Baking Bread & Cultivated Yeast - You can make better bread than anything at the store with just a starter of flour and water.

[Like A Rad Neighbor]

Breadsperging

Man cannot live on bread alone, however man love bread. It's a basic staple food that can be prepared in everything from an oven to a camping stove. Most people over complicate what is a very simple process I am going to walk you through the process of cultivating a safe yeast and some of the many variances on that where you can make a multitude of breads. If I get interest I can go more in depth on how to mill grains and more specific ratios.

What is a cultivated yeast?​

Quick answer: Any yeast you grow yourself.

Whereas you might be able to grab a couple instant yeast packets at the store (and it's always a good idea to have at least some) for thousands of years and negligence we have done the work to identify Lactobacillus as the easiest and safest cultivatable yeast.

Why would I be inclined to do this?
Because within a week you can be cranking out bread that is cheaper than what you find at the store and not only tastes better but is also self sustaining. You will use primarily only 3-4 ingredients in most basic breads and you can go even further and narrow that down to just 2 if you needed to. This will be a skill that will carry over and it's so intuitive it's something you can have down within a few days.

What do I need to get started?
1. A clean lidded jar, can be plastic or glass. At least 1 quart size.
2. A rubber band or anything that can be tied around the above jar
3. A scale (ideally a small digital kitchen scale but anything that can measure grams is fine)
4. Flour, Water and Time *Do not worry about the type of flour, if it's white flour you are good. There is noticeable variance in the quality of flours however if its being used as food for your yeast colony it doesn't have to be anything fancy. I use King Arthur because I am retarded and picky and you can also get about 50lbs of their Sir Gallahad delivered to your door for about $50*

***** We will go into flours and different breads later on this is meant to be the basics for starting your yeast colony.

Also if you know some bougie person who is into the sourdough trend you can skip about the first half of this step if you get them to give you their throwaway/discard as a pre-cultivated base but you are trusting that they properly maintained the bacteria.

So what do I do with all this shit?

START AT A TIME YOU CAN CONFIDENTLY COMMIT TO FOR 2 DAYS. THE FIRST TWO DAYS ARE 24 HOUR WAITS BUT DAYS 3-4 ARE 12 HOUR INTERVALS - THIS IS THE HARDEST PART AND ITS NOT HARD I PROMISE

Take your vessel you intend to use and put it on your scale, take note of the weight for future reference before taring. I'd suggest writing this in sharpie on the actual vessel so it has no chance to get lost, if you ever cannot weight properly for some reason you will then be able to do the math.

Wash the vessel with soap and rinse very well. You will want to make sure to use very well sanitized objects to mix your starter each time. We only want to cultivate mostly lactic bacteria not bacteria that can harm us.

To the vessel add 113g of cool water to 113g flour. Mix well, it should look kind of like a soft serve vanilla ice cream. After mixing scrape down the sides to discourage any mold growth in the future and to start to reinforce good habits of maintenance.

Place the vessel with the cover lightly placed utop somewhere in the house that is over 70F/21C and leave. If you are in a colder climate you could place it nearby a heating source but in reality it will not harm the cultivation of yeast just slow the process down. You can also use lukewarm water, between 24 - 28C (75 - 82F) NO HIGHER! it should feel like barely warm water to the touch, much less than you'd want to drink or take a bath in.

Wait a day. In the first 24 hours you may notice very little happening, this is completely normal.

Either way after 24 hours we are going to dump half of our starter into the yard, trash or other recepticle. You should be left with about 113g left in the jar of your previous days starter. This is why it's important to know offhand the jar weight so you can easily remove it from total weight to get the starter weight. If it's less that is fine if its more continue to dump until you weight 113g of actual starter weight.

To that 113g (or less) we are going to add 113g of flour again and 113g of water (cold or lukewarm) Mix well, you should now have approximately 339g of starter.

Place the covered vessel in a safe spot again and leave for 24 hours

For day three we will once again reduce our starter down to 113g and repeat the process to get back to 339g leaving it out for 12 hours after 12 hours repeat the process. Reduce to 113, add 113 of water and flour each. Cover for another 12 hours It gets very repetitive. We will only be doing 12 hour feedings for a few days to keep the bad bacteria from growing but allow the good bacteria to flourish.

