Step one: Mix flour and water.
Step two: Wait.
3,000 years ago the discovery that a mixture of ground cereal grains and water would eventually start to bubble and ferment led to the creation of bread and beer for the first time in human history. The desire to create a steady supply of these products is thought to have been among the chief reasons that led our previously nomadic ancestors to establish some of the first known permanent settlements; planting the seeds of the very concept of civilisation.
Flour.
Water.
You have those ingredients, right?
The craft of making sourdough bread – or, to describe the process more broadly, the craft of baking with a natural leaven – can initially appear forbiddingly complex. Many decide that it is a culinary art form best left to those magical few in possession of the esoteric secrets necessary to make it work. To which I say: ancient nomadic tribes were able to riff this process without so much as a search engine result to walk them through it: if you want to do it, you can do it.
The truth is that, at its most basic level, the process is actually exceptionally simple. And, like all simple things, there is a ‘but’ lurking in the wings, waiting to be addressed.
Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.
A sourdough starter is a mixture of flour and water brimming with a culture of yeast that is ready to get to work chowing through any dough mix that you might add it to.
So where do we get the yeast that develops in our sourdough starter? As our ancestors discovered, yeast is everywhere just waiting for the conditions in which it can thrive, and that includes lurking on the grains of your flour. When you add water to your flour, and leave it at room temperature, the naturally occurring yeast on your to flour will find itself in the ideal position to feed and reproduce. Given this opportunity, those microscopic fungi will consume the carbohydrates on offer in the flour (and any other sugary ingredients that you might happen to add to the mix) eventually creating the bubbles of carbon dioxide and alcohol that will respectively help to build the structure and enhance the flavour of your dough.
So, is it just a case of mixing some flour and water and then baking a loaf? Not quite. Here’s where that simplicity-busting ‘but’ rears its ugly head: the secret third ingredient in creating your very own sourdough starter is time.
When you first allow your budding starter to begin fermenting, the mixture will play host to a veritable battleground of different microbes, including numerous different strains of yeast. You will likely find that, over the course of the first twenty-four hours of fermentation, you will not necessarily see much activity at all from your would-be starter as an initial microscopic stalemate plays out in your jar.
When establishing a new starter you will need to refresh your mix three or four times at roughly twenty-four-hour intervals. Refreshing, or feeding, in this context is the process of disposing of almost all of your mixture – just throw it straight into your food bin – and topping your remnants up with equal amounts of flour and water, making sure to give it all a good stir.
While the fresh flour that you’re adding might have its own set of potential microbe combatants, the growing strength of the cultures that are already duking it out in the remnants of your existing mixture will quickly overcome the newbies as the battle for yeasty supremacy continues. As you continue to refresh your starter mixture over several days, you should find that you see more and more activity (i.e. bubbles) from your burgeoning starter each time around.
You will know your starter is ready to begin using once the mixture doubles in size after a feeding. A great way to keep track of the rise of your starter mix, assuming that you are holding it in an old glass jar, is to wrap an elastic band around the jar to mark the starting level of your mixture after its feed and watch as it bubbles up above the line.
Once your sourdough starter is consistently bubbling up to twice its original volume in the jar, you are ready to start your sourdough baking.
Before we move on to the process of using your new sourdough starter, I wanted to touch on a couple of issues that arose in the course of my early attempts to maintain a natural leaven.
The first and most important point is that you absolutely do not need to keep your starter in an airtight vessel.
When I was starting out, I used a rubber-sealed Kilner jar with a lever clasp to hold my starter mixture until, one summer afternoon, I heard a fateful bang from the kitchen. I ran to the scene only to discover that my sourdough starter had been shot. Or, at least, that’s what it looked like.
Despite the rugged build of the glass storage jar, my starter had gone into CO2-producing overdrive in the summer heat and the pressure within the jar had eventually built to such an extent that it had punched a hole right through the side. Not only was it a huge mess and a shard-dodging nuisance to clear up, but I had to throw away all of my precious and long-serving starter as I couldn’t be 100% certain that any sample I took from it wouldn’t have some sliver of glass in it.
Today I use a standard recycled glass jam jar and I balance a lid loosely on top to keep nasties out. (I also use a darling little elasticated cloth cap to keep this lid in place but that’s really more of an aesthetic choice on my part). A basic covering to stop random material from dropping into your starter is ideal but the most crucial point is that it need not be airtight.
Finally, with starter care, as with the process of baking with a natural leaven, be sure to keep in mind that any specific timings provided by recipes or advice pieces (even those written by urbane, charismatic, would-be experts) should be taken with a biiig ol’ pinch of salt.
The process of baking with a natural leaven is hugely susceptible to the conditions of the location in which the baking occurs. Ambient temperature, humidity, the activity level of your particular strain of yeast, and even the water retention properties of the flour you are using (which can, I’ve learned from Claudia Roden’s ‘The Book of Jewish Food’, vary from one side of a wheat field to the other) can all impact the time it will take for any given stage of your starter care, or baking process, to be achieved.
All would-be sourdough bakers need to develop a feel for the results that they’re hoping to see at each stage of their bake. At the risk of undermining the point of this whole article, you will not get all the knowledge you need to bake the perfect sourdough loaf solely from reading about it. Theory will play its part in getting you started but ultimately you will need to experiment, try, fail, and fail again, failing a little less each time until you reach an understanding of your dough, the process, and your conditions.
Five years in, can I tell exactly how long my dough will need to proove for? Not really. I have a rough idea of the timeline, certainly, but, for example, winter timings and summer timings can differ by as much as two hours. I need to be able to react to how my dough develops and to adjust my plans accordingly.
Through experience, I’ve developed an understanding of what my dough should be doing at each stage of the baking process and, in time, so will you.
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