post.
Potato Head is just about ready to become bread, so I'll post about Mr. Head's adventures next. Doug Jr is still aways away from bread, but I've already made pancakes and crackers from his discards, so I'll post about that too!
Happy baking!
