To not understand sourdough starters and how the world works?

Thanks for that! I like fermentation and make pickles and kefir at home but never cracked sourdough (probably because I never understood it...)

Same here. I'm always fascinated by the reaction of the sour or buttermilk with bicarb in that bread. I don't weigh or measure but I just know when the mix is right. I add milled seeds like chia and flax to mine which is 2.3rds wholemeal (2 mugs) to 1.3rd white flour, (1 mug). And real salted butter on the first warm slice - the heel. I batch bake mine on Sundays and slice and freeze for the week. Gorgeous stuff, and as you say ten minutes prep max once you have the ingredients ready to go.

Sourdough is overrated IMO. But each to their own.

If there was no bacterial reaction in soda bread you wouldn't have bread. (Weeps with laughter)

Give me soda bread any day of the week! 10 mins to prep and make. No yeast. No Bacteria. Tastes delicious! I’m currently loving 2 diff ones - cheese and onion flavoured soda bread with soup and soda bread with raisins. Sourdough: overblown hype and 🤮🤢

I also don't mess around with discarding, and still produce wonderful bread. I use Bake With Jack's scrapings method

Brewing and baking are ancient pastimes

As I understand it, there is a bit of a debate about which came first.

Regardless, walking upright is so essential to being human, we have sacrificed a lot to maintain it.

There was a BBC documentary about it a while back. Some volunteers were trying a raw food diet ... did not end well and they had to abandon the experiment early.

Do you only eat raw foraged foods? Because pretty much any growing, cooking and prepping method would be "unnatural" by the sounds of it.

I just find Sourdough so confusing so buy Jason’s instead.

OP, eating sour dough starter on its own does taste completely disgusting, but a loaf only contains a few tablespoons of starter, so the taste isn't really apparent.

@TeaSqueezingpos Hi OP you are confusing food that works on developing a yeast culture with worrying about food that rots through a bacterial culture. Hope that helps

I can't eat bread anymore, but I used to hate the taste of sourdough. I think it's some kind of middle class cult now.

Not so sure on the gut thing. Walking upright started about 6m years ago and cooking 1.5m at most.

I only make what I need. One loaf uses 80g starter which I make by adding 60g starter 60g water 60g flour to create about 150g starter or a little more. I use 80g, put the rest in the fridge until I need to make a new loaf. There is a tiny bit left in the pot which I just wash out.

Yeah, bread is weird all round.

Cooking is "weird" - outsourcing your digestion to external contractors.

Still, it keeps the gut tiny, thus allowing more space for brains and - critically - walking upright.

bread is delicious and a great source of carbs! obviously it isn't naturally occurring but is made from naturally occurring ingredients.

I'm definitely not an expert and I'm sure people will disagree, but this is what works for me:

to make the starter on day 1 just add a few tbsp plain flour and some water to a jar. i dont measure this but basically youre looking for a consistency where if you put some on a spoon and turn it over it takes around 3 seconds to drip

each day feed it a bit more with some more flour/water, looking for the same consistency

continue until your starter is bubbly and smells 'yeasty'. you may get a 'false rise' after a few days where it looks/smells like this, but it isn't ready yet. it probably won't be ready for 10-14 days ish

every night leave out with the lid loosely on. once your starter is 'active' you can start storing in the fridge with the lid tightly on when you aren't baking, and don't need to feed in this time.

when you're ready to bake i make my dough with 100g active starter, 330g water, 500g flour (strong white bread), 10g salt. mix, cover, leave for 30 min - an hour.

then do your first set of stretch and folds (stretch the dough up from one side then fold it back in then repeat from the next side). i like doing 20 for my first set. then cover again and leave for 30 min then do 4 stretch and folds. repeat the covering/leaving for 30 min/4 stretch and folds around 2-4 further times. then cover and leave for around 3-5 hours.

then you want to shape your dough into a ball and put in a proofing basket or if you don't have one a bowl and leave in fridge for around 8 hours or overnight.

when ready to bake preheat your oven with your dish inside (i use a le creuset dutch oven) at 230 degrees

once hot, put the dough in the dutch oven and score the top. bake with lid on for 30 min

then reduce heat to 200 degrees, bake for a further 20 min with lid off

LET COOL FOR A FEW HOURS BEFORE CUTTING OPEN

Sorry this was long! I used tiktok and reddit to learn how to make sourdough so would defo recommend. there's a girl on tiktok that teaches you how to make 'simple' sourdough which is where i started and i basically adapted it from there.

Yeah, bread is weird all round. "Let's selectively breed a grass until the seeds get really fat, then bash the seeds till we have a powder, then mix that with water till we have a paste, then cook the paste and eat it". And people think this is somehow "natural". A "staple", even. Very odd. (See also: drinking the milk of another species, when well past infancy).

Well, my no knead sourdough method (hasten to call it a recipe) is as follows:

Get a nice big bowl. Chuck (very approximately) 600g strong white flour and 300g wholemeal spelt in there. I also chuck some pumpkin seeds in. Appropriate amounts of salt. Throw all your sourdough starter in (except the bit you keep back). Add warm water if necessary, but you don't want it too soft- it mysteriously gets more liquid overnight. Fold with a big spoon until all mixed in. Leave overnight. The next morning dollop onto a floured baking sheet and bake in a good hot oven.

Ditto. An easy sourdough recipe would be much appreciated.

Sorry if this has already been asked but can you please share your recipe and instructions? I love making my own bread but sourdough scares me 🤣 I make milk kefir which I guess is similar with the feeding etc xxx

Oh no, I genuinely like it.

I keep mine in the fridge too - on occasion it's been left for months (by which point it has totally separated and looks like toxic waste) before being revived with some fresh flour and then the next day makes bread that tastes just as good as when it's been refreshed weekly. I swear it's indestructible when kept in the fridge.

I don't discard. I've cracked the timetable so I feed just enough over the week to make the weekend loaf, than begin again with about 80ml of leftover starter.