After day three we should start seeing signs of life, bubbling frothing or a general sour or fruity smell is normal. Repeat day 3 for day 4, feeding the starter twice approximately 12 hours apart.

Day 5: The Final Day - Congrats on your yeasty baby.
On day 5 we are going to once again reduce to 113g and add our lukewarm or cold water (lukewarm if we plan to bake that day) This is our final establishing feeding. For all intents and purposes you have a cultivated starter now, everything from here on is maintaing that starter. Christen your weird colony of edible bacteria guys if you'd like, do get attached.

How do I store my now cultivated yeast?
First lets establish some terms.

Discard : is going to be anything that is non fed yeast or inactive yeast. Your starter can surivive a different amount of time in different environments. Despite the name it's very valuable.

Starter/Established Starter : The yeast we just created, any starter that has been made from either a discard that was a previously established starter, or starter fed in the ways above for atleast the 4-5 day period.

Fed Starter/Unfed Starter : Starter that has been fed in the last 8 hours, this starter should rise rapidly over the feeding time and double in size each time / Starter that has already peaked in height and has either expanded into large bubbles or started to collapse.

To keep our starter happy ideally we will store it in the fridge. If left out on a counter for example an established starter can surivive in temps of 70-85F for about 24 hours before needing refeeding. If stored in a fridge you can leave it for about 1-3 weeks, checking on it each week. Think of the fridge as a place where the starter is entering a hibernation state.

When you remove a starter from the fridge it's best to let it wake up for about 30 minutes and get to room temp before discarding. Each time we are planning to use the starter we can choose to save our discard to make more starter, use it in discard recipes or throw it out. Discard should in essence be synonymous with unfed starter to your mind. It's the base for another starter or a long rising starter essentially it has all of the labor of the cultivation already done.

From this point on you now have the base for any bread. I will be attaching a couple of recipes to this post for a standard sourdough, herb bread and a flatbread type foicaccia.

I'll now cover some basic common questions.

How long is a starter good for? Essentially forever if properly maintained.

How can I do long term storage for my starter? You can freeze your starter for up to 2 months easily, some people push it further. You can also dry your starter either with a dehydrator or just spreading some out between some sheets of parchment paper and then storing the dried flakes in a airtight container. Even a few flakes added to 113g of water and flour can revive a dead starter.

Where should I store my starter if I prefer to leave it at temp? NOT IN THE OVEN the most common place I see people put it is in an oven and then inevitably someone comes around and preheats that oven and bye bye starter. If it must be in a closed space try the microwave as you literally cannot use it without opening it first.

Can I make other breads (i.e Whole Wheat, Rye etc) ? Absolutely. We can get into that in depth if this has any type of response.

My starter doesn't appear to be rising or changing what am I doing wrong? Probably nothing, sometimes it can take a little while longer for the bacteria to grow, if you are having trouble visualizing the starter's rise than place the rubber band around the vessel you use when you mix your starter. Check it after a few hours and you should see the level consistently rising above your placed band.

My starter has liquid on the top and smells like nail polish remover or paint! Am I going to die? That is called Hooch, and no it won't get you fucked up but it is normal, you can either discard the hooch or save it. You can even have an environment where it looks like your starter is covered in maggots that is also discardable good bacteria. Bad starter will have obvious signs of mold that are strongly pigmented. You should look out for bright orange streaking or pink spots.

My friend wants some of my starter how can I share or make more for myself? Take your discard and pour it into another vessel, feed both vessels. Congratulations you have two starters. When starting out I liked to have atleast two so that if one of them I failed to take care of I'd have a fridge backup.

How do I scale up my starter? I personally heavily prefer to maintain a 11 ratio. I would not start with less than 113g. If you want double the amount of starter in a vessel it's simple 226g starter to 226g water and 226g flour. You don't need to repeat the multi day process ever again once you have your established base.

