Sourdough By Feel

Over the weekend, I baked bread as usual, even with all the celebratory fun going on. However, with everything else going on I didn't really have the chance to follow a recipe or formula for the sourdough--it was all by guess and by feel. The results are quite good, as you can see, but I learned a couple of things:

1. Sourdough seems to need more salt than a regular yeasted bread. This one tastes somewhat flat, which is a sure sign that there isn't enough salt.

2. My sourdough starter is ACTIVE. A typical pattern is to pull the starter out of the fridge two days in advance, and feed in a 1:1:1 (starter:water:flour) ratio once or twice a day until the starter doubles on its own in about four hours. You're also supposed to discard half each time you feed so you don't wind up with the starter growing exponentially on you. In my case, if I do this, it gets to the point of doubling in four hours after one day.

3. I'm using too much starter in the bread. I'm loathe to discard all that starter, especially for the flour investment. So, I wind up using nearly all of it (at least, the part that doesn't wind up in english muffins) in the bread. This means the bread rises quickly, but isn't a very sour sourdough. The flavor comes from the process, not the starter, so counterintuitively, if you use less starter, it takes more time and the flavor (sourness factor) increases.

So, the next loaf will have a bit more salt in it, and a bit less starter. That should also help me to control the rise a bit better, allowing me to time the baking more to my convenience. I hope.