During the pandemic and lockdown - Ahh, remember that! Good times!😒 - many people started making sourdough as a way to pass the time. But I was too busy watching/reading Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and reading many biographies on C.S. Lewis. (Love it!)
But I have recently jumped on the sourdough bandwagon too, and I'm totally loving it!
Years ago, I tried to start a sourdough starter from scratch but totally failed (I realize now that I was adding way too much water, drowning it). And so I gave up for years. But then after hearing a friend rave about how much she loves her sourdough starter (named Calico the Wonder Horse) and loves making sourdough bread, I decided to try again this past January...
... during what turned out to be the worst cold-snap we had all winter (figures!). This meant that I had to sometimes wrap up my jar of starter in towels and/or keep it near a space-heater in my bedroom at night to prevent it from getting chilled, totally pampered like a newborn baby.
But... success! Within about 10 days, I had a nice, healthy, bubbly starter... named Mr. Bean. (When a jar of sourdough starter tells you his name is Mr. Bean, you believe him. I had no reason to doubt him.)
[While it's a fun tradition to call your sourdough starter by name - instead of just "my sourdough starter" - it's also kinda creepy, because now when I use it or offer some to friends, all I can think is that I'm using Mr. Beans' guts or droppings. And that's a little disturbing. But oh well. I'll get past it.]
Anyway, over the next few posts, I'll share a little about how I started Mr. Bean and how I use him.
But for now, here are some YouTube videos that I really enjoyed and found helpful as I began the sourdough journey. These are mainly about starting and caring for a starter. I'll share some about using your starter in an upcoming post.
(For the record, I prefer not to weigh my ingredients or to use scales and precise measurements. But I want to learn how to eyeball it or use only measuring cups and spoons. So I look for the less-technical, less-complicated videos, the more "this is how grandam did it" kind of videos.)
Enjoy! (Watching sourdough videos is so relaxing to me. And informative. So it's a double blessing!)
Starting and Caring for the Starter
Melissa K. Norris, Modern Homesteading - Sourdough starter the easy way that actually works with less flour
Hopewell Heights - How to make a sourdough starter and use it to make sourdough bread
Mary's Nest - The complete sourdough starter guide
Our Gabled Home - The easiest way to make a sourdough starter
Our Gabled Home - No more feeding or discarding, simplify sourdough baking now
Clean Food Living - Sourdough starter recipe- maintenance guide
Peaceful Cuisine (no talking or music, so simple, and you add just a spoonful of flour at time as you build the starter so there's no discard - I really wish I found this video first when I made my starter) - Sourdough Starter and sourdough bread//Zero waste, no discard, easy to follow
Farmhouse on Boone - All about homemade sourdough starter from scratch
