Sourdough Rules

Back in March I, like the rest of the world, became an owner of a new pet sourdough. Because of – let’s call it sheer dumbness – I went overboard.

To start at the beginning, my sister and I had discovered Easy Tiger Linc a few months prior and loved nothing more than sitting at the bar in front of their commercial bakery and watching them make bread while enjoying a pint. I wanted to have a piece of normalcy from pre-pandemic. At that point nothing was open so I of course called my aunt (who is an amazing baker and cook) and asked how to make sourdough. At that point I thought they were all the same and didn’t understand that all sourdoughs were different. She sent over a yeast based recipe to create it and I sloshed it together (using wheat four) and waited. (it had to sit for several days to gather natural yeast like mana from heaven) In the next few days I was sure it was dead – but in reality it was just good at playing dead. But, because I am also not great at tidying up, the mixture sat out for about a week.

Then – I got an amazing email from Easy Tiger who was starting to sell their starter. Hallelujah – I set up my curbside delivery and off I went. (This was actually my first trip out of the house post lock-down) But, because I am a good sister, and because I had no idea what I was doing, I bought 2 with the idea that I would gift one to my sister when lock-down cleared up. I read the instructions, put them in their new homes, fed them, and named one Easy and the other one Tiger. I then thought it was only right to put the other starter to rest in the compost bin. However, the starter had different plans. Sometime between me confirming it’s death, and the trip to Easy Tiger it nearly quadrupled in size and was bubbling like a cauldron. Because I am a hippie at heart I felt it had earned the right to live and I named it Nice Buns.

After consulting the interwebs I figured out that Easy and Tiger were identical, so I could get back down to two, right? Nope. I somehow contaminated Tiger with Nice Buns – It became this really great in-between. I am not a scientist, but I do like to have fewer dishes to wash, so the contamination happened when I was feeding them and used the spatula from NB to stir Tiger. Because yeast and bacteria are alive they created a new colony.

So here’s where it got complicated. You have to feed your yeasties or they start tasting funny, but what do you do with that much starter discard? It seems you make friends. I started by posting on next door that I had bread if someone wanted some. Bad idea – I spent the next few hours apologizing to people that I ran out. (this actually went on for a few days) Then I strategically gave some to neighbors as a pick me up, but I got responses from a few that they wanted confirmation I did not have Covid. I removed them from the list. So what have I done?

• I give some out to the homeless in the area
• I always take something to an appointment – nothing makes your vet forgive your cat for being a jerk like fresh cinnamon rolls
• I learned how to make new things an buy less – who knew I could make my own pasta

In a nutshell – they are a pet and require care and feeding. But they are also really neat to experiment on and see where their different flavors shine. for example:

• If I mix NB with Easy – my bread comes out light with a touch of wheat.
• If I make pasta I should only use Easy or the taste is too strong
• If I make crackers, NB is the one to use as it comes out more dense

All-in-all – It’s a fun diversion and I have learned a lot, and still have a lot of learning to do.

Happy Baking!

Erin