What NOT to do with sourdough

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I’ve made a few mistakes and learned a few things to be cautious about in this sourdough journey.

• When you’re sharing a jar of starter with a friend, do not set the jar on the top of your car and drive off. Once it’s on the blacktop, the sourdough is not worth saving.
• Don’t use starter when it’s pink or orange.
• Don’t let starter dry on wooden utensils before you get around to washing them. Don’t let the unwashed mixing bowls dry either.
• If you’re baking the sourdough bread in a covered Pyrex casserole dish, DON’T set the preheated casserole dish on a wet counter. Yesterday, my biggest Pyrex dish exploded in my hands when I set the preheated dish on a damp counter. I had to throw away two loaves of dough because of glass shards.
• Don’t burn yourself on the steam when you take the lids off of the pans after 30 minutes of baking. Steam burns are particularly painful.
• Don’t alter too many parts of the basic bread recipe at one time. I substituted all whole wheat flour for all bread flour AND increased the amount of starter AND added millet and ground flax seeds AND increased the amount of water in a recipe. It took quite a bit of rehab to get things back into line. The bread was still delicious, but quite flat.
• Don’t try to rush the development of the really sour dough. I tried baking off some loaves after only six hours of fermentation time and the result was not nearly as sour or as good as the bread that had fermented for twelve hours.
• Don’t add extra yeast unless you want to make regular bread instead of sourdough. Yes, it will make the dough rise much faster, but the commercial yeast will compete with the yeasts and bacteria in the sourdough for food and win. This will affect the flavor and texture of the bread.
• Don’t forget to plan ahead and start early if you really want a loaf of sourdough. You can make other breads in less time, but figure on a minimum of 15 hours from start to finish. Of course, this isn’t 15 hours of WORK…it’s 15 hours of the sourdough working.
• Don’t worry if you forget to feed the starter…or if you forget to refrigerate it. Sourdough is a very forgiving critter.
• Don’t forget to make a LOT of sourdough bread. You’ll want to give a lot of loaves away because it will turn out so spectacularly.
• Don’t forget to have fun.
• Don’t forget how yummy butter is on crusty, warm-out-of-the-oven bread.

Barb

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