What to do now with your sourdough starter

So you fell into the sourdough craze of 2020, and now you need to know what to do now with your sourdough starter.

The year 2020 was quite the year, to say the least. It affected everyone differently in the ways that we cope with situations. Shutdown came and no one really knew what to expect or how long it would last. After all, no one alive really knew what it was like to live through a pandemic.

With shutdown came the restriction of goods and in some cases the complete lack of necessities in our local stores. We already had a working goal in place of self sufficiency, so this situation didn’t present a huge problem for us.

Living on a farm, we have our own meat, eggs, dairy, etc. We still need to purchase things like sugar, flour, salt and other necessities that make life more comfortable and palatable.

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Why a sourdough starter

Enter sourdough starter. I have never tried to create a sourdough starter before and have I ever ground my own flour. My family enjoys eating bread and baking has become something for me to accomplish and I am determined to learn what to do now with my sourdough starter.

There are literally thousands of resources online to read and research about anything and everything sourdough. From how to get started, to the benefits, to keeping your starter fed and healthy. Needless to say, I have learned a lot about sourdough right off the bat just from the readings I found on Google. It’s always been my experience doing is the best option for learning. So, I dove in head first to the world of sourdough and I haven’t looked back.

Am I actually doing this?

Does the mere thought of sourdough cause you anxiety and stress, because you believe it is a tedious and time consuming undertaking? I’m here to tell you, it is not.

I have come to enjoy the sourdough process and not just for the purposes of eating delicious breads and pancakes. When the sourdough is kept properly, it can be used for YEARS. you can pass it on to the next generation and they can continue to help it grow. Something as simple as flour and water can be so sustaining and resilient; it was an eyeopener for me and my feelings of negativity towards the whole pandemic.

Where I shop

I like to go to an Amish store in Lancaster county, where I can purchase wheat berries in bulk. We bought a grain mill (this one: https://amzn.to/3GlJtj1) and yes, I REALLY was to grind my own flour and make bread, from scratch.

Feeling slightly trepidatious, I pushed forward and created my very first sourdough starter. There is a week long process to create and establish an active and healthy starter. This may seem like a long time at first. Once this basic mix of flour and water are mature and healthy, it will lead you to many new creations in the kitchen.

Here is a link to a video showing the process: https://youtu.be/wdrViqdqTTQ. You can also check out this other from scratch and homemade blog post here: https://hiddenfarmlife.com/how-to-make-your-own-goats-milk-soap/

Other ideas for what to do now with your sourdough starter

If you haven’t mastered what to do now with your sourdough starter, you can experiment with trying different recipes. I am still working on a sourdough pancake recipe that I was determined to perfect for my pancake eating family. There were many trials and flubs before I hit on just the right balance of ingredients, for now. Just like any other creator, I feel like there is always room for improvements in my recipes.

I am still working on my sourdough bread, as there are many, many ways to create a loaf of sourdough. Even as I am writing this blog post, I have an experimental dough resting in the kitchen. You can see how that turned out in a future blog post!

A lot of negativity has been spawned by the pandemic and the subsequent shutdowns but there is some good as well. Our area stores never really ran out of bread on the shelves and hopefully we never have to go through a period with a shutdown again. But if we do I feel confident that we could make it through and know what to do now with our sourdough starter.

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