Just stop reading if you don't want a to read a rant....because this is a rant about the sourdough starter maffia
A couple of months back I have an attempt to bake a bread for the first time. This turned out to be a baguette and I was surprised actually on how easy this was. Now if you would ask me what really would be my favorite bread, it has to be sourdough bread which is quite difficult to get here at normal bakeries if you don't want to end up in one of these hipster bars.
That made me wonder if I should not make an attempt on making and baking sourdough bread myself. Now, you know how it goes....when you even think about a subject and make one search attempt for it on the big wide world of interwebz, that means your feed thinks you are hooked to the subject...and they will feed and spam you for it... Stupid cookies....No one likes an overkill, just do this subtly...
Pixabay
'Your sourdough starter sucks...until you find my channel'
Just the thought of even writing this post will mean that my feed is forever broken with extremely happy housewives who apparently have all the time in the world to give attention to some bubbly mixture with all kinds of terminology that no one has ever heard of.
Unplash
What the hell does all of this even mean 'a starter that you have to feed' using 'the discard' and the 'slap and roll technique'. This all sounds like some secret housewives language that you are only aloud to join in with when the follow the secret monetize-my-bread-channel because this hobby needs SO much attention, that you have no room for other stuff, so might as well just follow me.
And what about when you actually make this bread...Let's be realistic...at what time of the day do people do this? Kneading and folding and waiting for more hours and kneading and folding again. In the middle of the night? How do people do this when you have to do something every 3 hours.
Beautifullivingmadeeady on Instragram
Sure...send over some live starter...whatever that may mean. And also use that authentic dough scraper that you have to have other all of this will not work out.
'Feeding a 1 tot 5 to 5 ratio'. What the hell are we even talking about. All of this feels more like a mad science project. I get it...there are live organisms in there, but this aint your tamagotchi guys. This is a bread dough yeast colony.
And you understand this all needs to happen in a glass jar right? Because anything else will kill your starter 'if you don't use the rules you will find on my channel which will only costs you $10 per course including receiving the ow I'm so happy on the countryside, look how many hours a day I am feeding my sourdough starter book.
I guess you understand by now I haven't baked a sourdough bread as yet. I got totally lost in the world of recipes by people who are a bit too enthusuastic by all of this and as I understand,....this is not a day project but more like a take-over-your-life project.
And the best of all...Since I have searched for it, the cookies and internet history will remind me of this for the next couple of weeks on the daily by spamming the crap out of it.
....Walks defeated to bakery to get bread.....
/end rant
Just mix flour* and water (pinch of salt) and wait.
Top up once in a while.
Wait for it to smell right and bubble, check for mould.
Keep temperature low, at least don't let it get hot and don't expose to sunlight.
Then bake with it, pretty much as if it was a blob of yeast.
It's incredibly simple.
*start with rhye flour; better yet: start with grain and grind to flour at home.
Keeping the starter alive and all that stuff is overkill.
Friend of mine bakes a bathtub full of dough (50+ loafs) every other week, always starts from scratch. He looked at me like i was stupid, when I asked about 'starter' and 'feeding'.
edit: what's up with those stock photos? just snapshot your own dough 😒
hahaha okay so your friend who sounds like a pro also doesnt need all of this fancy stuff.
It seems more and more like people want to do fancy about it all. And why no own snaps...? Because I didn't have the juice (and courage) to start with it because of the maffia.
Dont worry, when I get this project on the road, the snaps will surely follow. Your recipe sounds a lot more as something that seems doable to normal people