The Sourdough Framework
As an occasional amateur baker with a five year old starter in the fridge and lots of hard learned lessons (aka. tasty failures), this looks like a well researched but probably slightly intimidating book on the subject.<p>I started out like many by watching some Youtube movies. Except I did it a few years before Covid. So, slightly before it got really hip to do it.<p>Some things that I&#x27;ve learned over the years (with the help of lots of Youtube wisdom):<p>- There are a lot of Youtube bakers parroting each other and not all of what they insist is the one and only way to do it is necessarily very valuable or good advice. The key thing to realize is that you are implementing a process, not following a recipe that is set in stone. It&#x27;s not that they are wrong but they tend to present a detailed recipe without a lot of context. If you don&#x27;t understand the process, that&#x27;s not going to end well. Unless you get lucky. Look for the ones that explain why they are doing certain things. The ones that explain the process.<p>- The fridge is your best friend. You can park your starter there for long periods of time. It will be fine and you can revive it in a couple of days when you need to. This also largely removes the need to discard left over starter. A well established starter can take a lot of abuse. Move it to the freezer if you really plan to not bake for a few months&#x2F;years. Countless youtubers tell you to keep it outside the fridge and feed it daily. You don&#x27;t need to do this unless you want to. The fridge works like a pause button on metabolism. My starter has survived a lot of abuse over the past five years. And it still works fine.<p>- Flour matters. But most flours can work. Whole wheat and rye are tasty but also more tricky to deal with. For beginners, use some proper bread flour with a high protein content. Hold off on the more complex mixes until you can nail that the simpler white bread.<p>- Measure by weight not by volume. If you know what you are doing you can totally eyeball it and go by feel. I baked sourdoughs for over a year before even buying scales. Lots of failures but also lots of tasty bread. But being exact is what makes your process repeatable and allows you to fine tune, optimize it and get luck out of the equation. E.g. dialing back the hydration requires that you kow what it was to begin with. Be aware that you still need to adjust for temperature, flour, humidity, etc. There are a lot of variables that you can&#x27;t control. Measuring by volume your margin of error is too high to say anything definitive about hydration levels. It might be 80% it might be 65%. The difference is important if you want to fix your mistakes.<p>- Larger quantities make it easier to measure more accurately. Bake 2 breads instead of 1. Again this matters to make the process repeatable.<p>- All the numbers are arbitrary, up to you, need adjusting for environment and flour, and largely a matter of taste. Understanding what happens when you change the numbers is the key to producing good results consistently.<p>- Use the clock for planning. But always verify your dough is actually in the state where you assume it to be. This is subject to so many variables (temperature, dough, humidity, how fresh your starter was, etc.) that it can be hard to predict. So, use the clock to plan when to check. Check more often if it is warmer. Things go quicker. Keeping track of weights and timings makes it easier to figure out the correct timings.<p>- Use a Dutch Oven. It helps. The lid traps the steam and that allows the bread to expand before a crust forms. Bake with the lid on at the max temperature of your oven. Basically until it is done expanding. 15-20 minutes typically. Remove the lid, and lower the temperature until the bread is done (I like my bread dark &amp; crusty). Size of your loaf matters obviously. Adjust timings to your taste. another 20-25 minutes would be normal. You can play with the temperatures and timings of course. And what actually works will depend on your oven of course.