Making Bread in a Pandemic
By: Patricia Davis
Tags: Cooking, Sourdough, Baking, Ｍedium, Ninja Writers Byob

Making Bread in a Pandemic

Feed Your Yeastie Beasties

Photo by author

I treat my starter like my pet. Yes, he even has a name — Herman. He’s easy going, likes to act up occasionally, but mostly he’s content.

Like any pet, this has more to do with me, than with him. If I feed him on time, maintain his environment, or neglected him, he will react.

But he isn’t nearly as temperamental as my cat, Neko, who quite literally yells at you if you are not doing what she expects: feeding on time, letting her outside, letting her inside, giving her a treat. Well, you get the picture.

Daily Feedings

In my last post, I showed you how to set up your starter for the first day. Today, you will begin regular feedings. Here is my post for beginning your sourdough starter.

1. Add purified water to yesterday’s starter.

The total weight of the water that you add should equal the total weight of the additional flour. You will need 25 grams of water. A tablespoon of water weighs 14 grams, so that is roughly 2 tablespoons.

Remember that chlorine kills the yeast, so if you are using tap water, and you haven’t left it out for 24 hours, your yeast will die. The first time I tried to make a starter, I didn’t take this seriously, and my starter never became strong enough to make bread.

2. Add flour to your starter and water mixture.

Be sure the flour you use is unbleached and as high protein as you can afford. Like any pet, the quality of the food you use can affect its health. I like to use King Arthur brand flours for the high protein content.

Use a combination of whole wheat and all-purpose flour in a 1:2 ratio, one part whole wheat (8 grams) to two parts all-purpose (16 grams). A tablespoon of flour weighs 7.5 grams, so that is roughly 1 tablespoon whole wheat and two tablespoons all-purpose flours.

You can use straight all-purpose flour, if that is what you have on hand. It may take longer for your starter to get strong.

Helpful Tips and Reminders

I like to measure the water first and stir it into my existing starter to get it smooth before I add the flour. You can also mix the flour and water together and then mix the starter into it.

The main thing is to stir them together completely so that all the yeast has something to feed on and it gets thoroughly oxygenated.

Stir your starter two or three times during the day in the early stages to add oxygen into the starter and make sure the feeding is distributed. Stirring will help to strengthen it faster.

Your starter should be about the consistency of pancake batter. It should not just run all over the place, maybe just ooze a little when you tilt the jar to the side.

If it is too thin, you can add a 1/2 teaspoon of flour (about 3 grams) at a time until it looks right. If it is too thick, add a 1/4 teaspoon of water (about 3 grams) at a time.

Using whole wheat flour may make the starter a little too thick because it tends to soak up more moisture, so it isn’t a problem if you add 24 grams of flour to 28 grams of water. It should be just fine.

Feed at roughly the same time every day, just like you would your furry friend. Yeast needs to feed or it will die, so feeding it on-time will keep any of your yeast from expiring.

If you don’t, it’s not a huge problem. It will just take a bit longer for your starter to get strong enough to make your bread rise.

See? It’s not to fussy.

Keep with it

You will repeat the feeding above for the next three days. You should begin to see activity (meaning bubbles) tomorrow, but if not, don’t give up.

Also, notice that you are not discarding any starter yet. Right now it is just building up. Today you have double what you had yesterday, about 1/3 cup of starter total. No waste so far.

Because you started small and are adding just a little at a time, you are not getting rid of any active yeast, therefore your yeast should get stronger more quickly.

Once your starter begins to rise up (double) between feedings, you can transfer it to your 2 quart jar to prevent it from overflowing. Putting a rubber band or hair tie at the level of your starter right after feeding helps you gauge the rise.

Here is a schedule that I use for the first six days and beyond.

This process takes time and patience, but not much effort. Once you get into the routine, it actually is quite interesting to see how it will turn out.