But Have You Tried Making Sourdough?

First, you buy things: a long-handled dough whisk that looks like a spell-casting IUD.

Then, a clear glass bowl with a lid. Then a Thermapen so you can know the precise temperature of your water. 

Then, bottled water with no chlorine.

You will need a lot of precision measuring devices, especially a food scale that measures in grams. Because it is essential that you get 10 grams, not 11, or 9.

Then, you will need a bread lame, which is a razor blade on a stick.

This you will use to slice a shallow half-moon into your dough before it bakes.

You will need bread flour. You can use All-Purpose, of course, but bread flour has more protein.

Things will arrive in the mail for many days.

While you wait, you will read books:

You will learn all the tricks.

Especially what NOT to do.

Like throw your discard down the drain.

You will rabidly follow Sourdough Influencers on Instagram: 

(These are particularly good ones.)

Okaycoolgigi

Thesourdoughnerd

Theearlyrisebaker

Thatsourdoughgal

The.sourdough.girl

They will all contradict each other.

You will become confused.

They will tell you not to make your own starter, but to get some from a friend. 

You don’t have those kinds of friends.

They will tell you that if you don’t have friends with starters, you can make your own. They will tell you how to do it. Read on.

You like the fierce independence of going it alone. 

You will make your own starter.

They say: “Good. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Patience in the face of failure.
• The ability to read bubbles.
• The ability to sniff and distinguish an acid-y, acetone smell, from a sweet, yeasty one.

You will need the nose of a sommelier. Except for dough.

They will emphasize over and over the importance of temperature. If your house is too cold, it won’t work. If your house is too warm, you’ll have to watch your starter like a hawk.

You will have to feed your starter at precise intervals. Watch your bubbles. Don’t feed it until it looks hungry. Unlike a newborn, it won’t cry, so you have to watch it for the signs. You will read about all the signs in Chapter 8.

“You can do this!” they say.

“Don’t give up!” they say.

They say “don’t give up” many times.

So, I buy the Weck jars with the loose lids, and I measure my water out in grams, and test the temperature with my Thermapen, and when the water is too cool, I add warm, and when it is too warm, I add cool.

I stir the flour into the water until it’s the consistency of pancake batter.

I am worried about the temperature of my kitchen.

They say, “Are you worried about the temperature of your kitchen?”

I nod. 

They say, “Well, you can buy a Dough Home.”

“What’s a Dough Home?

It’s a hundred and fifty dollars, they say, but it will take the worry out of sourdough making. 

I am very worried, so I shell out for the Dough Home.

It looks like an Easy Bake Oven. It sits on my counter:

I can control the temperature of my starter with pinpoint accuracy. I set the Dough Home to 75 degrees.

Every morning and every night, I feed my starter.

I sniff it.

I examine the bubbles with a magnifying glass.

Sometimes there are many, sometimes only a few. I take notes. 

They say, “Don’t worry.”

They say, “Don’t give up.”

Keep 10 grams, discard the rest, then add 100g of 80 degree water, and 100g of bread flour.

I don’t think anything is happening.

But, then one day, my starter doubles. I am ecstatic!

I feed and discard and put it back into the Dough Home incubator. My kitchen feels like a NICCU unit, and I am the on-call nurse.

But I am growing a starter.

And I am not worried.

And I am not giving up.

The world is blowing up now. There is a war going on with no exit strategy. Men are fucking everything up in every area of life and won’t admit it. I wake up at 3 in the morning thinking about the dogs and the children and the toxic air and the environmental disaster all this is causing that no one is even talking about. 

I am meditating and doing yoga and sipping hot water. It doesn’t help. My eyes are red with puffy red bags underneath. 

I am making sourdough bread. I am stretching and folding and sniffing and watching and tending. 

But I am NOT giving up.