Practical Application
To finish off I will now include a basic no-knead Sourdough recipe :

(227g) ripe (fed) sourdough starter
(397g) lukewarm water
(602g) AP or any white flour
(18g) salt

In a large mixing bowl, combine the ripe sourdough starter, water, flour, salt. Mix the ingredients together using wet hands or lightly oiled hands. Do not flour hands it will disrupt the ratio. You can lightly grease the bowls edges by moving the dough slightly to make the following work easier.

Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for 3 hours. During this bulking/fermentation give the dough approx three sets of stretch-and-folds: once after the first hour, again after the second hour, and once more at the end of the 3 hours.

For each set of stretch-and-folds, use your wet hands to pick up the dough from the middle of the container or bowl, lift it about a foot high, then let one edge fold under to the center of the bowl. Rotate the bowl 180° and repeat a second time. Then rotate the bowl 90° to lift and fold one of the short sides. Finally, rotate the bowl 180° and fold the remaining side under. You should have a weird ball of dough in the middle of the bowl. Cover the bowl and let the dough continue to rise.

After the third set of stretch-and-folds, cover the container and place it into the refrigerator for at least 8 hours or up to 48 hours, the longer you ferment the more sour the taste will be. Some people love a VERY tangy sourdough, if you only rise for the shorter end it will taste like a very rich white bread.

When you're ready to bake either the next day or whenever remove the dough and preshape it into a ball while still slightly cold, we can use lightly floured hands and a floured surface now. Pull the ball taught as if you are trying to make a little balloon tie at the bottom, this is called the seam. The tighter the seam we get the better the rise during our final proof.

Wash or use another similarly sized bowl and place a kitchen towel inside as a liner. Absolutely cover the fuck out of the towel with a dusting of flour. Place your dough onto the floured towel in the bowl seam side up and cover. I usually use some plastic wrap but you can dampen a kitchen towel and heat it in the microwave for about 10 seconds to trap heat and moisture as a cover but this will cause your proofing time to be shorter and you do not want to overproof.

Let the dough rise for about 2 1/2 hours at room temperature. I'd check every hour. At the end of the proof, it should look pretty bulbous and spring back slightly to a poke. You do not want to let it get to the point where much like the starter the yeast runs out of food and the dough collapses, if you see your dough looking very big or bulbous at 1.5 hours you should bake it then rather than waiting longer. Do not rise this bread on a preheating oven it will be much too hot.

Preheat your oven to 450F/230C . You can use a dutch oven either over a fire or in the oven If this is of interest to you I'd reccommend a cheap cast iron dutch oven like those offered by Lodge. If using a dutch oven place it in the oven during the preheat and let it get to temp, I use a small lazer temp gun if I use a dutch oven. Max temp is 500F to cook this.

Flip your dough in one motion with a large plate on top acting as a platform, place it onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Be careful not to disrupt it so much as to deflate the dough. I usually transfer onto the plate with parchment paper already placed so that I can use the parchment paper as kind of a hammock to move it. I'm retarded though and your mileage with that may vary.

Take either a razor blade or sharp knife and slash the dough deep enough to see the softer insides. This is going to vent. If we vent smaller we will get a large rise near that area called an ear which some people find desireable.

If baking on the sheet place directly in the oven, if using the dutch oven open the oven enough to place your bread in and place your preheated lid on top.

BONUS STEP: To get a crispier crust either use a spray bottle of water in the oven and add moisture or add some ice cubes into the dutch oven, not enough that there will be a lot of standing water but to add humidity. This will increase the bake time slightly but it will also allow the bread to expand for a longer amount of time.

bake for 45 minutes, ***** if using dutch oven remove the lid from the pot. Bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes******* until the crust is well colored and the internal temperature reads at least 210°F. You should not need to internal temp, I frankly never have after my first week. I just find it to be a useless step.

Once fully baked, remove the loaf from the oven onto a rack or lifted space to cool for at least an hour before slicing.

Enjoy your bread I hope literally anybody benefits from this.

 

[Less Nasty Old Person]

Ooh, fancy. I am a total redneck in the sourdough department.

