Glut: The Virtues of Sourdough and How to Make Your Own Starter

You can find good-looking and great-tasting sourdough bread all over the place these days. Hearty round loaves with rich brown crusts and handsome cracks can be bought at every farmers’ market and bakery worth its salt. But, as good as it looks, due to the time and skill required to make it in large quantities, sourdough bread is expensive to buy, while wholemeal sourdough can be too dense for some tastes.

At the same time, sourdough baking has a kind of mythical status that can be off-putting for beginners. When I first started thinking about making sourdough I heard stories of starters that had been passed on through generations to build up flavours that could never be surpassed. But where could I find some of this living, breathing leaven, and what if, when I did, I accidentally killed it? There was the issue of feeding it in-between bakes – what do you do with the discarded starter? Then I read about hydration – the ideal proportion of water to flour – and it was yet another obstacle in my way.

This was many years ago and, thankfully, I’ve realised since then that sourdough needn’t be a thing to fear. Over the years I’ve been given starters that died because I forgot to feed them, I’ve made my own from scratch – and killed those too. But it’s really no big deal. It’s easy enough to start another batch and now that I bake bread regularly and so easily, killing it would actually be quite hard.

So why switch to sourdough in the first place?

At the start, for me, baking sourdough was largely about the fun of baking really good, delicious bread that could compete with the £5 loaves in the market. I was also having trouble with digestion and cut out milk, eggs, cheese and most bread for a few years, only reintroducing them (in moderation) when I got pregnant and the symptoms seemed to clear up.

Now it’s more about bread with substance. When Sidney eats sliced supermarket bread I can’t help but feel that there’s absolutely no goodness going into him – it’s essentially a nutritionally empty (and chemical-filled) snack.

The problem with supermarket sliced bread is that it’s made quickly, so the yeast never has time to ferment and break down the flour to make it digestible. A whole host of additional ingredients are used to make it lighter, springier, bigger and to make it last – extra yeast, gluten, fat, emulsifiers, preservatives and various enzymes (which, incidentally, don’t have to be listed on the label).

Sourdough, on the other hand, uses slow proving to do all these jobs naturally. By resting the dough over several hours you’re providing enough time for all the chemical reactions to occur naturally, which is much healthier and actually does a better job in terms of flavour, texture and durability. The acids in flour that we find difficult to digest are neutralised during the proving process, making it easier for our bodies to absorb all the other vitamins and minerals – such as calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc – that are good for us.

What’s more, the flavours are incomparable. The lactic and acetic acids in the sourdough, absent in mass-produced bread, give it its quintessential sourness. And it lasts much longer than sliced bread, too. Even if it’s started to dry out it’s still delicious toasted, or it can be used in cooking – there are many ways to use up old bread so that none of your loaf is wasted.

How to make a starter

If you know a friendly baker, or you have a friend with a batch on the go, who will give you some of theirs, it will save you a few days of fiddling around with flour and water and you can start baking straight away. But making a starter is pretty easy. You just need to make sure you’re going to be around for a few days to get it going.

I started making sourdough using Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s method. Mix 100g strong bread flour (at least 50% wholegrain, such as wholemeal, spelt or wholegrain rye), with enough lukewarm water to make a batter the consistency of thick paint. Cover and leave in a warm place until bubbles start to rise to the surface and the mixture smells like it’s starting to ferment. This will take a few hours.

At this point, whisk in about 100g of fresh flour and more water so that you have a thick batter. Leave it for about 24 hours at room temperature, then discard half the mixture and stir in another 100g flour and more water. Repeat every day until, after 7–10 days, you have a sweet-smelling, yeasty starter with a spongy consistency.

I found this a reliable though time-consuming method.

I then tried James Martin’s technique, from his book Brilliant Bread. It’s a good book for both yeasted and sourdough breads, with advice about both that’s easy to follow. He recommends using a starter aid, such as raisins, to help kick-start the fermentation process. I grated a small cooking apple from the garden into the initial flour/water mixture and had bubbling starter ready to use in half the time.

How to keep your starter alive

You read a lot about keeping your starter healthy by throwing half of it away and building it back up with fresh flour and water.

Once my starter is up and running I almost never throw any of it away. I make a loaf a week, at least. I’ve found a fool-proof recipe that works for me (more on that next time) and so I know how much starter I need for every loaf I bake.

This is my routine:

The day before I plan to bake, I take my sourdough out of the fridge and add 2–3 tablespoons fresh flour and enough water to make a thick paste. I then let it sit until the evening. While it’s in the fridge the starter is dormant; bringing it back to room temperature revives it. By the early evening I have a healthy, bubbling starter.

That evening I prepare the dough, cover the bowl with a tea towel (same one every time and the same that I use to wrap the baked bread to keep it fresh) and leave it overnight to prove. In winter I make it earlier in the evening, in summer I make it just before bed.

The following morning I bake the bread ready to eat for lunch.

If you want to bake in the evening, simply prepare your starter the night before, prepare the dough in the morning and bake the same night.

This method gives me just enough starter to make one loaf, with a little left over in the pot that goes straight back in the fridge until next time. I used to make the starter up to a stiff consistency and leave it, wrapped, on the kitchen top. When you need to use it, simply thin out the starter with water. This is something Hugh F-W recommends, but I found that I wasn’t making enough bread to keep it going. Fridge storage is far more reliable for me. He does say that if you’re going away for 2 weeks this is a good way to store it in the fridge, although I haven’t tried it yet.

Every 3 weeks or so I give my starter a boost by making something extra in-between bread bakes. More on these simple recipes another time, but you can make an easy and healthy lunch or dinner incorporating a little sourdough and give your starter an extra feed at the same time. If you don't want to make something else, but your starter is looking a little sloppy, take some out and feed it a few hours before you want to mix your dough.

Mixing your starter is something you’ll get used to over time. It’s not disastrous if it’s a little bit runny, or a little bit thick, but the more you do it the more you’ll get a feel for the best consistency for your recipe.

How to dry out starter

A friend of mine with far more patience than me dried out his starter so that it could be stored long-term. I have a little pot of it in my kitchen cupboard ready for the next time I lose my fresh starter. This is actually a recommended method for storing your starter if you go away on holiday – far better, I’m told, than storing it in the fridge.

The process is fairly simple, if time-consuming – spread a healthy, freshly fed starter out on a sheet or two of parchment paper to as thin a layer as you can manage and leave it to dry out at room temperature. This can take a few days. Once it’s completely brittle, crumble up the solids and store in an airtight container.

Rehydrating the dry flakes is a little trickier and more akin to making a starter from scratch. However here you’re bringing a mature starter back to life, rather than starting a brand new one and needing to build up the flavours again.

Mix 30g dry starter with the same weight of water. Let the starter hydrate and soften, then stir in 30g flour. Cover and leave in a warm place, such as an airing cupboard, for 24 hours or so. Add another 30g each of flour and water and leave again. After 24 hours you should see some fermentation, if not repeat. Once you have a bubbling starter, build it up by adding more flour and water, as you would normally, until you have enough for baking.

It’s a little bit fiddly, but worth it if you want to make sure your starter survives a long dormant spell. In fact, dried starter has been known to survive for years, so you need only go through the process once if you revive just a little each time you make a new batch.

So that’s everything I’ve learnt about making sourdough starter. I’ve been doing it for a while now and it works for me. Of course you can experiment with different sourdoughs and make it as complicated as you like but if, like me, you want to keep things as simple as possible, I promise you can make it work. Next time I’ll share my go to, foolproof bread recipe. It really couldn’t be easier.