Sourdough starter tips

Sourdough starter requires the same discipline as cutting a feature film. You feed it, ignore the dramatic bubbling, and trust the process even when it smells like wet cardboard for three days. The internet overcomplicates this with hydration ratios and pH meters, but sourdough predates the internet by four thousand years. Your great-grandmother didn't need a thermometer.

The real trick is consistency, not precision. Same time, same flour, same water temperature. Whole wheat flour gets things moving faster than white, but white flour keeps it stable long-term. Room temperature works fine despite what the fermentation forums insist about controlled environments. Commercial bakeries maintain starters in walk-in coolers, but they're feeding fifty pounds of dough twice daily.

Discard half before each feeding or you'll have a starter that could feed Spadina Avenue. The discard makes excellent pancakes, though calling them pancakes undersells the tangy complexity. Store extra starter in the fridge and feed it weekly instead of daily. It goes dormant, not dead. Revival takes two room-temperature feedings.

When your starter doubles in size within eight hours and passes the float test, it's ready for bread. The surface should look like expensive beer foam. If it develops a dark liquid layer on top, that's hooch, not failure. Pour it off or stir it in. Both work. Neither kills anything. Sourdough starter is more resilient than film stock and twice as forgiving as most directors.