I abuse my starter. It lives in the fridge in an airtight tupperware. I take it out morning of, feed it, let it sit for a bit till it's bubbling, scrape half of it into the bread machine, add oil, water, flour and kosher salt, set it for dough and ignore it for a few hours then set the breadmaker to bake. Flour quantity depends. If it looks too wet while mixing, I add more flour. Too dry? More water.

I dump a bit of flour and a bit of water back into the rest of the starter, stir it up, snap the lid back on and throw it back in the fridge.

I used a commercial freeze dried starter to get it going in the first place, but have wung it since then -- 2 years and counting. It's developed character as it travels along its life journey, probably from airborne yeasts as I cook outside. I've shared it with people to get their own starters going.

I bake about once a week. I don't weigh a damn thing, I go by eye at this point. I use Walmart bread flour and a Dash 1.5 lb bread machine. No boules, dutch ovens, fancy scoring blades, huge air holes (where's the jam supposed to go then?), nuthin'. Turns out looking like sandwich bread, tastes great with a hint of sour.

 

[hog cranking frog]

Little rye and whole wheat flour rounds out the sour flavor for a deeper flavor IMO.

 

[Like A Rad Neighbor]

Ooh, fancy. I am a total redneck in the sourdough department.

I abuse my starter. It lives in the fridge in an airtight tupperware. I take it out morning of, feed it, let it sit for a bit till it's bubbling, scrape half of it into the bread machine, add oil, water, flour and kosher salt, set it for dough and ignore it for a few hours then set the breadmaker to bake. Flour quantity depends. If it looks too wet while mixing, I add more flour. Too dry? More water.

I dump a bit of flour and a bit of water back into the rest of the starter, stir it up, snap the lid back on and throw it back in the fridge.

I used a commercial freeze dried starter to get it going in the first place, but have wung it since then -- 2 years and counting. It's developed character as it travels along its life journey, probably from airborne yeasts as I cook outside. I've shared it with people to get their own starters going.

I bake about once a week. I don't weigh a damn thing, I go by eye at this point. I use Walmart bread flour and a Dash 1.5 lb bread machine. No boules, dutch ovens, fancy scoring blades, huge air holes (where's the jam supposed to go then?), nuthin'. Turns out looking like sandwich bread, tastes great with a hint of sour.

I use an old jar from Costco that originally housed kimchi. It has an expanding top for fermentation so I figured I'd throw some starter in there.

I definitely don't want to make it seem unapproachable; just trying to cover a wide net, I'm a big believer in once it's established it can handle a lot of abuse. I've freeze dried some of my own starter to have if I kill off mine but once you're in the flow of it I feel like it takes an accident to kill it off.

Really cool to see others making some bread on here. Kiwifarms Bake Sale would be a big hit. I also am not a fan of big air pockets unless I'm making something like a Foicaccia where Its more to be eaten "as is".

 

[CHARizard]

I am going to shill for Ragusea in yet another thread because this recipe is so simple and easy to do at home. You can also easily jazz it up (I like to add dill) or go whole wheat or whatever, just needs flour salt and yeast with a dutch oven and you get fantastic results.

I mean look at this bread I have made. Before this recipe I had never baked bread before.

 

[Cirrhosis_of_Liver]

Forgive my massively autistic pedantry, but Lactobacillis is a bacterium, not a yeast.


I love making sourdough. Bread is great for making at home because errors are usually "happy accidents." As long as you don't underproof or undercook your homemade bread, it's gonna be delicious, just maybe a different sort of delicious than you expected.

 

[MunsterCheeseJr]

Confessions of a Stater Dough Killer

Q1: Should I bother trying to restart my starter dough from the jar I have left to turn to hooch in my refrigerator? Or should I just start the two week process of making a starter dough from scratch with whole wheat flour again?

I have been trying to keep my starch consumption low and varied so I don't want to eat bread products every day. I had been using the pancake method to not waste the starter I turn over every day. But that is more starchy wheat than I really want to eat. And it isn't for the good stuff like breads, which is what I really want. I realistically just want to make one batch of bread dough each week.

