Sourdough Installment #1: Fermenting in the time of COVID

Here in California, we are all sheltering-at-home amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. It's definitely an anxious time and I've had my fair share of deep dark moments over the last few weeks. My friend described this time as our "Time Out" for being bad. It certainly feels like that on some days.

On the good days, though, I marvel at the kindness of our community, the break we are giving Mother Earth from all the airlines and driving, and a world migrating to the virtual experiences.

Digital learning, connecting, and exploring - this is my professional bailiwick. And despite the reasons we are being forced into a time out, I am finding it a time of hope and possibility to help people connect socially, learn from each other, and find creative ways to fill the boredom.

I've been trying to find a project to help keep me positive during this time. I wanted it to:

Help me connect and support my friends,
Be productive and delicious for me, and
Help me flex my digital learning muscles

So to that end, I give you my: Sourdough-Sharing-Instagram-Learning-Deliciousness Project!

I know that Instagram is not exactly the ideal tool for teaching or learning, and I know that everyone and their brother in the food-world has some article about sourdough starters right now. But I am woefully behind on my social media skills, I love me some sourdough, and a few friends were asking about it. So that seemed like impetus enough!

Enough of the prelude. Let's get to the sourdough makin'!

Installment #1: The Starter

So this blew my mind. All you need is:

Flour
Water
A container and a cover
A little patience

And you can make a starter! All the natural bacteria and yeasts in your environment innoculate the flour and water, and boom you have a sourdough.

General Mindset

Sourdough is not fussy. It's very forgiving if you know how to read it. If you neglect it for a while, you can usually bring it back to life. If you kill it, the ingredients are cheap and you've only lost a little flour. And you likely learned a bit in the process. So don't sweat it!

You can get really precise with bread baking. The pros are all about weights and percentages. I started off very to-the-letter following the recipes, which is probably a good idea. I certainly learned alot. But these days I am a little less precise. A scale does help, but if you don't have it, we can make it work!

Equipment

A medium bowl for mixing
A spoon or spatula
A scale or measuring cups

Ingredients

125 g of all-purpose flour (or a bit less than 1 cup)
125 g of whole wheat flour (or a bit less than 1 cup)
250 grams of warm water (or 1 cup)

If you are sheltering at home and don't have whole wheat flour, please don't go out and get it. You can do this will all-purpose flour only. If you have some rye flour, you can use a bit of that. Just make the flour volume equal 250g or a bit less than 2 cups.

Process

Pour your water into a medium mixing bowl.
Add in both of the flours.
Mix until all incorporated. You can use your hands! There's a great episode about The Secrets of Sourdough on Gastropod, a terrific podcast. (Spoiler alert, the baker's hands is one of the sources of the microbes/flavor of the bread!)
Scrape your dough into a container to let it ferment. I use a quart size mason jar because I like to see what's going on in the container. But food-grade plastic or even leaving it in the bowl works just fine. Just make sure you can cover it with some breathable fabric or a loose-fitting lid. You want the air and the microbes in it to be able to get in there, but want to keep other things like dust, flies, etc. out.
Cover your new pet. You might want to name it. I use a dishtowel and a rubber band. Cheesecloth doubled up works well too. A mason jar lid loosely screwed on could work, too.
Put it aside on your counter or somewhere that it's not too cold.
And now you wait for the magic to happen. It should take about 2 days for bubbles to start to form. Once that happens, give it another day or so to keep bubblings. Give it a sniff. It will smell sour and funky. This usually takes me anywhere from 3-5 days all together, longer if it's cold and foggy, which it often is here.