Sourdough Starter, and the value of keeping it relevant.

It was on a spring day, much like this one. The clouds overhead were the color of tightly strung panther sputum that day in autumn when I discovered my grandfather's vast collection of vintage Tijuana Bibles. It was on that day I knew. I knew that I had to pursue the perfect recipe for sourdough bread.

Wake me up when we get to the point.

Does anyone else just loathe blog entries like that? They make you slog through a novelette's worth of florid prose when all you're looking for is a recipe.

We're keeping this one short, sweet, and to the point.

Ok, not so much sweet. Short, sour, and to the point.

And, as it happens, not all that short.

There will, however, be florid.

Lactobacillus, the hero of our story.

Why do you want to make and maybe maintain a sour starter? The main reason is to make sourdough bread.

You're still thinking about the panther sputum, aren't you?

A secondary reason is that this starter does not use commercial yeast. We will be gathering, maintaining, and harvesting naturally occurring wild yeast.

See, commercial yeast will all be the same strain, which produces the same flavor. The wild yeasts we're trying to cultivate here will provide a deeper, sharper flavor profile, and will eventually supplant the commercially inspired culture you started with. So, don't bother putting yeast from the store in the starter. There will be plenty coming on all by itself.

There's also a school of thought that suggests that bread leavened with only starter has more healthful benefits than bread made with commercial yeast.

I don't know about that one way or the other. I do know that sometimes you want to make sourdough, and that means you need a starter.

Tightly strung panther sputum? Someone's tying that stuff up?

Google starter recipes. Did your phone explode? There are a plethora, a myriad, if you will, of starter recipes.

Here's the thing. Most of those recipes are convoluted beyond what's called for. They may call for two or more kinds of flour, water and/or milk, yeast, sugar/honey/maple syrup, salt, and Papal intervention.

Again with the bread prayers? I'm busy here!

All you really need are equal parts, by weight, of flour and water. And a container with a tight lid.

I prefer unbleached all purpose (AP) flour and water from my Brita pitcher.

Why unbleached AP flour? Because AP is the easiest to find, and unbleached has more protein and makes a chewier product.

Why water from the Brita? Because it removes most of the chemicals in city tap water that would inhibit the growth of the yeast you're trying to cultivate.

Place them in your container, combine using a spoon or a fork, then cover with a moist towel and leave it on your counter for 24 hours.

Be sure to wash your stirring implement right away. Left to dry the starter gets incredibly hard and hard to wash off. Like, four times through the dishwasher and it still isn't clean. Hand wash it right away.

Twenty-four hours are up. Feed your starter with 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour. Stir it in, then cover with a freshly moistened towel, and let it sit.

Doesn't even look like a word anymore, does it?

Day three, do it again, only don't cover it with the towel. Put the lid on.

Day four, take out 100 grams of the starter and we'll get back to this in a minute. Feed your starter just like the last three times, and cover.

Day five your starter will be ready to use. It should smell kinda sharp, and taste kinda sour. It won't be full strength yet. That comes later, after care and feeding for no small amount of time.

Should oughta look like this. Bubbly and alive.

Now comes a decision. Do you want to make bread now or later?

If you want to do it later, take out the 100 grams and feed the starter, then put your container of lively goo on the coldest part of your refrigerator.

I'd you want to make bread, that's great! Next entry in this blog is going to be sourdough bread, by an amazing coincidence.

What do you do with the discarded starter? You can cook with it. Go look up Alton Brown's recipe for cheese crackers or maybe sourdough waffles.

If you choose to dispose of it, be aware that it draws fruit flies. They like to rut in that stuff. Take it out right away.

By the way, my grandfather never collected Tijuana Bibles.

Here's an option - you can feed the starter first, then take out the 100 grams and give it to a friend. That's a great thing to do.

Or you can not discard any and leave it in the container. Which you can absolutely do. Be warned, though. Unless you make a whole lot of bread with this, you're going to find you have The Starter That Ate Duluth and Outlying Areas.

You get to choose.

I'd keep it in the coldest part of the fridge (bottom shelf in the rear usually) remember to feed it no less frequently than once a month. That's at a minimum. Every two weeks would be better.

Ok, next step, baking bread. We'll do that next time.

This is the good stuff.

Epilogue

A few possibly disjointed thoughts at the end of the year.

I know the first paragraph seems like it came out of nowhere, and the bits about panther sputum and Tijuana Bibles were distracting, and possibly a little gross. I did that for a reason.

I got really tired of looking for a recipe and finding a blog that promised a recipe but delivered a long-winded, pointless screed on the charming hamlet in Spain's Basque country and the brasserie the author found that offered the most delightful little nuggets of something or other that I wasn't interested in reading about and ultimately just gave up and looked up Alton Brown's recipe and called it a day.

I had been noodling around writing for mostly my own entertainment for a few years. Eventually I realized (which is Aaronspeak for my wife and mother finally convinced me) that my writing isn't half bad, and maybe I should try something that might appeal to a somewhat broader audience.

Basically I decided to write the blog I wanted to read.

This blog was originally supposed to be called One-Butt Kitchen Adventures. No one but me knows that, by the way. Well, until now. It occurred to me that a title like that might be, let's say, misleading. So it was launched as Fat Guy in a Little Kitchen, to reflect the fact that I was cooking in a small apartment kitchen while being fat.

We bought a house at the end of Spring of this year. The kitchen we're using now is actually smaller than the one in the apartment.

And I'm still none too enamored of the tendency to burn up bandwidth prattling on instead of getting to the point. Less blabby, more foody, m'kay?

But that doesn't mean getting to business can't be fun. Because if you're not enjoying yourself, what are you doing?

So, look for a little expansion of the so-called brand coming up in the new year. By which I mean I'm exploring taking this bad boy to Instagram and Twitter as well as Facebook.

There has been talk in my small circle about a podcast and a YouTube channel as well. Which is a possibility. I have the hardware for both.

As I write this, it's Eleven PM on a Sunday, two days before New Year's and I'm getting ready to turn in, so let's wrap this up.

If you're reading this blog in all of its irregularly updated glory, I thank you.

If you've shared something you read with a friend, I thank you.

If you've donated a little money to my Ko-Fi (hint, hint), I thank you.

If you've printed an entry and tried to use it, I thank you and congratulate you on your ambition.

If I've inspired you to try something, or expanded your knowledge base a little, it was my pleasure.

OK, that is more than enough of that. Go make a starter. In a couple weeks we're going to explore what to do with it.

The Fat Guy abides.

A friend and me after a Willie Nelson concert. We didn't indulge in any you know what, but enough people around us were that it didn't really matter.