I know I can refrigerate it. But I frequently screw up and let it turn to hooch from lack of use and attention.

I know I can freeze it. But with my frequent stops and restarts from scratch I have never produced a starter dough that is as good as using active dry yeast. So I don't have a excellent starter dough that I feel is worth freezing.

Can anyone suggest a low waste process for managing my starter dough? I have tried testing with just swapping out 2 tablespoons of flour to keep a small culture going.

And as I side note, I have recently discovered the magic of making flat breads in a cast iron skillet. I was trying to make pita bread with whole wheat and failing. But it is a good delicious start so long as I don't role out the dough too thin. I may go back to using chop sticks beneath my rolling pin to keep from rolling too thin.

 

[Less Nasty Old Person]

I use an old jar from Costco that originally housed kimchi. It has an expanding top for fermentation so I figured I'd throw some starter in there.

I definitely don't want to make it seem unapproachable; just trying to cover a wide net, I'm a big believer in once it's established it can handle a lot of abuse. I've freeze dried some of my own starter to have if I kill off mine but once you're in the flow of it I feel like it takes an accident to kill it off.

Really cool to see others making some bread on here. Kiwifarms Bake Sale would be a big hit. I also am not a fan of big air pockets unless I'm making something like a Foicaccia where Its more to be eaten "as is".

Worst that ever happened was going a month without using or feeding it. It took a couple of feeds to revive it enough to bake but it's fine now. I think the near death experience made it value life a bit more.

Good idea re keeping a backup in the freezer in case it forever sleeps for real. Next time I actually clean its habitat I'll dump the dried out scrapings into a baggie and freeze it.

This guy made me far less anxious about maintaining sourdough starter.

 

[analrapist]

You don't need to go full-sourdough either. Generally, if you start with a proper bread yeast, you can keep that yeast going in the same way you'd keep your average sourdough. It will probably acquire some lactobacillus anyhow just from working it.

 

[BTS4Lyfe]

So I have a question regarding some of the fermenting. My girlfriend has incidentally picked up making dough herself a week ago and has an issue regarding keeping the temp for the starter culture at around 27c (80F).
She has looked into fermentation boxes and the likes but only found the cheap shit ones. But also some from a brand called Brod and Taylor. Those have the positive of being small as fuck since we don't have space at all right now. Anyone got any info on that shit, or other space saving options that are better than heating an entire room to 27 Celsius?

 

[Yandex Captcha Solver]

So I have a question regarding some of the fermenting. My girlfriend has incidentally picked up making dough herself a week ago and has an issue regarding keeping the temp for the starter culture at around 27c (80F).
She has looked into fermentation boxes and the likes but only found the cheap shit ones. But also some from a brand called Brod and Taylor. Those have the positive of being small as fuck since we don't have space at all right now. Anyone got any info on that shit, or other space saving options that are better than heating an entire room to 27 Celsius?

I keep starter in the oven with the light on. It'll stay pretty consistently 80 in there. Just make sure your oven uses an incandescent light, if it uses an LED you may be able swap it out.

Can also build a really proofing box with some random plastic container, incandescent bulb, pendant light cord, and a digital temperature controller. This will run you under 30, really easy to build, could repurpose a wooden container if you want something fancier. You can skip the light cord if you buy a temperature controller with terminal connections, then use a light bulb base and some wiring. The light bulb is hooked up to the temperature controller, then the temperature controller switch has a thermostat turning off the bulb when it hits a certain temperature, which you can set to 80*. Nothing really to go wrong with it and is the defacto setup for a DIY proofing box.

 

[John_Smith]

Lower temperatures just means everything goes slower. For your first rise, you want a slow rise. You'll get better flavor. Overnight or even 2-3 days on the bottom shelf of a refrigerator does wonders. Longer times seem to give diminishing returns. I had dough in the fridge for 48 hours, divided it and baked a loaf, and then at 96 hours baked the second half. The second was not noticeably different.

