Care and feeding of
130-year-old sour dough (well, it was 100 years old in 1974 when I got it).
We keep about a cup of our sour dough starter in the
refrigerator in a sealed 24 oz. yogurt container (just a pinhole in
the top). Since the yeast is anaerobic, it doesn’t need to “breathe air” but of
course, if left sealed for too long, it would eventually suffocate by carbon
dioxide from respiration. IT’S ALIVE! We’ve left the starter sealed in the
refrigerator for as long as six weeks without apparent damage (if your starter
is getting old, pour the gray liquid off the top, waste some starter and add
fresh flour and water). It’s better to feed it more often than that. Once a
week is best.
We usually feed the starter on a weekly basis by simply
making sour dough pancakes each Sunday morning. I start the evening before by mixing the approximately one cup of
starter with about a cup of white unbleached flour and enough tap water to
form a thick batter. Half of this batter
is returned to the refrigerator in its container. For your pancakes, it’s at this point that
you can add more warm water and flour, whole wheat or buckwheat, etc. You can
experiment with the thickness of the batter, but remember that it will grow and
become slightly wetter/less viscous overnight so you need a fairly large bowl
with a good cover. Also, in the morning, you’ll be adding the moisture in an
egg and some honey and oil so if you like thick pancakes that rise, you’ll need
to make the batter thicker than what you want for the final product. It has a
bit of a “personality” and turns out a little different each time (plus, I never measure anything). Thicker
batter rises more than thin. The correct overnight temperature is important: 75 to 80 degrees is good (I used to have a range with pilot lights, that was
perfect in the winter, now I sometimes slightly warm the oven and leave it
closed up in there overnight). I cover
the pancake batter with something that maintains high humidity. Otherwise, you
get a dried “skin” on the top of the batter). The longer it sits the sourer it
gets. For pancakes, in the morning I add:
1 warm egg 1
tablespoon honey 1 tablespoon oil 1/4 teaspoon salt mix well
Cover and return to warm spot. In an hour or so I ladle it
onto a hot dry griddle for pancakes.
Or if you’re just making bread, leave out the egg. Add enough flour of your choice and warm water
for the right kneading consistency.
Follow a bread recipe as to kneading time, temperature, punch down and
baking. Whole wheat flour rises less
than white, buck wheat even less. I use
a bread machine.
I have found that 10 minutes of hand kneading helps me get my unmeasured
moisture level right. I sometimes have
to add a little flour as the machine mixes everything and eyeball the
consistency, or a little butter if it gets heavy and dry. Dough that is too wet falls, too dry cracks,
so slit the top just prior to the baking cycle.
This works for us, but like the pancakes, the bread has personality, and
seems to turn out more or less sour, light or dense, according to some internal
inscrutable will of its own... The point
is to maintain the starter in plain flour and don’t add the “other stuff” until
you’re making bread or pancakes or paper mache (I can’t spell French), or
whatever.
