It's alive!

[shewhomust]

As I anticipated, the first loaf after I thawed my sourdough starter was not the best loaf ever: in fact - and I hadn't expected this - it was pretty certainly the worst. The dough, while it was proving, showed some signs of rising, but in the oven it actually seemed to sink: what came out was a dense slab. I sliced it, toasted it and ate it. I'd rather eat the bread I bake, which tastes of something, than the ultra-processed white which Patrick Campbell referred to as "boiled babies' blankets."

I eyed the re-started starter nervously. It was bubbling, but it looked very sluggish. I was braced for a slow and gradual process of recovery, but I really didn't want another brick like the last one. But I took the plunge, made a walnut loaf - and it rose beautifully. If anything, it rose too high: the morning after it came out of the oven, it was still a challenge to slice it.

Was it a fluke? No: yesterday's loaf (rye with a spoonful of leftover rice) was also a success. So I'm thinking that in future I should thaw the starter and use it to seed the starter, but discard what would usually go to bake the next loaf. It feels wasteful, but I'm only going to eat a finite amount of bread in my life, and it's even more of a waste not to enjoy it.

Comments

[cellio]

You can use that first discard (that would have been bread otherwise) in something else. I like to make pancakes with excess starter; I've also seen recipes for cakes of various types.

If my starter has sat for a while in the fridge (like after a vacation), I sometimes feed it twice (on successive days) before using. That seems to help wake it up.

[shewhomust]

Interesting. Ishould probably have explained that my method id non-standard, in that I don't so much feed my starter as use it to seed the next batch - but pancakes would certainly be worth a try...

[athenais]

I wish I had been like the other seventy billion of my friends who learned or went back to baking their own bread during the pandemic, but I simply didn't have the ability to follow recipes. It would be nice to try it out now that I'm not working anymore, since I've recovered my executive function since then. We have some dark rye flour I'm looking forward to using. Rye bread is impossible to get in our grocery stores, I have to go to a local Scandinavian bakery for it.

[shewhomust]

I'm not one of those people who took up some activity or hobby during lockdown - except possibly watching television!

But I have, by trial and (lots of) error, found an unorthodox sourdough routine that works for me. Which is lucky, becaues I too love rye bread, and don't have a local Scandinavian bakery ...