Use an organic whole wheat flour to start your starter. It's your best chance of getting interesting yeast and bacteria to grow. Once it's going, it only needs a 11 ratio of starter, water and flour-- any flour at this point-- to maintain it. I use 100 grams of each, to cut down on excess. I also have 2 mason jars, the 16 ounce size, with starter, just in case I screw something up or want to experiment. King Arthur Web site has some nice recipes for excess starter. The Pizza dough-- in a pan pizza-- and the cinnamon crumb cake are top notch.

Get a cast iron dutch oven and not an enamelled one. The high heats at which you bake certain breads can cause crazing on the enamel. You don't want that. Lodge makes a nice one with a lid that doubles as a skillet. Using it simulates the steam injected ovens used in bakeries. It can also be used on a grill.

Birote is a type of sourdough from Guadalajara made from starter fed beer, lime, egg, flour and water. Has anyone tried that yet?

 

[Less Nasty Old Person]

G

So I have a question regarding some of the fermenting. My girlfriend has incidentally picked up making dough herself a week ago and has an issue regarding keeping the temp for the starter culture at around 27c (80F).
She has looked into fermentation boxes and the likes but only found the cheap shit ones. But also some from a brand called Brod and Taylor. Those have the positive of being small as fuck since we don't have space at all right now. Anyone got any info on that shit, or other space saving options that are better than heating an entire room to 27 Celsius?

You're better off scrounging some already active starter from someone. You can keep that in the fridge. Feed it the night before or morming of when you plan to bake.

Otherwise, your oven will stay warm for ages with just the oven light on. If it's a vintage gas range with a pilot light, even better. Or a slow cooker if it has an ultra-low temp setting. Or a heating pad on low in a cardboard box. Or on top of the fridge or water heater, cause that's pretty warm usually. Get creative, this is a board about survival.

 

[Jimmy Dean Bowl]

I have recently discovered the magic of making flat breads in a cast iron skillet

Care to share the recipe?

I'm not sure I have the patience to do the sourdough thing. Pathetic I know.
I love baking bread though, I do a mean cheese and garlic focaccia.

 

[MunsterCheeseJr]

This is the recipe I used in my first failed attempt to make pita bread.

https://natashaskitchen.com/pita-bread-recipe/

https://archive.ph/wip/G7t0D

Of course I rolled it too thin for the pita bread to puff up.
* Paper thin and it is crunchy-chewy.
* quarter inch and it is a nice chewy foldable flat bread

I saved some of the dough in the refrigerator to make a great easy mini pizza in my cast iron skillet in the oven.

I hope to get the depth and temperature right for the next go round to make a successful pita. I may fall back onto all purpose flour instead of whole wheat flour just to try and get the technique right. Trying whole wheat flour the first time through is always hard mode.

That said, using a cast iron skillet as a high thermal heat mass opens you up to a whole host of small batch flat breads breads you didn't think you can make at home such as Indian naan. Italian flat breads.

The flour mixtures are fairly diverse. Baking soda instead of yeast. Just a flat water, salt & flour recipe.

 

[Like A Rad Neighbor]

So I have a question regarding some of the fermenting. My girlfriend has incidentally picked up making dough herself a week ago and has an issue regarding keeping the temp for the starter culture at around 27c (80F).
She has looked into fermentation boxes and the likes but only found the cheap shit ones. But also some from a brand called Brod and Taylor. Those have the positive of being small as fuck since we don't have space at all right now. Anyone got any info on that shit, or other space saving options that are better than heating an entire room to 27 Celsius?

Sorry for the late reply, a lot of people will microwave a bowl of warm water and then place their starter in that same environment leaving it in there essentially. As far as for proofing the dough, sometimes my house is wildly inconsistent and I'll tend to use the warmest room in the house that's within reason and use the method of warm wet towel over bowl to rise. Less Nasty gave some great advice honestly. I just would always put a note on the oven so you don't accidentally pre-heat your starter.

The smaller proofing boxes are sometimes able to be found at thrift stores by people who gave up on the hobby or if you can find a cheap bread maker used they usually have a setting for fermenting.

Confessions of a Stater Dough Killer

Q1: Should I bother trying to restart my starter dough from the jar I have left to turn to hooch in my refrigerator? Or should I just start the two week process of making a starter dough from scratch with whole wheat flour again?

I have been trying to keep my starch consumption low and varied so I don't want to eat bread products every day. I had been using the pancake method to not waste the starter I turn over every day. But that is more starchy wheat than I really want to eat. And it isn't for the good stuff like breads, which is what I really want. I realistically just want to make one batch of bread dough each week.

I know I can refrigerate it. But I frequently screw up and let it turn to hooch from lack of use and attention.

I know I can freeze it. But with my frequent stops and restarts from scratch I have never produced a starter dough that is as good as using active dry yeast. So I don't have a excellent starter dough that I feel is worth freezing.

Can anyone suggest a low waste process for managing my starter dough? I have tried testing with just swapping out 2 tablespoons of flour to keep a small culture going.

And as I side note, I have recently discovered the magic of making flat breads in a cast iron skillet. I was trying to make pita bread with whole wheat and failing. But it is a good delicious start so long as I don't role out the dough too thin. I may go back to using chop sticks beneath my rolling pin to keep from rolling too thin.

Dump the hooch and you should be able to revive the starter, even if its swimming in it. Those flakes dried up on the sides or lid or bottom can be enough to restart it if it got really bad. Always worth throwing in the flour and water and seeing if you get activity. I used to do the pancakes too but I just can't eat that much grain, I started making a few freezer backups. Temp and Mold are really the only two things you can't walk back from.

I weirdly have found in my completely anecdotal experience that my starter is most strong when its used same day as removed from the fridge. I had two going side by side one fed daily left at temp and one in the fridge, consistently the one taken out of the fridge and fed the day before usage was able to get a great rise comparatively to my at temp starter.

I also find a thicker starter to be my preference but I have heard of people who like a very visibly active wetter starter and you can change the ratio of water slowly to find a poolish you like.

I've been playing around with foicaccia's that don't have a fridge period using some weaker starter and a tbsp of commercial yeast to great success and I've been using my discard for it. Adds a great depth of flavor and results in less waste, I give a lot of it away because people like it. You can do savory sweet etc, and besides being a very high hydration slop it's nice. I can attach recipe if you'd like.

I'll share some pics of breads I've made and recipes to go along. Your skillet bread sounds delicious.

 

[Topsoil]

There's a small group of people who maintain a sourdough starter from the oregon trail in 1847, and they'll mail you some for free.

 

[Ukraine is Big Gay]

And if you're like me and into sandwiches/toast but trying to get store bread that isn't full of bullshit is now a down payment for something. I really highly recommend the japanese style milkbread. Less "Bread but JAPAN" weeb bullshit and more it is the closest experience you can get to factory bread but with flavor and no garbage packed in.

I use the piss easy foodwishes one here.

Even if you fuck it up a bit it'll still be fantastic, The only step you really have to be thorough about is the pressing the air out before the second rise in the pan to limit the amount of big chunky air bubbles in the end product IMO. And you can do it without a mixer as well it is just a lot more pulling and drawing by hand.

A nd if you get really autistically into it you can grab a pullman styled loaf pan with the slidey "lid" on it to make it uniform and square and easy to cut and portion. It also lasts a shockingly decent amount of time for home made if you keep it in a big ass ziplock or air tight container and don't let it get too dry or wet.
I've made a few for friends and the last slice was just as good as the first one after 5-6 days sometimes.

 

[TardiX]

Thank you for this. I've been meaning to get more into sourdough since for now I do "regular" bread with active yeast. Occasionally I'll do some richer breads. Today I made croissants.

I'm very much a beginner but I've tried some different loaves, sandwich breads, boulles(?), buns, and pizza crust.

But in the event I need to make bread out of just flour and water this will be useful.

I've gotten into the habit of writing down my recipes and keeping baking books to not rely on the internet for a recipe.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

I make pizza crust often. It seems to be more forgiving if you fuck up. I proof the dough in a warmed oven and wait as long as I can stand. Dust it with corn meal.

If I do make bread loaves anytime soon, I would want to make something nutritious like horsebread or brown bread.